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Derry and Limerick and from the south gate, where, on a spur, the heaviest guns were planted, a covered way ran beside the walls to St. John's Gate. Near this was a battery of three guns called, from its colour, the "Black Battery." This north-eastern side bore the brunt of the Williamite attack.

It had already begun. On the 9th of August the King himself appeared before the town. The Irish skirmishers retired to the walls, and William, pitching his camp at Singland, with the river on his right, summoned the city to surrender. Old Boisseleau, whom Tyrconnell had appointed Governor, replied that he preferred to merit the esteem of the Prince of Orange by a vigorous defence.

Tyrconnell now marched off to join Lauzun, having left 8,000 regular but ill-armed troops for the defence. The cavalry, however, returned to the neighbourhood of the city, and a little later a strange figure, one Baldearg O'Donnell, entered with some 7,000 Rapparees, or Irish irregulars, who had rallied around him because there was an Irish prophecy that an O'Donnell "with a red spot" would free his country, and he fulfilled this essential condition. Thus the defending force amounted to nearly 20,000 men, against which William had an army estimated by Williamite authorities at from 20,000 to 38,500. 230