But the heart of the diplomatist was really even more callous than that of the soldier.

Rosen was recalled to Dublin; and Richard Hamilton was again left in the chief command. He tried gentler means than those which had brought so much reproach on his predecessor. No trick, no lie, which was thought likely to discourage the starving garrison was spared. One day a great shout was raised by the whole Irish camp. The defenders of Londonderry were soon informed that the army of James was rejoicing on account of the fall of Enniskillen. They were told that they had now no chance of being relieved, and were exhorted to save their lives by capitulating. They consented to negotiate. But what they asked was, that they should be permitted to depart armed and in military array, by land or by water at their choice. They demanded hostages for the exact fulfilment of these conditions, and insisted that the hostages should be sent on board of the fleet which lay in Lough Foyle. Such terms Hamilton durst not grant: the Governors would abate nothing: the treaty was broken off; and the conflict recommenced.*

CHAP.

XII.

derry ex

By this time July was far advanced; and the state of the The famine city was, hour by hour, becoming more frightful. The number in Londonof the inhabitants had been thinned more by famine and treme. disease than by the fire of the enemy. Yet that fire was sharper and more constant than ever. One of the gates was beaten in: one of the bastions was laid in ruins; but the breaches made by day were repaired by night with indefatigable activity. Every attack was still repelled. But the fighting men of the garrison were so much exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs. Several of them, in the act of striking at the enemy, fell down from mere weakness. A very small quantity of grain remained, and was doled out by mouthfuls. The stock of salted hides was considerable, and by gnawing them the garrison appeased the rage of hunger. Dogs, fattened on the blood of the slain who lay unburied round the town, were luxuries which few could afford to purchase. The price of a whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses were still alive, and but barely alive. They were so lean that little meat was likely to be found upon them. It was, however, determined to slaughter them for food. The people perished so fast, that it was impossible for the survivors to perform the rites of sepulture. There was scarcely a cellar in which some corpse was not

* Mackenzie.

PP 2

CHAP.

XII.

decaying. Such was the extremity of distress that the rats who came to feast in those hideous dens were eagerly hunted and greedily devoured. A small fish, caught in the river, was not to be purchased with money. The only price for which such a treasure could be obtained was some handfuls of oatmeal. Leprosies, such as strange and unwholesome diet engenders, made existence a constant torment. The whole city was poisoned by the stench exhaled from the bodies of the dead and of the half dead. That there should be fits of discontent and insubordination among men enduring such misery was inevitable. At one moment it was suspected that Walker had laid up somewhere a secret store of food, and was revelling in private, while he exhorted others to suffer resolutely for the good cause. His house was strictly examined: his innocence was fully proved: he regained his popularity; and the garrison, with death in near prospect, thronged to the cathedral to hear him preach, drank in his earnest eloquence with delight, and went forth from the house of God with haggard faces and tottering steps, but with spirit still unsubdued. There were, indeed, some secret plottings. A very few obscure traitors opened communications with the enemy. But it was necessary that all such dealings should be carefully concealed. None dared to utter publicly any words save words of defiance and stubborn resolution. Even in that extremity the general cry was, "No surrender." And there were not wanting voices which, in low tones, added, “ First the horses and hides; and then the prisoners; and then each other." It was afterwards related, half in jest, yet not without a horrible mixture of earnest, that a corpulent citizen, whose bulk presented a strange contrast to the skeletons which surrounded him, thought it expedient to conceal himself from the numerous eyes which followed him with cannibal looks whenever he appeared in the streets.*

It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison that all this time the English ships were seen far off in Lough Foyle. Communication between the fleet and the city was almost impossible. One diver who had attempted to pass the boom was drowned. Another was hanged. The language of signals was hardly intelligible. On the thirteenth of July, however, a piece of paper sewed up in a cloth button came to Walker's hands. It was a letter from Kirke, and

*Walker's Account. "The fat man excited the envy and cupidity of his 1 ss in Londonderry" became a proverbial fortunate neighbours. expression for a person whose prosperity

contained assurances of speedy relief. But more than a fortnight of intense misery had since elapsed; and the hearts of the most sanguine were sick with deferred hope. By no art could the provisions which were left be made to hold out two days more.*

581

CHAP.

XII.

Just at this time Kirke received from England a despatch, Attack on which contained positive orders that Londonderry should be the boom. relieved. He accordingly determined to make an attempt which, as far as appears, he might have made, with at least an equally fair prospect of success six weeks earlier.†

Among the merchant ships which had come to Lough Foyle under his convoy was one called the Mountjoy. The master, Micaiah Browning, a native of Londonderry, had brought from England a large cargo of provisions. He had, it is said, repeatedly remonstrated against the inaction of the armament. He now eagerly volunteered to take the first risk of succouring his fellow citizens; and his offer was accepted. Andrew Douglas, master of the Phoenix, who had on board a great quantity of meal from Scotland, was willing to share the danger and the honour. The two merchantmen were to be escorted by the Dartmouth, a frigate of thirty-six guns, commanded by Captain John Leake, afterwards an admiral of great fame.

It was the twenty-eighth of July. The sun had just set: the evening sermon in the cathedral was over: and the heartbroken congregation had separated; when the sentinels on the tower saw the sails of three vessels coming up the Foyle. Soon there was a stir in the Irish camp. The besiegers were on the alert for miles along both shores. extreme peril: for the river was low; and the only naviThe ships were in gable channel ran very near to the left bank, where the head quarters of the enemy had been fixed, and where the batteries were most numerous. Leake performed his duty with a skill and spirit worthy of his noble profession, exposed his frigate to cover the merchantmen, and used his guns with great

*This, according to Narcissus Luttrell, was the report made by Captain Withers, afterwards a highly distinguished officer, on whom Pope wrote an epitaph.

The despatch, which positively commanded Kirke to attack the boom, was signed by Schomberg, who had already been appointed commander in chief of all the English forces in Ireland. copy of it is among the Nairne MSS. in

A

the Bodleian Library. Wodrow, on no
better authority than the gossip of a
country parish in Dumbartonshire, attri-
butes the relief of Londonderry to the
exhortations of a heroic Scotch preacher
named Gordon. I am inclined to think
fluenced by a peremptory order from
that Kirke was more likely to be in-
Scohomberg, than by the united elo-
divines.
quence of a whole synod of presbyterian

CHAP.
XII.

effect. At length the little squadron came to the place of peril. Then the Mountjoy took the lead, and went right at the boom. The huge barricade cracked and gave way: but the shock was such that the Mountjoy rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A yell of triumph rose from the banks: the Irish rushed to their boats, and were preparing to board: but the Dartmouth poured on them a well directed broadside Just then the Phoenix which threw them into disorder.

was no more.

dashed at the breach which the Mountjoy had made, and was in
a moment within the fence. Meantime the tide was rising fast.
The Mountjoy began to move, and soon passed safe through
the broken stakes and floating spars. But her brave master
A shot from one of the batteries had struck
him; and he died by the most enviable of all deaths, in sight
of the city which was his birthplace, which was his home,
and which had just been saved by his courage and selfdevo-
tion from the most frightful form of destruction. The night
had closed in before the conflict at the boom began: but the
flash of the guns was seen, and the noise heard, by the lean
and ghastly multitude which covered the walls of the city.
When the Mountjoy grounded, and when the shout of triumph
rose from the Irish on both sides of the river, the hearts of
the besieged died within them. One who endured the un-
utterable anguish of that moment has told us that they looked
Even after the barri-
fearfully livid in each other's eyes.
cade had been passed, there was a terrible half hour of sus-
pense. It was ten o'clock before the ships arrived at the
quay. The whole population was there to welcome them. A
screen made of casks filled with earth was hastily thrown up
to protect the landing place from the batteries on the other
side of the river; and then the work of unloading began.
First were rolled on shore barrels containing six thousand
bushels of meal. Then came great cheeses, casks of beef,
flitches of bacon, kegs of butter, sacks of pease and biscuit,
ankers of brandy. Not many hours before, half a pound of
tallow and three quarters of a pound of salted hide had been
weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man. The
ration which each now received was three pounds of flour, tw
pounds of beef, and a pint of pease. It is easy to imagine
with what tears grace was said over the suppers of that even-
ing. There was little sleep on either side of the wall. The
bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts.
The Irish guns continued to roar all night; and all night the
bells of the rescued city made answer to the Irish guns with a

583

CHAP.

XII.

The siege of Londonderry

peal of joyous defiance. Through the three following days the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But, on the third night, flames were seen arising from the camp; and, when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers; and the citizens saw far off the long column of pikes and standards retreating up the left bank of the Foyle towards Strabane.* So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the annals of the British isles. It had lasted a hundred and five days. The garrison had been reduced from about seven thousand raised. effective men to about three thousand. The loss of the besiegers cannot be precisely ascertained, Walker estimated it at eight thousand men. It is certain from the despatches, of Avaux that the regiments which returned from the blockade had been so much thinned that many of them were not more than two hundred strong. Of thirty-six French gunners who had superintended the cannonading, thirty-one had been killed or disabled.† The means both of attack and of defence had undoubtedly been such as would have moved the great warriors of the Continent to laughter; and this is the very circumstance which gives so peculiar an interest to the history of the contest. It was a contest, not between engineers, but between nations; and the victory remained with the nation which, though inferior in number, was superior in civilisation, in capacity for selfgovernment, and in stubbornness of resolution.

As soon as it was known that the Irish a deputation from the city hastened to Lough Foyle, and army had retired, invited Kirke to take the command. He came accompanied by a long train of officers, and was received in state by the two Governors, who delivered up to him the authority which, under the pressure of necessity, they had assumed. He remained only a few days; but he had time to show enough of the incurable vices of his character to disgust a population

* Walker; Mackenzie; Histoire de la Revolution d'Irlande, Amsterdam, 1691; London Gazette, Aug. 5. 12, 1689; Letter of Buchan among the Nairne MSS.; Life of Sir John Leake; The Londeriad; Observations on Mr. Walker's Account of the Siege of Londonderry, licensed Oct.

4. 1689.

18

† Avaux to Seignelay, July 1. Lewis, Aug.

"You will see here, as you have all along, that the tradesmen of Londonderry had more skill in their defence than the

great officers of the Irish Army in their attacks."-Light to the Blind. The author of this work is furious against the Irish gunners. The boom, he thinks, would never have been broken if they had done their duty. Were they drunk? Were they traitors? He does not determine the point. "Lord," he exclaims, "who seest the hearts of people, we mercy. In the interim those gunners leave the judgment of this affair to thy lost Ireland."