THE LANDING OF MARSHAL SCHOMBERG, AND HIS WINTER CAMPAIGN.

Hitherto, the success of the Jacobite cause in Ireland and Scotland, had rendered the tenure of the English throne by the Prince of Orange a matter of uncertainty both to himself and his English adherents. The state of public feeling in the capital had rendered the presence of his foreign mercenaries continually necessary to his person; and he knew that should James succeed in repressing the rebellion in the other two kingdoms, his restoration to the third would follow as an inevitable consequence. He had already, with the English people, lost all that popularity which immediately succeeded his invasion. By turning the Convention into a Parliament, in order to avoid a popular election, he outraged the first principle of the British Charter, and the people soon learned that his pledges to maintain their liberty and religion were only affected for the time, to establish his own dominion over them. The Conventionists, too, so long subservient to his wishes, had, since erected into a Parliament, inveighed against the Dutch influence in the kingdom, and he, more than once, had threatened to abdicate and leave them to the mercy of their outraged king. This threat never failed of its desired effect on the leaders of the Opposition in Parliament; but the popular discontent had to be suppressed by the strong hand; and the British soldiers who showed any sign of disaffection, were sent to serve as his Dutch contingent to the League, while the followers of Schomberg and Ginckle lived at will in England.

But now that the relief of Derry and Enniskillen put a better face on affairs in Ireland; and the death of Dundee freed him from farther apprehension for the safety of Scotland, he resolved to relieve the English people of the presence of his foreign mercenaries, by employing them in the reduction of the only kingdom that preferred allegiance to King James. He accordingly apprised the Parliament of his intention. The proposition was favorably received, and large subsidies being granted for that purpose, an army consisting of eighteen regiments of foot, and six regiments of horse—about 20,000 men,—was soon organized from among the military adventurers that the higher pay given in England at that time had drawn thither from the Continent. A fleet was soon ready to transport this army to Ireland, and the whole was placed under the command of Marshal, the Duke of Schomberg, and Count Solmes, to make a descent on the eastern coast of Ireland, and, after establishing communications with the rebels, to proceed to the reduction of Dublin. On the 12th of August this fleet appeared off the coast of Down, and, sailing into Belfast Lough, effected a landing at Bangor Bay, between Belfast and Carrickfergus. The next day Schomberg took possession of Belfast, and after strengthening its defences, and giving his troops some rest, he appeared before the Castle of Carrickfergus and summoned it to surrender. The garrison was under the command of Colonel McCarthy-More, and consisted of his own regiment and that of Colonel Cormac O'Neil,—about eight hundred men,—poorly supplied, and greatly embarrassed by the population of the town, who had taken refuge within its walls. Schomberg immediately opened upon it from his ships and land batteries, keeping up a fierce cannonade day and night during the entire period of the siege. The garrison made a stubborn resistance, and visited the besiegers with severe loss, which elicited the praise of Schomberg, and excited a spirit of vengeance among his followers. The walls being breached after the second day, the besieged had resort to a singular stratagem. The cattle within the walls were slaughtered, hauled up and thrown into the breach, and earth and stones being heaped over them, the place was soon as tenable as ever; their balls being spent, they tore the lead from the roof of the castle, and converted it into bullets; and at last, their powder being exhausted, and no succor arriving from the Irish army; after a siege of eight days, they surrendered on terms considered highly honorable. But these conditions were flagrantly violated after the evacuation; the prisoners, whom the English Annalist calls "brave fellows, but poorly clad," were subjected to treatment which darkens the history of the time; crimes too abominable for recital, were perpetrated by the foreign mercenaries on the defenceless inhabitants of the town: and Schomberg, who tried to check their excesses, only succeeded in rendering himself so unpopular as to affect unfavorably the result of the ensuing campaign.... Judging of this army of mercenaries on the authority of the historian, Taylor, they must, indeed, have been a godless host. "They were," says he,21 "the outcasts of all society, familiar with every crime, abandoned to every excess. Vices for which language scarcely ventures to find a name; abominations that may not be described, and can scarcely be imagined, were constantly practised by these bandits.... The traditions of the Irish Protestants and Catholics contain a horrid catalogue of the enormities practised by this 'black banditti;' and these accounts are fully confirmed by the narratives which the contemporary writers have given of their conduct in other countries. With these were joined some raw English levies, who found it much easier to imitate the debaucheries than to practise the discipline of the foreigners. Indeed, no worse scourge could be sent by an angry Providence than the army which now proceeded against Ireland."

Having repaired the Castle of Carrickfergus, and left English garrisons there and in Belfast, Schomberg drew out his army into the open country, and spent some time in organizing the Enniskilleners, who now flocked to his standard. Nor does it appear that they who now joined him were of a character to check the evil propensities of his foreigners. In allusion to them, the authority just quoted, gives the following not very flattering picture:

"The soldiers of Schomberg were perfectly astounded by the appearance of the men whose fame had been so loudly trumpeted in England.... Every man was armed and equipped after his own fashion, and each was attended by a mounted servant bearing his baggage.... Descended from the Levellers and Covenanters, they preserved all the gloomy fanaticism of their fathers, and believed the slaughtering of Papists an act of religious duty. They were robbers and murderers on principle, for they believed themselves commissioned to remove idolatry from the land.... Reeking from the field of battle, they assembled round their preachers, who always accompanied them in their expeditions, and listened with eager delight to their wild effusions, in which the magnificent Orientalisms of the Old Testament were strangely combined with their gross and vulgar sentiments.... William himself despised them most heartily, and subjected them to military execution by the dozen for violating the laws of war. From the moment they joined the regular army, they performed no exploit worthy of their for............