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CHAP. About four thousand, however, remaining in a body, under Mount-Alexander, Rawdon, and other leaders, made a stand at Colerain, on the lower Bann, to prevent the passage of that river by the enemy. To this post lord Blaney conducted his party from Armagh. By his alertness he foiled an attempt made to intercept him in his march by the garrisons of Charlemount and Mountjoy at the pass of Artrea, where having seized the bridge at the moment of their approach, he defeated them with great slaughter. The garrison of Colerain repelled an assault, but abandoned the place, on finding themselves in danger of being surrounded by the hostile troops, who passed the river in boats. The protestants of the north-west had poured into Enniskillen, as their place of refuge; and now those of the north-east effected a retreat from Colerain, by various routes, to Derry.

Conduct of

Lundy. 1689.

Since the unfortunate departure of Mountjoy by the treacherous conduct of Tyrconnel, the government of Derry, and the chief direction of the north-eastern associations, had devolved on Lundy, a man of warm professions of zeal for the protestants, but justly suspected of secret attachment to James, as by an inactive and apparently irresolute conduct, not attributed to real want of courage, he had injured the affairs of the associated northerns, and obliged them to abandon posts thought sufficiently tenable. To this man was William, in the midst of complicated embarrassments, obliged to send a commission to command in. Derry; yet this governor declined

to

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to take publicly the oaths to the new king, under CHA P. pretence that he had already sworn on board the ship of an officer named Hamilton, who, together with this commission, had brought a supply of arms, ammunition, and money. As the oaths were refused by some other officers, military and civil, distrust pervaded the people, and many were preparing to abandon a post which seemed destined to be betrayed, when Cairnes, their agent, arrived from London with assurances that troops and supplies were prepared for the service of Ireland. But when their resolution was formed for defence, they received the discouraging news of the landing of James with a hostile force in Munster.

of James.

This prince, on his flight from England, had Proceedings thrown himself into the arms of the king of France, 1689 Louis the fourteenth, who entertained him with generosity, and ordered assistance to be furnished in his attempt to regain his dominions. After various obstacles, and mortifying delays by the intrigues of ministers, he at length embarked at Brest, with an army of twelve hundred of his native subjects and a hundred French officers, attended by ten ships of the line, six frigates, and three fireships. Louis, at parting, expressed in a friendly and sprightly tone his wish that he might never see him again. Louis is also said to have made an offer of a French army, and James to have replied, with affected heroism, that he would recover his dominions by the assist¬ ance of his own subjects, or perish in the attempt." Landing at Kinsale, on the twelfth of March, after VOL. II a voyage

H

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CHAP. a voyage of five days, he was received at Cork by Tyrconnel, now created a duke, with a mark of congratulation well suited to the dispositions of both; the execution of a magistrate who had been imprisoned for having declared in favour of William: Entering Dublin, on the twenty-fourth of the same month, with a magnificent train, he was met by the whole body of Romish ecclesiastics in their proper habits, with the host borne in solemn procession, to which he paid the most devout adoration amid the acclamations of a vast concourse. Among his answers to the addresses, which were presented by all orders, he promised to the protestant clergy of the established church protection and redress, to the university the support and even enlargement of its privileges; promises soon egregiously violated. He instantly removed all the remaining protestant members of the privy council, and issued five proclamations; commanding, in the first, all his subjects of every persuasion to unite against the prince of Orange, and all protestants, under the severest penalties, who had lately abandoned the kingdom, to return and receive his protection; in the second, for the prevention of robberies, all catholics, not in actual military service, to deposit their arms in their several habitations; in the third, provisions to be brought to his troops; in the fourth, money to be received at a higher value; and in the fifth, a parliament to meet at Dublin on the seventh of the ensuing May.

Proceedings

Among the northern protestants, against whom Derry. their former monarch was now to direct his military

operations,

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operations, a most active and courageous partizan CHAP was George Walker, a clergyman of an English, family from Yorkshire, rector of Donoghmore in the county of Tyrone. He was commander of a regiment which himself had raised; and on the news of the march of James from Dublin, with a formidable army, to reduce Derry, he flew to that post, and entreated Lundy to meet and engage the enemy, before their whole force should be collected. This governor, with an affectation of strenuous exertion, posted his troops at the river called the Finn-water to prevent the passage of the enemy; but in the moment of danger he abandoned the pass, and took refuge in Derry, shutting the gates against many of his party, who fled to the same asylum. Two English regiments had arrived in the harbour, whose colonels, Cunningham and Richards, advised Lundy by letter to re-occupy the abandoned passes, strengthened, as he might be, by their reinforcement. Though in his written answer the governor, whose orders they were to obey, directed them to land, by his verbal message he commanded that the colonels, leaving their men on board, should, with some other officers, come to the city to consult on expedient measures, when provisions, he said, for ten days remained not in the town, even if all unnecessary persons should be removed. A council of war, composed of eleven officers from the fleet and five of the garrison, agreed in consequence of Lundy's representations, that the post was not tenable, and that the principal officers should privately withdraw,

H 2

CHAP. withdraw, leaving the inhabitants to make what conditions they might with the catholic army.

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The town council, to whom these resolutions were communicated, agreed to propose terms of capitulation to James, who was advancing toward the city: bat when the people saw their leaders flying, and the English regiments, contrary to the assurances of Lundy, preparing to depart with all the provisions intended for their relief, enraged to phrensy they rose in a tumult; slew an officer who was running from the city; wounded another; received with acclamations captain Murray, who entered with a small reinforcement, in the critical moment, in spite of the governor's interdiction; and, while this brave man was expostulating with Lundy, they ran to the walls, and pointing their cannon, fired on James and his advanced party, who were approaching to take possession of the town, killing an officer near the royal presence. Electing George Walker and one major Baker for their governors, the troops were, by the direction of these commanders, formed into eight regiments, consisting of seven thousand three hundred and sixty-one combatants, of whom three hundred and forty-one were officers. While Lundy was permitted to escape to the ships in disguise under a load of match, the troops were regularly distributed to their several posts, and various arrangements made for defence. For this indeed they were extremely ill provided, not having even one well-mounted cannon, not one grenade, no engineer, no knowledge of tactics, no

person