BOOK I. mission of all writs of error and appeal to the 1689. English courts of judicature. A bill was also introduced for the repeal of Poyning's law; but this the king angrily resisted. A law was indeed enacted for liberty of conscience; but as this indulgence was not to take place till after the legal massacre of the protestants, it seemed only calculated to add insult to injury. A royal proclamation was about the same time issued, forbidding above five protestants meeting any where upon pain of death; and the question being submissively asked, whether this prohibition extended to the churches, colonel Luttrel, governor of the city, declared that it was intended to prevent their assembling there as well as in other places; in consequence of which the protestant clergy were universally silenced, and the religious assemblies of the protestants every where discontinued. In the north of Ireland only was any show of resistance discernible. The city of Londonderry ble Resis almost singly adopted the heroic resolution of Memora tance of London derry. shutting its gates against the late king James, braving all the horrors of a siege with a very distant prospect of relief. One Lundy had been appointed governor of this place, who appears to have been either a coward or a traitor-perhaps both. At a council of war, this officer declared his opinion that the place was not tenable; and a message was seat to the king, now far advanced on his march to the city, containing proposals of negotiation; and to request that the army might halt at the distance of four miles from the town: but James, full of resentment and indignation at their having presumed to entertain an idea of resistance, continued his march, in violation, as it is affirmed, of a previous agreement signed by general Hamilton, and in the evening of the 18th of April encamped under the walls of the city. The besieged, exasperated at this refusal to treat, made a furious sally, and compelled the king's forces to retire to St. John's Town in great disorder. Lundy, the governor, finding himself the object of the popular rage, and perceiving his schemes completely frustrated, made his escape in disguise; and the inhabitants chose major Baker, and Mr. Walker a clergyman, joint governors, who prepared for the defence of the place with a resolution equal to any instance of the kind recorded in history. The city was very imperfectly fortified, the cannon wretchedly mounted; they had not one engineer to direct their operations: the garrison were strangers to military discipline; they were destitute of stores, and exposed to the attack of a numerous and enraged enemy, provided with all the implements for a regular siege, with the king at their head to incite their most ardent exertions. Yet no one in this dreadful exigency but disdained BOOK I. 1689. BOOK I. the mention of a surrender, while Walker pointed 1689. to the holy fanes, and Baker to the lofty bulwarks which surrounded them. The batteries were immediately opened; but in every attack the besiegers were repulsed with loss. Unhappily in a short time the garrison and inhabitants had the additional calamities to contend against, of a contagious disorder and a scarcity of provisions, which by degrees arose to an absolute famine with all its concomitant horrors. Wearied with the obstinacy of these refractory and determined people, the king withdrew to Dublin, and left the command with Rosen, who thundered out the most tremendous menaces in case they any longer delayed their submission-declaring that he would raze the town to its foundations, and destroy all the inhabitants without distinction of age or sex. Finding these barbarous threats ineffectual, he ordered all the protestant inhabitants of the vicinity, to the amount of several thousands, to be drawn under the walls of Londonderry, there to perish if the refusal to surrender was persisted in ; and at the same time declared, that he would lay the whole country waste if any attempt was made for their relief. The bishop of Meath having remonstrated to the king in person against these unheard-of cruelties, James replied, "that general Rosen was a foreigner, and used to these proceedings, which, though strange to us, were common 1689. in other places-but that he had already ordered BOOK I. him to desist." At length a prospect of relief appeared. An armament from England appeared in the Lough, having on board a considerable body of troops, commanded by general Kirke: but the enemy had erected batteries opposite the ships, and thrown a boom, composed of timber, chains, and cables, across the narrow part of the river, so that it was very doubtful whether the passage could be forced. Taking advantage however of a favourable gale, the Montjoy boldly sailed athwart and broke the boom; though she was run a-ground by the violence of the shock. But firing a broadside at the enemy, who attempted to board her while in this situation, she cleared herself and righted in a most extraordinary manner, and passed the boom, followed by the Phoenix and Dartmouth. They now continued their voyage, without farther molestation, to the city, where they were received with transports of joy and acclamation-the garrison being reduced to the very last extremity of distress. M. de Siege of Rosen immediately raised the siege, July 31, derry 1689, with the greatest precipitation, having lost 8 or 9000 men before its walls, with more than 100 officers. The heroic defence of Londonderry was attended with the most important consequences; and had it taken place in a more conspicuous scene of action, it might have ranked London raised. BOOK I. with the most celebrated military events of the 1689. same kind in the present or any other age-with the sieges of Haerlem, of Leyden, or Rochelle. The town of Inniskillen also distinguished itself by a very gallant and successful resistance, of which a minute, and, now that more than a century has intervened, somewhat tedious detail is to be found in the histories of the time. Unprosperous under M. Schomberg. On the 12th of August, Maréchal Schomberg, Campaign a general of great reputation and experience, who had accompanied king William on his expedition to England, and who was now appointed to the chief command of the army destined for the relief of Ireland, landed with his troops, amounting to about 16,000 men, at Carrickfergus. After taking possession of the towns of Carrickfergus and Belfast with little opposition, he began his march to the southward. Upon his approach the Irish abandoned Newry, a strong post, and Dundalk ; and here, in a situation very ineligible, M. Schomberg encamped his army in a low moist ground, having the town of Dundalk and the river towards the south, the Newry mountains to the east, and to the North, hills and morasses intermixed. We are told that the maréchal meant to have continued his progress, but was disappointed of his train of artillery, which was to have been embarked at Chester for Carlingford. The army, therefore, remained wholly inactive during the autumnal months at Dundalk: and inactivity is |
