'The skirmish at Coloony,' he writes, 'began and ended in a blunder. Vereker (who knew nothing of the rapid march of thirty-five Irish miles which the French had made from Castlebar) supposed he was attacking only their vanguard; and Humbert, equally ignorant of Vereker's force, mistook the troops which attacked him for the vanguard of a larger body, and altered his plan of marching to Sligo, which must have surrendered at his approach. When Lake, with his division, arrived at Coloony next morning, he found eighteen Frenchmen, dangerously wounded, who were left behind by their army.'
The strangest part of the story is that Vereker in this attack acted on his own responsibility, and contrary to the instructions he had received from Lake. This brief campaign was marked by a series of wonderful misapprehensions. French accounts say that Humbert, seeing the strength of the British line at Castlebar, thought of retiring to Ballina, and to cover the retreat ordered General Sarrazin to make a feigned attack, which, being mistaken by Lake for an attempt to turn his flank, produced the panic, where upon Sarrazin, changing his plan, and without Humbert's orders, charged the enemy and sent them flying. But here Humbert's triumph stopped. Meanwhile, as Lord Carleton in another note states, 'The Hompesch Dragoons were of infinite service, being chiefly Hungarians, and hanging close on the enemies' rear; the (common) Irish, deceived by their dress and foreign language, took them for the French, and came to join them in great numbers, but were immediately cut down, and their pockets rifled by their supposed friends.'
Again, as Lord Carleton notes, the French mistaking, by its picturesque dress, a Highland regiment for guerilla troops, sought to fraternise with them, and greatly to their cost.
It has been repeatedly stated, and is generally believed, that Lord Camden was recalled in order to make way for the milder policy of Lord Cornwallis; but it is a fact now worth recording, though somewhat late, that the appointment of Cornwallis was directly due to Camden himself.
Camden continues:—
'I return to the opinion I had entertained before, that the Lord Lieutenant ought to be a military man. The whole government of the country is now military, and the power of the chief governor is almost merged in that of the general commanding the troops. I have suggested the propriety of sending over Lord Cornwallis, whose name, with some good officers under him, will have great weight; and I have told Pitt that which I really feel, that without the best military assistance I conceive the country to be in the most imminent danger, and that my services cannot be useful to the King.'[781]
Mr. Froude quotes from a letter of Camden's 'The insurgents will be annihilated.'[782] But his tone to Pelham is widely different. He writes:—
'Unless Great Britain pours an immense force into Ireland the country is lost.... I cannot suffer my character and my peace of mind to be trifled with.'[783]
Pitt acted on Camden's counsel and appointed Lord Cornwallis. Camden confides to Elliot:—