They call a thing a three-legged mare,
Where they will fit each neck with a nooze,
Then with our beads to say our last prayer,
After all this to die in our shoes.
Thence we pack to purgatory;85
For us let all the Jesuits pray;
Farewell, Father Peters, here's some of your creatures
Would have you to follow the self-same way.
[69], Edward Coleman, hanged at Tyburn in 1678, for his participation in the Popish Plot.—Croker.
UNDAUNTED LONDONDERRY.
The story of the siege of Londonderry, "the most memorable in the annals of the British isles," is eloquently told in the twelfth chapter of Macaulay's History of England. It lasted one hundred and five days, from the middle of April to the first of August (1689). During that time the garrison had been reduced from about seven thousand men to about three thousand. Famine and pestilence slew more than the fire of the enemy. In the last month of the siege, there was scarcely any thing left to eat in the city but salted hides and tallow. The price of a dog's paw was five shillings and sixpence, and rats that had
fed on the bodies of the dead were eagerly hunted and slain. The courage and self-devotion of the defenders, animated by a lofty public spirit and sustained by religious zeal, were at last rewarded by a glorious triumph, and will never cease to be celebrated with pride and enthusiasm by the Protestants of Ireland.
The ballad is here given as printed in Croker's Historical Songs of Ireland, p. 46, from a black letter copy in the British Museum. The whole title runs thus: Undaunted Londonderry; or, the Victorious Protestants' constant success against the proud French and Irish Forces. To the Tune of Lilli Borlero.
Protestant boys, both valliant and stout,
Fear not the strength and frown of Rome,
Thousands of them are put to the rout,
Brave Londonderry tells 'um their doom.
For their cannons roar like thunder,5
Being resolved the town to maintain
For William and Mary, still brave Londonderry
Will give the proud French and Tories their bane.
Time after time, with powder and balls,
Protestant souls they did 'um salute,10
That before Londonderry's stout walls
Many are slain and taken to boot.
Nay, their noble [Duke of Berwick],
Many reports, is happily tane,
Where still they confine him, and will not resign him,
Till they have given the Tories their bane.16