ARRIVAL OF THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH—THE SIEGES OF CORK AND KINSALE.

While the events just narrated had been passing in Ireland, King James remained at the court of France, endeavoring to win King Louis' consent to his favorite plan of invading England in the absence of the Prince of Orange. Having failed in this through the persistent opposition of the French minister, he turned his attention once more to his affairs in Ireland, and requested an expedition to sustain his arms in that country. But the misrepresentations of De Lausun had so warped the mind of this sovereign, that in this he was equally unsuccessful; and finding himself unable to awaken the interest of Louis, or to change the mind of his minister, he gave way to despondency, and remained a passive spectator of surrounding events. In this exigency the Duke of Tyrconnell determined to present himself at the court of Versailles, and plead the cause of his country. The successful defence of Athlone and Limerick furnished him with arguments that her cause was not yet hopeless; and the favor hitherto shown him by the French monarch, led him to believe that his suit would not be unfavorably received. So, having constituted a council of three lords-justices and sixteen senators, to conduct the civil affairs of the nation, and appointed the Duke of Berwick as deputy, with Sarsfield as his second in military command, he left the city in company with De Bo?sselau, the late governor, and joined De Lausun at Galway, where he embarked for France on an important mission.

Scarcely had he departed from the city when the spirit of discontent became manifest in the council and among the leaders of the army. Believing, or affecting to believe, that the deputy was indifferent to their wants and grievances, and had abandoned the country to its fate, they resolved to send a deputation to France to represent their policy, and urged the Duke of Berwick to sanction their proceedings. He opposed the design for some time; but the excitement daily increasing, he was forced to acquiesce in order to restore the general harmony. "Accordingly," says he, "I summoned all the principal lords, as well of the clergy as the laity, and all the military officers down to the colonels, inclusive, to attend me.... I proposed to them the Bishop of Cork, the two Luttrells, and Colonel Purcell. My choice was unanimously approved, and a few days after I dispatched my deputies. At the same time I sent Brigadier Maxwell, a Scotchman, to explain to the king my reasons for appointing this deputation, and to beg of him not to suffer either Brigadier Luttrell or Colonel Purcell to return: they were the two most dangerous incendiaries, and I had chosen them on purpose to get them out of the way. When these gentlemen were got on board, they conceived a suspicion that Maxwell might be charged with some instructions relating to them, for which they proposed to throw him overboard, but were prevented by the bishop and the elder Luttrell. The first was a prelate of distinguished piety; the other was of an obliging disposition, and always appeared to me to be a man of honor. Notwithstanding Maxwell's representations, the king permitted these gentlemen to return to Ireland. Tyrconnell consented to it, but he had reason to repent of it after."51 Such were the inauspicious signs, too plainly indicative of a divided interest, and such the difficulties that beset the deputy in this, perhaps, the greatest emergency of his country. But undeterred by the party intrigue of the hour, he addressed himself to the duty of his embassy with such tact and decision that he soon gained the ear of the French monarch, put the conduct of de Lausun before him in its proper light, propitiated the minister, counteracted the designs of the cabal, and obtained the promise of an expedition to Ireland proportionate to the importance of the cause and the necessities of the crisis. This success being communicated to the council in Limerick, had the most favourable effect; hope and confidence were renewed among all classes of the people, and activity and courage were soon manifest in all ranks of the army.

On the other hand, the intrigue and party strife that prevailed at the court, and in the legislative councils of England, were of a nature, not less serious, than those which menaced the success of the Jacobite arms. Since the accession of William to the throne, two factions had been gradually maturing there, and at this time had reached the acme of party strife and hatred. These, for convenience, may be termed the Dutch and English interest, which they respectively represented, while apart from both, and, perhaps, numerically as strong as either, stood the Jacobite party, watching the course of events, and determined to take advantage of their mutual animosity.

William, who looked to the elevation of Holland as a European power, and the humiliation of France as the primary objects of his life, had neglected his English partisans, and raised his Dutch and foreign mercenaries to the highest civil and military offices of the State; and this lost him much of his prestige among the parliamentary leaders, while the people, who had begun to look calmly on the condition of their country, saw it, after all, but a conquered province of Holland. The invasion had succeeded, but their liberties were more circumscribed: "Popery" was ignored, but prelacy was enslaved; the Parliament existed, but the people had no voice in its construction; the foreign legions revelled in the capital, but the English soldiers were disfranchised and conscripted for foreign service. The general discontent had become alarming, and to add to the growing disaffection, and give it point and purpose, the Princess Anne, the younger daughter of King James, being treated with studied neglect by both William and Mary, to whose elevation she had contributed by a plot unworthy of her station as a princess and her dignity as a wife, had become their bitterest enemy, and the recognized head of the English interest. To such a pitch had she carried her resentment, that on William's return from Ireland, she had raised up an English champion to humble his pride, by eclipsing his military fame, and the person thus put forward was Lord Churchill, afterwards the renowned Duke of Marlborough. Owing to this, the return of William was not hailed by any of those popular manifestations that mark the return of a conqueror to his country. On the contrary, the ordinary gratulations, things of everyday occurrence, were but coldly accorded to him by the people;—his parliamentary partisans scarcely deigning the formal acknowledgments of success, while the opposition declared that the victory of the Boyne was overbalanced by the defeat at Athlone and Limerick, and that the result of his expedition was degrading to the British arms. He endeavored to remove this impression by representing to the Parliament, and causing to be reported on the continent, that the heavy rains which had fallen during the siege were the cause of its abandonment, although many then knew, what the Duke of Berwick afterwards affirmed, "that not a single drop of rain fell for above a month before, or for three weeks after that event."52 But the English party were not deceived by the device, the assertion gave point to their irony, opposition became more bitter and clamorous, and in order to humiliate him the more, it was proposed to send Marlborough,—"at his own request,"—to Ireland to redeem the disgrace by completing the reduction of the country. William, though knowing this to be a direct insult to himself and his foreign army, was obliged to acquiesce, for the conquest of Ireland was a matter of pressing necessity to both parties; each desiring it for the national safety, and yet each aspiring to that honor, as a means to the perpetuation of its power. The expedition was accordingly ordered; but, while Marlborough was making preparations for his departure, William sent the Duke of Wurtemberg to Ireland with secret orders to claim the command of the expedition on its arrival, by right of military precedence, and thus counteract the designs of his political enemies.

After the departure of the Luttrells and Purcell for France, and the restoration of harmony in the councils of the Irish Senate, Sarsfield and Berwick directed their attention to the military affairs of the nation, which were in a very disheartening condition. The defences of the city were repaired, the garrisons along the frontier were strengthened and reinforced, and detachments sent into the counties bordering on the Shannon, to co-operate with the Rapparees in levying contributions of corn and cattle for the support of the army. The sieges of Athlone and Limerick, following in such quick succession, had nearly exhausted all their military stores, and had the enemy chosen to make a rapid descent on the river fortresses immediately after the retreat of William, it is more than probable that the war would have been terminated by the close of 1690; for there remained but fifty barrels of powder within the city, "and there was not, in the whole country which remained under the control of the royal army, enough to double the quantity."53 But the indecision of the enemy, after the withdrawal of the Prince of Orange, enabled the Irish generals to anticipate events, and to distribute a supply of military stores, which soon after arrived from France. Early in September, with about 3,000 infantry, seven battalions of cavalry and four field-pieces, they encamped at Banagher, a good strategic position, on the Shannon, about fourteen miles south of Athlone, resolved to take the offensive, in order to check the enemy, now extended from Clonmel to Enniskillen, and making stealthy approaches towards the frontier garrisons along that river. The town of Birr, in the King's County, about seven miles from their encampment, was the most advanced post of the enemy at this time, and the first to invite an attack. It was a place of much importance, as it threatened the passes of Banagher, Meelick, and Portumna; and being the principal depot of military stores and provisions for that district, its capture would have been of immense advantage to the army. Accordingly, on the 13th of September, Berwick appeared before the town, and had soon carried the outer works of t............