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Derry and Limerick were quickly secured, as well as the magazine, containing but eight or nine barrels of powder and a few hundred muskets. In the market place the civic authorities, the officers of Antrim's regiment, and some Protestants, including the Bishop of Derry, tried in vain to dissuade the excited crowd from their project. Next day most of the Catholics were expelled, the Protestant Bishop and others left the city, but numbers poured in from the country to join the rebels. Soon news came that the Enniskilleners, with equal determination and even greater daring, had refused to receive a Jacobite garrison.

Meanwhile Lord Mountjoy and Lieutenant-Colonel Lundy, with six companies of their regiment, were ordered to Derry by Tyrconnell. After much discussion, two companies, all Protestants, were admitted; the others were not allowed in until they had been "purged of Papists." In the South an attempted rising of Protestants was suppressed. In Sligo they occupied several towns, and in Ulster formed a Defence Association and raised regiments. But before their organisation was completed the Jacobites were upon them, and on the 14th of March they fled in panic at the "Break of Dromore." After this many Protestants left the country, and large numbers accepted protection from the Jacobites. 207