On the 21st of September, Marlborough sailed up the harbor of Cork, effected a landing at Passage, without any serious opposition, and took up his march for the city, the men hauling the cannon, he being unprovided with train-horses or cavalry. His force consisted of 8,000 infantry, six hundred marines, some ships of war, and a few transports; but being joined by the Duke of Wurtemberg and General Scravenmore with 4,000 infantry and nine hundred cavalry, his army was augmented to about 14,000 men, provided with all the essentials of a siege, and a co-operative fleet to assail the city from the water-side. On the 23d, he appeared before it in form; Wurtemberg, according to the secret orders of William, claiming precedence in command, and Marlborough demurring, on the ground that he was specially commissioned for this campaign. A warm dispute arose, one insisting on the privilege of rank, and the other on delaying the siege, and referring the question back to the Parliament. This delay being likely to hazard the success of their arms, by giving the besieged time to strengthen their defences and get in supplies, a compromise was agreed upon, by which they were to assume the command alternately. Marlborough's turn came first, and he gave the word, "Wurtemberg," and in acknowledgment of this politeness, the latter, when his turn came, gave the word "Marlborough;" but notwithstanding this outward exchange of military compliments, their mutual jealousy continued without affecting the progress of their arms.
The city of Cork, situated in a valley surrounded by high hills, was defended by a few dilapidated outworks, all of which, excepting the Castle of Shandon, which overlooked it on the northern side, were abandoned as the enemy approached, the troops retiring into the principal fortress, which stood on a low, marshy plain, between two branches of the river Lee, accessible only at low-water, but poorly supplied with artillery, and almost exhausted of provisions and military stores. The Castle, after repulsing an assault of the Danes, was also evacuated, and its troops withdrawn into the inner fortress, against which the entire force of the enemy was now directed. Its garrison, after this junction, amounted to 4,500 men—a force ample for a protracted resistance; but already on limited rations, and there were only five barrels of gunpowder within its walls. By the loss of Shandon it was exposed on three sides to the fire of the enemy's land batteries, and on the fourth, to that of his ships, which could come within short range at tide-water.
On the approach of the enemy, the governor, Colonel McElligot, had received orders from the Duke of Berwick to demolish the fort, burn the city, and retire with his command into Kerry; but having disobeyed this mandate, at the solicitation of the citizens, until too late, he determined to redeem his error by the gallantry of his defence, and hold out long enough to give Berwick time to hasten up succors to raise the siege. The enemy, having gained possession of the hills, opened a fierce cannonade on the city itself, and having levelled all the intervening houses, descended into the valley, opened on the citadel, and after a most spirited resistance of two days, silenced its guns, and prepared to carry its works by storm. The assault could only be made at low-water, and once each day was there assault and repulse, in one of which the Duke of Grafton[54] was killed while leading his regiment across the marsh. At length, after a desperate defence of twelve days, it surrendered on the 5th of October, on terms considered highly honorable; "but the ink with which the capitulation was signed, was not yet dry when it was violated in every particular." The Catholic people were stripped and driven from the city; the city itself was given to pillage; the Earls of Tyrone and Clancarty were wounded and grossly outraged by the soldiers and the mob, and the prisoners subjected to indignities and cruelties, compared with which death would have been a refuge. They were pent up within a loathsome fen, where, being denied food, they were necessitated to feed on putrid carrion; more than half of them died within a fortnight, from the diseases it engendered; one-half the remainder were murdered by order of one Captain Lauder, on the way to Clonmel, some time later; and of the survivors, few ever returned to report the inhuman deed.[55] Marlborough and his English army were even more barbarous than the Prince of Orange and his foreign mercenaries.
On the surrender of Cork, Marlborough turned his attention to Kinsale, which is about twelve miles distant by land, and sixteen by water, and which had, in the mean time, been invested by a portion of his land force and his navy. The town was defended by two forts—Castle Ny and St. Charles—named respectively the Old and New Forts; the former having a garrison of 450 men, and the latter one of 1,200; and both being better provided in guns and material than the fortress just surrendered. But the Old Fort had been blown up by accident on the 3d, causing the death of two hundred of its garrison and the capture of the remainder; so there was now but the New Fort to resist the united efforts of the army and navy of Marlborough. The defence, however, was a gallant one, and marked by deeds of great personal daring, both of the men and commandant; but, being cut off from succor both by land and sea, they capitulated on the 15th; being allowed to depart with their baggage and arms, and to join their countrymen at Limerick. As this fort was impervious to the enemy's cannon, and might have held out, while its provisions lasted, a suspicion of treachery attached to its governor, and it is intimated by more than one of our annalists that he must have been bribed by Marlborough, who was impatient of delay, as he had pledged himself before his departure from England to reduce both Cork and Kinsale within a month; but the accusation is not sufficiently authenticated by any, while it is liable to doubt, on the consideration, that a soldier base enough to accept a bribe would not have scrupled to turn over his command to the enemy, which might have been as easily accomplished. The loss of life, with the exception of those blown up at Castle Ny, did not exceed four hundred on each side, but the Irish army lost heavily in prisoners at Cork, few of whom survived their subsequent sufferings; and the loss of those two maritime stations to their cause was incalculable.
The Duke of Berwick tells us that during the interval, he had collected a force of about 8,000 men, and had got as far as Kilmallock, in the County Limerick, with the purpose of compelling Marlborough to raise the siege. But considering his force inadequate, he contented himself with watching the enemy, and when the expedition was finished returned to his quarters. The indecision shown by Berwick at this juncture, in view of his well-known valor and intrepidity, would favor the impression that he was unwilling to appear in arms against his uncle, and his explanation would seem rather to fix than to remove it. Eight thousand men, in a friendly country, under the command of such generals as himself and Sarsfield, who was also there, against 14,000 investing two strong fortresses, and extended over a line of seven or eight miles, seem not inadequate, and might have created such a diversion as would have at least protracted the siege; and any disarrangement of Marlborough's plans would have placed him in a very critical position.
With the fall of Cork and Kinsale, the campaign of Marlborough may be said to have terminated; he remained but a few days more in the country, and after planning offensive measures against the counties of Cork and Kerry, to be conducted by Ginkle, he returned to England after an absence of five weeks, and received the congratulations of the people and Parliament, to the great annoyance of the Prince of Orange and his partisans. He was thenceforth the great popular idol of the nation, and was soon after started on that military career that has placed his name among the greatest of England's generals. After his departure, Ginkle pressed the war in the south with great vigor. Scravenmore and Tettau, with a heavy force of infantry and cavalry, penetrated northward to Mallow, and, turning to the west, began to plunder and lay waste the country. But they were soon beset by organized bodies of farmers and Rapparees, and, by an assault, as vigorous as it was unexpected, were driven with great slaughter towards Bandon, where they were again furiously assailed by Colonel O'Driscoll, and, panic-stricken, fled back to their quarters.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE WINTER OF 1690.
Before his departure from Ireland, the Prince of Orange deputed the civil government of the country to two lords-justices—Porter and Coningsby—who lost no time in entering on the duties of their office. Scarcely were they installed in it, when a flood of proclamations was issued against the "papists" who lived within their jurisdiction; and all devised, with the most "diabolical ingenuity," to plunder and exterminate. One of these assessed the Catholic inhabitants to make good any losses sustained by their Protestant neighbors, whether arising from accident or from causes incident to a state of warfare; another proclaimed that no more than ten Catholics should assemble in a body, and that the priest of any parish, where a larger assembly should take place, incurred the penalty of transportation; a third declared that the families of such as had been killed or taken prisoners in the service of King James, should forthwith remove behind the Shannon, or be treated as enemies and spies; and a fourth, that any family having a member within the lines of the Irish army, should either procure his recall, or remove thither by a certain day. The Protestant population were also ordered within the English lines, and a general exodus from both sides of the river immediately took place. The sufferings consequent on this disruption, it is painful to contemplate. Thousands of the young and infirm crossed the river never to return to their homes, while the men were driven to swell the ranks of the Rapparees and wring their subsistence from the country.
In the mean time seizures and confiscations kept pace with the proclamations, until a million and a quarter of acres, valued at four millions sterling, were appropriated in advance of all legal proceedings. "The manner in which the lords-justices and the Castle party did their work," says Taylor, "is an edifying example of the mode by which the forms of law have been so often prostituted to sanction injustice in Ireland. They indicted the Irish gentlemen who possessed any estates, of high treason in the several counties over which they had jurisdiction, and then removed them all, by certiorari, to the Court of King's Bench in Dublin. By this ingenious contrivance, those who were to be robbed lost all opportunity of making their defence; indeed, in most cases they were ignorant of being accused, and the Irish government was saved the trouble of showing how the Irish people could be guilty of high treason for supporting the cause of their rightful monarch against a foreign invader."
Commissions were also issued for raising large bodies of militia, to be equipped and disciplined on the plan of the English army; and the northern Protestants, who were considered as well adapted to predatory warfare, were furnished with the arms of Schomberg's soldiers who had died, or who had been killed in the preceding year, and sent forth, under the name of Protestant Rapparees, against those of the same class who followed the fortunes of the Jacobite army. This was all fair enough in war, but it is worthy of remark that those who exclaimed most loudly against the moderate taxation of King James, as ruinous to the country, now voted away sums that would lead one to think they believed the resources of the country inexhaustible. The militia of the country in a short time became good soldiers, and did great service to William by holding the garrisons in the rear of his regular army, and recruiting it when necessary; but the "Protestant Rapparees" entirely failed in the object proposed, for, unable to cope with their wily enemies, they soon turned to plunder indiscriminately on their own account, and, instead of increasing the forage or supplies of the English army, they wasted wherever they passed, and caused a dearth which afterwards greatly embarrassed its movements.