[222] Avaux’s despatches, April 26/May 6 to July 30/August 9, 1689. Rosen wrote to James on July 5 that the troops lately sent him had to take such arms as were given them, ‘mostly damaged and broken, and accordingly useless, as you have not in all your army a single gunsmith to mend them.’ Hamilton’s soldiers were still worse off, no battalion stronger than 200 men; and more than two-thirds without swords. No troop of cavalry had more than fourteen serviceable men.—Macpherson’s Original Papers, i. 205. The account of the siege in Witherow’s Derry and Enniskillen, 3rd edition, 1885, would leave little to be desired but for the writer’s violent antipathy to Walker.
[223] Walker and Mackenzie. Sermons and speeches by Walker are reprinted in Dwyer’s edition of the True Account. Sir Charles Lyttleton, writing to Lord Hatton on August 8, 1689, says he had talked the day before to a gentleman who was storekeeper in Ireland, who confirmed all he had heard about the Irish want of guns. There were only a few heavy ones in the country, and the ground about Londonderry was so ‘rotten’ that they could not be drawn thither.—Hatton Correspondence. Walker and Mackenzie both call the work at Bishop’s Gate a ravelin, but as there was no ditch it should probably be called a demi-lune.
[224] Walker and Mackenzie. Light to the Blind, p. 77.
[225] Walker and Mackenzie. Pointis to Louis XIV. or Seignelay, June 13, 17, and 22, State Papers, Domestic. Colonel Birch’s speech, June 19, in Grey’s Debates, ix. 351. Schomberg’s order to Kirke is printed from the copy among the Nairne MSS. in Dwyer’s edition of Walker: it was apparently written on June 29 and despatched with a postscript on July 3. Avaux to Louvois, June 16/26. The author of the Light to the Blind says a sunken gabbard or two would have destroyed the channel, but that James had forbidden this for fear of lessening his customs revenue.
[226] ‘I myself,’ says John Hunter, a private soldier, ‘would have eaten the poorest cat or dog I ever saw with my eyes. Many a man, woman, and child died from want of food. I myself was so weak from hunger that I fell under my musket one morning as I was going to the walls, yet God gave me strength to continue all night at my post there, and enabled me to act the part of a soldier as if I had been as strong as ever I was; yet my face was blackened with hunger.’—Journal in Graham’s Ireland Preserved, p. 335.
[227] Hamilton’s proposals, June 27, are in Walker’s appendix and elsewhere. Rosen’s declaration, June 30, is enclosed in Avaux’s letter to Louvois, an English version being printed by Walker and elsewhere. Rosen’s correspondence with James, June 30 to July 5, is in Macpherson, i. 204-210. See Berwick’s account of Rosen, and Avaux to Louvois, July 5/15.
[228] ‘One pound of oatmeal and 1 lb. of tallow served a man a week, sometimes salt hides. It was as bad as Samaria, only we had no pidgens’ Dunge. I saw two shillings a quarter given for a little dog, horse blood at 4d. per pint, all the starch was eaten, the graves of tallow, horse flesh was a rarity, and still we resolved to hold out ... I believe there died 15,000 men, women, and children, many of whom died for want. A great fever—all the children died, almost whole families, nor one left alive.’ Narrative of George Holmes in Le Fleming Papers, p. 265. Macpherson i. 312.
[229] Walker and Mackenzie. Light to the Blind. The written opinions of Hamilton and his council of war are in Macpherson, i. 217. James’s letter of July 22 ordering the siege to be turned into a blockade, ib. p. 218. Roche’s story is in Harris’s Life of William III., appx. xxix., and see Cal. of Treasury Papers, February 14, 1693-4. Writing to Louis XIV., August 4/14, Avaux says: ‘L’estacade était si mal faite qu’elle n’a pas resisté aux chaloupes qui remorquaient les deux petits bastiments qui portaient des vivres, et nous avons déjà sceu plus d’une fois que cette estacade se rompait souvent par le vent; et par la seule force de la marée.’ Though the Rev. James Gordon can scarcely be credited with the relief of Londonderry, his local knowledge may have been useful to Kirke, or rather to Rooke and Leake: Reid’s Presbyterian Hist., ed. Killen, ii. 387 and notes. Pointis, who was destined to meet Leake again in later years, gave a description of the boom (to Seignelay, probably), which he thought he had made very strong, State Papers, Domestic, June 13, 1689. It was partly attached to a great stone, which may still be seen, though moved from its original place, in the grounds of Boom Hall, and partly to a great tree, of which the stump remains.
[230] Walker and Mackenzie. Avaux to Louis XIV., August 4/14. McCarmick. There is an independent account by George Holmes, who was all through the siege and was made a major by Kirke; it is dated from Strabane, November 16, Le Fleming Papers, p. 264.
[231] Hamilton and McCarmick.