republican government under which they had been CHAP. educated. To check the complicated disorders of the country, so far as the state of affairs would admit, the lords justices were labouring to give some form to the civil government. A privy-council was constituted of men esteemed attached to the new government. All indictments of high treason were removed to the superior courts, now furnished with judges. Lord lieutenants, and their deputies, were appointed in the several counties under English jurisdiction; commissions granted to officers of militia; the commissioners of forfeitures superseded; and various proclamations issued for the promotion of public regularity. To correct the licentiousness of the army was beyond their power; but, to restrain the catholics in places under English protection, an ordonnance was published, severe, perhaps necessary, by which the people of this religion in each county were made responsible for the ravages committed by men of the same communion, and no priest was allowed to reside where any number of rapparees were found to have assembled. But, as the extermination of rebels had been always supposed more conducive than their reconciliation to the private interest of officers of state and great settlers from England, the chief governors were prevented, by some members of the privy-council, from granting to the earnest solicitations of Ginckle a proclamation of pardon to repenting rebels. XXXIV. : Ginckle, having found that a magazine of forage Battle of for five thousand cavalry for ten days was formed Grenoge. VOL. II. M by 1691, XXXIV. CHAP. by the enemy at Athlone, and that an attack was thence intended on his garrison at Molingar, visited that garrison, and marched thence with three thousand men against a considerable body encamped near Ballymore, between Molingar and Athlone. Here the Irish troops, embattled in good order, occupied a pass fortified with palisadoes, but so fortified, from precipitation and ignorance, the palisadoes pointing toward themselves, as to secure instead of repelling the assailants. Driven from this ground, they fled to a place called the moat of Grenoge, where they rallied, and again gave battle; but, vigorously assail→ ed, they retreated into the town, and attempted to entrench and maintain the post. Finally dislodged, they fled in consternation to Athlone, where the ter→ ror was so great that the gates were shut against the fugitives, many of whom in consequence took refuge in the bogs, and many perished in the river. This action, in which the Irish lost three hundred men, five hundred horses, their baggage, and a quantity of arms, was of much greater consequence in reality than in appearance, by its influence on the course of the ensuing campaign, as it frustrated the plan of offensive operations against the English garrisons, damped the ardour of the Irish, and augmented confusion in their councils. State of 1694. Tyrconnel, who had been sent to solicit succours Trish affairs. in France, returned with only some clothing, and the sum of eight thousand pounds, a sum insufficient to allay the discontents of the soldiery, though distributed among them as a donation. Tyrconnel himself XXXIV, himself was most of all dissatisfied. He had served CHAP. with a zeal, untempered by conscience, a bigoted master, and was justly requited with ingratitude. From him to Sir Richard Nagle and Sir Stephen Rice was the administration of civil affairs transferred by James; and, as experience had corrected the arrogance of this lord, who now prudently advised his associates to save the remains of the nation by submission to the new government, he was reviled as a traitor by those officers who declared for war. These were encouraged by vain expectations of rebellion in Britain and copious supplies from France. French officers arrived successively with such assurances, and at last came Saint-Ruth, a man of established character in bigotry by his persecution of the French protestants, bearing the commission of James as chief commander of his troops in Ireland, to the mortification of Sarsfield, who had the best right to expect that honour, and was little consoled by the title of earl of Lucan now conferred upon him. No great supplies however were brought by the French general, who, finding a defensive system necessary, strengthened the posts on the western side of the Shannon, and took his station with the main army behind Athlone, 1691. The army of Ginckle, whose plan was offensive, Military was inferior in number to that of Saint-Ruth, but Operations. superior in the spirit of the soldiers, and experience of the officers, among whom were some of distinguished reputation. Supplied at length with provisions and other necessaries, by the want of which XXXIV. CHAP. he had been long delayed, Ginckle, having assembled his forces at Molingar, marched against the fort of Ballymore, which the Irish had fortified with great care, and furnished with a garrison of a thousand chosen men. The governor, relying on the natural and artificial strength of his post, situate in an insular tract washed by a lake, sustained the attack for a day, but surrendered with his garrison, as prisoners, on the sight of armed boats launched on the lake. Having secured this fortress by additional works and an English garrison, the general moved toward Athlone, and came within sight of the town on the eighteenth of June. Attack of The Irish had newly fortified the English district 1691. of Athlone, repaired the bridge, and seemed resolved to defend their station on both sides of the river. On the twenty-first the troops of Ginckle advanced toward the walls through lanes lined with Irish infantry, who gradually retired within the fortifications, acting as guides to their enemy. A breach was soon made, by a battery of ten guns, in the wall of the English town, and the place taken by storm, the discomfited troops rushing in such confusion over the bridge, that many were crushed to death, and many, falling from the battlements, perished in the river. But all further progress seemed impracticable for the assailants. The arch of the bridge next the Irish town, or district of Athlone on the western side of the Shannon, was again broken the ford between the two towns, dangerous by its depth and stony bottom, was so narrow as hardly XXXIV. hardly to admit twenty men abreast: the enemy, CHAP. who fired furiously from the opposite banks, were posted in great force behind entrenchments and fortresses: and where the stream, toward Lanesborough, might be crossed by a bridge of pontons, the place was guarded effectually for prevention. The general, concluding that the only practicable passage was by the bridge of the town, raised a wooden work for the purpose of throwing planks over the broken arch. While the batteries from both sides played with the utmost fury, from the east to cover, from the west to destroy the workmen, a serjeant and ten priyate soldiers in armour, rushing from the Irish town to destroy the work, were all slain; but another party, repeating the desperate attack, succeeded, casting the beams and planks into the river; and two of them survived, returning in triumph. Ginckle renewed his efforts, and, having completed a close gallery over the broken arch, resolved to attempt the passage here and in two other places at once, and, to encourage the soldiers in so perilous an enterprize, he distributed money among them, But in the critical moment, when both parties were prepared for desperate combat, the attempt was prevented by the burning of the gallery, which was fired by the grenades of the Irish. While the raising of the siege was regarded as inevitable by Saint-Ruth, who triumphantly gave an entertainment on the occasion, Ginckle held a council of war, in which he displayed the appearance of being inclined to retreat, though he secretly approved M 3 |