THE FINAL DEPARTURE OF KING JAMES—A RETROSPECT OF HIS CHARACTER.

The consequences of "the Boyne" are too well known for comment; what a reversal of that day's events might have done, it is painful to contemplate. A suspension of the battle for a week—even for a day—would have changed the whole complexion of the war, and turned the finger of destiny. The very hour that William drew up at Townly Hall, on the 30th of June, the combined fleets of England and Holland had been almost utterly destroyed by Admiral Tourville at Beachy Head: and as he crossed the Boyne next day, the combined armies of the League, under Prince Waldeck, had been overthrown at Fleurus by the French army under the renowned Marshal Luxemburg. While James was hastening to Dublin to quit his dominions forever, the fleet of Admiral de Seignelay was unmoored, waiting a favorable wind to sail for Ireland to destroy William's transports round the coast; the fleet of Tourville was riding triumphant at the mouth of the Thames, and "there were not," says Hume, "ten thousand armed men in all England." There, disaffection was on the increase, the Jacobite cause was gaining strength, and it was not easy to decide, even with the loss of the Boyne, which was at that moment in the more critical plight—the victor or the vanquished.

Had any nominal force been thrown into England at this moment, all had been at once recovered; for William, if indeed he could, would have to withdraw his army from Ireland "to save the larger stake," and that country, relieved of his foreign veterans, would soon rectify itself; or, if compelled to remain in Ireland, and continue the war for awhile, he would certainly lose the other two kingdoms, and the third would follow as a consequence. His affairs in Holland, too, were in an unpromising condition. The arms of France were everywhere predominant, and this was a matter of deeper importance to William, than even the loss of the English throne, which, 'tis said, he ambitioned only so far as it enabled him to cope with his proud and detested enemy, Louis XIV. Such a happy combination of events, dashed but by a single defeat, in which only about one thousand men were lost, would have imparted courage and hope to any heart, but that of this unfortunate king. But from the first to the last his course, if not leading to the ruin of a noble people, might be read as a great "Comedy of Errors." He seemed continually under the spell of some evil genius that lulled him to a sense of security, while leading him to destruction:—and from his refusal of the first generous offer of King Louis, through M. Bonrepas, while he was yet upon the throne of England, the series of mishaps and miscalculations through which he stumbled, seems indeed to mark out a manifest destiny.

At Salisbury, when deserted by his nobles, he had but to choose generals from the ranks, and pledging his army the estates forfeited by this treason, he could have created a revolution within a revolution, and held his throne at will as the sovereign of the people. If, instead of going to Ireland, where four-fifths of the people were unalterably attached to him, he had gone to Scotland, we are told that the whole country would have risen under Dundee; and William would have had two countries to conquer instead of one. On his arrival in Ireland, he weakened the strength of that country by sending 3,000 trained soldiers to the assistance of Dundee; under the advice of Secretary Melford, a Scotchman, and against the advice of Tyrconnell, who had seen the fate of the soldiers sent under Hamilton to England. He next disconcerted the arrangements for the surrender of Derry, and afterwards, through a weak punctilio, refused the second offer, and protracted the rebellion of Ulster until the arrival of Schomberg. Again, deaf to the entreaties of his generals, he virtually saved the army of invasion from total destruction, on the plea that winter and desertion would do the work of war, on the foreigners. As time advanced, and the war assumed greater proportions, his blunders became more glaring and more fatal. In the spring of 1690, he sent Lord Mountcashel, the best general then in the country, and 6,000 men, "the flower of the Irish army," to France, in lieu of 6,000 nondescripts, under the lead of de Lausun, a man, if not of dubious courage, of very dubious loyalty, and to sustain this equivalent in Louis' army, sent 4,000 more the same year. He fought the Battle of the Boyne against the counsel of his generals, and when fortune seemed to favor his army, he lost an offered victory by trepidity and indecision. And, now, to complete a series of blunders by one more fatal than all: instead of sending Tyrconnell, or some other statesman of diplomatic ability, to plead his necessities before his "brother of France," he formed the resolution of appearing in person at the French court, where the general rejoicing over recent victories could only render his forlorn condition the more marked, and his suit the more neglected. And, yet, through all, the people of Ireland loved him, and followed him with a devotion deepened and intensified by each successive misfortune. Her young men presented themselves in thousands, aye, in tens of thousands, at every call for new levies, but to go away and fold their arms, while their country was sacrificed! Such a country! and such a king! We read the history of La Vendée in vain, for an exemplification of the fidelity of the one; and there is no parallel in the category of royal refugees, save that of the fabled Lear, for the misfortunes and melo-dramatism of the other!

When he arrived in Dublin, he summoned his council, and communicated his intention of quitting the country to solicit aid from France. It is but justice to state that he says they were unanimous in their approval; that de Lausun was importunate in his persuasion to that effect, and that letters, lately received from his q............