Ginkell took possession of the Limerick side of the town, and reoccupied the ground before held by the besiegers. He commenced by erecting fresh batteries of far heavier cannon than William brought to bear on the city, and soon poured a fiery storm of balls and shells into it, which crashed in the roofs and laid whole streets desolate. At the same time a squadron of English men-of-war sailed up the Shannon, and closed access to the city or escape from it by water. The town, however, held out till the 22nd of September, when Ginkell, beginning to fear the rains and fevers of autumn, and that they might compel him to draw off, and thus continue the war to another year, determined to obtain possession of the bridge, and attack the cavalry on the other side. He therefore passed the river by a bridge of William's tin boats, and, assaulting the cavalry, put them to utter rout. They left their camp with many arms and much store of provisions, and fled with as much precipitation as they had done from Aghrim, scattering again the whole country with their arms. Ginkell next attacked the fort which defended the bridge, carried it and the bridge, and thus was able to invest the whole town. In the haste to draw up the movable part of the bridge nearest to the city, the soldiers retreating from the fort were shut out, and a terrible massacre was made of them on the bridge. Out of eight hundred men only one hundred and twenty escaped into Limerick.
This disaster broke the spirit of the Irish entirely. Even the stout-hearted Sarsfield was convinced that all was over, and it was resolved to capitulate. An armistice was agreed to. The Irish demanded that they should retain their property and their rights; that there should be perfect freedom for the Catholic worship, a Catholic priest for every parish, full enjoyment of all municipal privileges, and full capability to hold all civil and military offices. Ginkell refused these terms, but offered others so liberal that they were loudly condemned by the English, who were hungering after the estates of the Irish. He consented that all such soldiers as desired to continue in the service of James should be not only allowed to do so, but should be shipped to France in English vessels; that French vessels should be permitted to come up and return in safety; that all soldiers who were willing to enter William's service should be received, and that on taking the oath of allegiance all past offences should be overlooked, and they and all Irish subjects taking the oaths should retain their property, should not be sued for any damages or spoliation committed during the war, nor prosecuted for any treason, felony, or misdemeanour, but should, moreover, be capable of holding any office or practising any profession which they were capable of before the war. They were to be allowed to exercise their religion in peace as fully as in the reign of Charles II. It is to the disgrace of England that this part of the treaty should not have been kept.
These terms were accepted, and the treaty was signed on the 3rd of October, and thus terminated this war, which, in the vain endeavour to restore a worthless monarch, had turned Ireland into a desert and a charnel-house. When it came to the choice of the soldiers to which banner they would ally themselves, out of the fifteen thousand men, about ten thousand chose to follow the fortunes of James, and were shipped off with all speed, as they began to desert in great numbers. Many of those who actually embarked did it under a solemn assurance from Sarsfield that their wives and children should go with them; but, once having the men on board, this pledge was most cruelly broken, and the greatest part of the women and children were left in frantic misery on the shore. The scenes which took place on this occasion at Cork are described as amongst the most heartrending in history. But this agony once over, the country sank down into a condition of passive but gloomy quiet, which it required more than a century to dissipate. Whilst Scotland again and again was agitated by the endeavours to reinstate the expelled dynasty, Ireland remained passive; and it was not till the French Revolution scattered its volcanic fires through Europe that she once more began to shake the yoke on her galled neck. Yet during all this time a burning sense of her subjection glowed in her blood, and the name of the Luttrel who went over to the Saxon at the dividing day at Limerick, and received for his apostacy the estates of his absent brother, remained a term of execration amongst the Irish. Meanwhile the Irish regiments which went to France won a brilliant reputation in the wars of the Continent, and many of the officers rose to high position in France, in Spain, in Austria, and Prussia. Their descendants still rank with the nobility of those countries.
CHAPTER XIII.
WILLIAM AND MARY.
Proceedings in Parliament—Complaints against Admiral Russell—Treason in the Navy—Legislation against the Roman Catholics—The East India Company—Treasons Bill—The Poll Tax—Changes in the Ministry—Marlborough is deprived of his Offices—His Treachery—The Queen's Quarrel with the Princess Anne—William goes Abroad—Fall of Namur—Battle of Steinkirk—Results of the Campaign—The Massacre of Glencoe—Proposed Invasion of England—James's Declaration—Russell's Hesitation overcome by the Queen—Battle of La Hogue—Gallant Conduct of Rooke—Young's Sham Plot—Founding of Greenwich Hospital—Ill Success of the Fleet—Discontent of the People—Complaints in the Lords and Commons—The Land Tax—Origin of the National Debt—Liberty of the Press—The Continental Campaign—Battle of Landen—Loss of the Smyrna Fleet—Attack on the Navy—New Legislation—Banking Schemes of Chamberlayne and Paterson—The Bank of England Established—Ministerial Changes—Negotiations for Peace—Marlborough's Treason and the Death of Talmash—Illness and Death of Queen Mary.
On the 19th of October William arrived from Holland, and on the 22nd he opened Parliament. He congratulated it on the termination of the war in Ireland, and on the progress of the English arms both on land and sea. It was true that on the Continent there had been no very decisive action, but the Allies had compelled the French to retreat before them, and to confess their power by avoiding a general engagement with them. At sea, though not so much had been effected in some directions as might have been hoped, yet the French had been driven from the open into their own ports, and an English fleet had convoyed a large merchant fleet from the Mediterranean in safety. This was very different to previous years, when their cruisers had made great captures of our merchantmen. We had also sent a fleet up the Shannon, which prevented them from aiding the insurgents in Ireland, and were now in undisputed supremacy again on the ocean. Of course William had to demand heavy supplies to maintain the fleet in this position, and to pursue the war with vigour against Louis. All this the members of both Houses listened to with apparent satisfaction, and voted him cordial thanks.
On the 6th of November it was unanimously voted in the Commons that the supplies asked for by the Crown should be granted; and first they voted £1,575,898 for the service of the navy, including the building of three new docks at Portsmouth—one dry and two wet ones. On the 16th they resolved that the army, in compliance with William's recommendation, should be raised to 46,924 men; and on the 4th of January, 1692, they voted £2,100,000 for the maintenance of the army, of which Ireland was to pay £165,000.
But though a large majority in both Houses supported warmly the endeavour to curb the inordinate ambition of Louis XIV., these sums were not passed by the Commons without searching inquiries into the accounts and into the abuses which, notwithstanding William's vigilance, abounded in all departments of Government. No doubt the party in opposition, as is generally the case, did much of this work of reform more to gratify their private resentment, and to make their rivals' term of office anything but agreeable, than from genuine patriotism; but, at the same time, there was plenty of ground for their complaints. Serious charges were made against Admiral Russell for his lukewarm conduct at sea, and his mismanagement of the Admiralty. The fact was that Russell, as was strongly suspected, and as we now know from documents since come to light, was no less a traitor than Torrington, Dartmouth, and Marlborough. He was in active correspondence with James, and ready, if some turn in affairs should serve to make it advantageous, to go over to him with the fleet, or as much of it as would follow him, and others of the admirals; for Delaval, Killigrew, and other admirals and naval officers, were as deep in the treason.