The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

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The terms of the civil treaty were very different from those
which Ginkell had sternly refused to grant. It was not stipulated
that the Roman Catholics of Ireland should be competent to hold
any political or military office, or that they should be admitted
into any corporation. But they obtained a promise that they
should enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as
were consistent with the law, or as they had enjoyed in the reign
of Charles the Second.

To all inhabitants of Limerick, and to all officers and soldiers
in the Jacobite army, who should submit to the government and
notify their submission by taking the oath of allegiance, an
entire amnesty was promised. They were to retain their property;
they were to be allowed to exercise any profession which they had
exercised before the troubles; they were not to be punished for
any treason, felony, or misdemeanour committed since the
accession of the late King; nay, they were not to be sued for
damages on account of any act of spoliation or outrage which they
might have committed during the three years of confusion. This
was more than the Lords justices were constitutionally competent
to grant. It was therefore added that the government would use
its utmost endeavours to obtain a Parliamentary ratification of
the treaty.128

As soon as the two instruments had been signed, the English
entered the city, and occupied one quarter of it. A narrow, but
deep branch of the Shannon separated them from the quarter which
was still in the possession of the Irish.129

In a few hours a dispute arose which seemed likely to produce a
renewal of hostilities. Sarsfield had resolved to seek his
fortune in the service of France, and was naturally desirous to
carry with him to the Continent such a body of troops as would be
an important addition to the army of Lewis. Ginkell was as
naturally unwilling to send thousands of men to swell the forces
of the enemy. Both generals appealed to the treaty. Each
construed it as suited his purpose, and each complained that the
other had violated it. Sarsfield was accused of putting one of
his officers under arrest for refusing to go to the Continent.
Ginkell, greatly excited, declared that he would teach the Irish
to play tricks with him, and began to make preparations for a
cannonade. Sarsfield came to the English camp, and tried to
justify what he had done. The altercation was sharp. "I submit,"
said Sarsfield, at last: "I am in your power." "Not at all in my
power," said Ginkell, "go back and do your worst." The imprisoned
officer was liberated; a sanguinary contest was averted; and the
two commanders contented themselves with a war of words.130
Ginkell put forth proclamations assuring the Irish that, if they
would live quietly in their own land, they should be protected
and favoured, and that if they preferred a military life, they
should be admitted into the service of King William. It was added
that no man, who chose to reject this gracious invitation and to
become a soldier of Lewis, must expect ever again to set foot on
the island. Sarsfield and Wauchop exerted their eloquence on the
other side. The present aspect of affairs, they said, was
doubtless gloomy; but there was bright sky beyond the cloud. The
banishment would be short. The return would be triumphant. Within
a year the French would invade England. In such an invasion the
Irish troops, if only they remained unbroken, would assuredly
bear a chief part. In the meantime it was far better for them to
live in a neighbouring and friendly country, under the parental
care of their own rightful King, than to trust the Prince of
Orange, who would probably send them to the other end of the
world to fight for his ally the Emperor against the Janissaries.

The help of the Roman Catholic clergy was called in. On the day
on which those who had made up their minds to go to France were
required to announce their determination, the priests were
indefatigable in exhorting. At the head of every regiment a
sermon was preached on the duty of adhering to the cause of the
Church, and on the sin and danger of consorting with
unbelievers.131 Whoever, it was said, should enter the service of
the usurpers would do so at the peril of his soul. The heretics
affirmed that, after the peroration, a plentiful allowance of
brandy was served out to the audience, and that, when the brandy
had been swallowed, a Bishop pronounced a benediction. Thus duly
prepared by physical and moral stimulants, the garrison,
consisting of about fourteen thousand infantry, was drawn up in
the vast meadow which lay on the Clare bank of the Shannon. Here
copies of Ginkell's proclamation were profusely scattered about;
and English officers went through the ranks imploring the men not
to ruin themselves, and explaining to them the advantages which
the soldiers of King William enjoyed. At length the decisive
moment came. The troops were ordered to pass in review. Those who
wished to remain in Ireland were directed to file off at a
particular spot. All who passed that spot were to be considered
as having made their choice for France. Sarsfield and Wauchop on
one side, Porter, Coningsby and Ginkell on the other, looked on
with painful anxiety. D'Usson and his countrymen, though not
uninterested in the spectacle, found it hard to preserve their
gravity. The confusion, the clamour, the grotesque appearance of
an army in which there could scarcely be seen a shirt or a pair
of pantaloons, a shoe or a stocking, presented so ludicrous a
contrast to the orderly and brilliant appearance of their
master's troops, that they amused themselves by wondering what
the Parisians would say to see such a force mustered on the plain
of Grenelle.132

First marched what was called the Royal regiment, fourteen
hundred strong. All but seven went beyond the fatal point.
Ginkell's countenance showed that he was deeply mortified. He was
consoled, however, by seeing the next regiment, which consisted
of natives of Ulster, turn off to a man. There had arisen,
notwithstanding the community of blood, language and religion, an
antipathy between the Celts of Ulster and those of the other
three provinces; nor is it improbable that the example and
influence of Baldearg O'Donnel may have had some effect on the
people of the land which his forefathers had ruled.133 In most of
the regiments there was a division of opinion; but a great
majority declared for France. Henry Luttrell was one of those who
turned off. He was rewarded for his desertion, and perhaps for
other services, with a grant of the large estate of his elder
brother Simon, who firmly adhered to the cause of James, with a
pension of five hundred pounds a year from the Crown, and with
the abhorrence of the Roman Catholic population. After living in
wealth, luxury and infamy, during a quarter of a century, Henry
Luttrell was murdered while going through Dublin in his sedan
chair; and the Irish House of Commons declared that there was
reason to suspect that he had fallen by the revenge of the
Papists.134 Eighty years after his death his grave near
Luttrellstown was violated by the descendants of those whom he
had betrayed, and his skull was broken to pieces with a
pickaxe.135 The deadly hatred of which he was the object
descended to his son and to his grandson; and, unhappily, nothing
in the character either of his son or of his grandson tended to
mitigate the feeling which the name of Luttrell excited.136

When the long procession had closed, it was found that about a
thousand men had agreed to enter into William's service. About
two thousand accepted passes from Ginkell, and went quietly home.
About eleven thousand returned with Sarsfield to the city. A few
hours after the garrison had passed in review, the horse, who
were encamped some miles from the town, were required to make
their choice; and most of them volunteered for France.137

Sarsfield considered the troops who remained with him as under an
irrevocable obligation to go abroad; and, lest they should be
tempted to retract their consent, he confined them within the
ramparts, and ordered the gates to be shut and strongly guarded.
Ginkell, though in his vexation he muttered some threats, seems
to have felt that he could not justifiably interfere. But the
precautions of the Irish general were far from being completely
successful. It was by no means strange that a superstitious and
excitable kerne, with a sermon and a dram in his head, should be
ready to promise whatever his priests required; neither was it
strange that, when he had slept off his liquor, and when
anathemas were no longer ringing in his ears, he should feel
painful misgivings. He had bound himself to go into exile,
perhaps for life, beyond that dreary expanse of waters which
impressed his rude mind with mysterious terror. His thoughts ran
on all that he was to leave, on the well known peat stack and
potatoe ground, and on the mud cabin, which, humble as it was,
was still his home. He was never again to see the familiar faces
round the turf fire, or to hear the familiar notes of the old
Celtic songs. The ocean was to roll between him and the dwelling
of his greyheaded parents and his blooming sweetheart. Here were
some who, unable to bear the misery of such a separation, and,
finding it impossible to pass the sentinels who watched the
gates, sprang into the river and gained the opposite bank. The
number of these daring swimmers, however, was not great; and the
army would probably have been transported almost entire if it had
remained at Limerick till the day of embarkation. But many of the
vessels in which the voyage was to be performed lay at Cork; and
it was necessary that Sarsfield should proceed thither with some
of his best regiments. It was a march of not less than four days
through a wild country. To prevent agile youths, familiar with
all the shifts of a vagrant and predatory life, from stealing off
to the bogs, and woods under cover of the night, was impossible.

Indeed, many soldiers had the audacity to run away by broad
daylight before they were out of sight of Limerick Cathedral. The
Royal regiment, which had, on the day of the review, set so
striking an example of fidelity to the cause of James, dwindled
from fourteen hundred men to five hundred. Before the last ships
departed, news came that those who had sailed by the first ships
had been ungraciously received at Brest. They had been scantily
fed; they had been able to obtain neither pay nor clothing;
though winter was setting in, they slept in the fields with no
covering but the hedges. Many had been heard to say that it would
have been far better to die in old Ireland than to live in the
inhospitable country to which they had been banished. The effect
of those reports was that hundreds, who had long persisted in
their intention of emigrating, refused at the last moment to go
on board, threw down their arms, and returned to their native
villages.138

Sarsfield perceived that one chief cause of the desertion which
was thinning his army was the natural unwillingness of the men
to leave their families in a state of destitution. Cork and its
neighbourhood were filled with the kindred of those who were
going abroad. Great numbers of women, many of them leading,
carrying, suckling their infants, covered all the roads which led
to the place of embarkation. The Irish general, apprehensive of
the effect which the entreaties and lamentations of these poor
creatures could not fail to produce, put forth a proclamation, in
which he assured his soldiers that they should be permitted to
carry their wives and families to France. It would be injurious
to the memory of so brave and loyal a gentleman to suppose that
when he made this promise he meant to break it. It is much more
probable that he had formed an erroneous estimate of the number
of those who would demand a passage, and that he found himself,
when it was too late to alter his arrangements, unable to keep
his word. After the soldiers had embarked, room was found for the
families of many. But still there remained on the water side a
great multitude clamouring piteously to be taken on board. As the
last boats put off there was a rush into the surf. Some women
caught hold of the ropes, were dragged out of their depth, clung
till their fingers were cut through, and perished in the waves.
The ships began to move. A wild and terrible wail rose from the
shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled by
hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith. Even the stern
Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three
years, left the undisputed lord of the bloodstained and
devastated island, could not hear unmoved that bitter cry, in
which was poured forth all the rage and all the sorrow of a
conquered nation.139

The sails disappeared. The emaciated and brokenhearted crowd of
those whom a stroke more cruel than that of death had made widows
and orphans dispersed, to beg their way home through a wasted
land, or to lie down and die by the roadside of grief and hunger.
The exiles departed, to learn in foreign camps that discipline
without which natural courage is of small avail, and to retrieve
on distant fields of battle the honour which had been lost by a
long series of defeats at home. In Ireland there was peace. The
domination of the colonists was absolute. The native population
was tranquil with the ghastly tranquillity of exhaustion and of
despair. There were indeed outrages, robberies, fireraisings,
assassinations. But more than a century passed away without one
general insurrection. During that century, two rebellions were
raised in Great Britain by the adherents of the House of Stuart.
But neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at Scone, nor
when the younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard of
that House set up in Connaught or Munster. In 1745, indeed, when
the Highlanders were marching towards London, the Roman Catholics
of Ireland were so quiet that the Lord Lieutenant could, without
the smallest risk, send several regiments across Saint George's
Channel to recruit the army of the Duke of Cumberland. Nor was
this submission the effect of content, but of mere stupefaction
and brokenness of heart. The iron had entered into the soul. The
memory of past defeats, the habit of daily enduring insult and
oppression, had cowed the spirit of the unhappy nation. There
were indeed Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and
ambition; but they were to be found every where except in
Ireland, at Versailles and at Saint Ildefonso, in the armies of
Frederic and in the armies of Maria Theresa. One exile became a
Marshal of France. Another became Prime Minister of Spain. If he
had staid in his native land he would have been regarded as an
inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who drank
the glorious and immortal memory. In his palace at Madrid he had
the pleasure of being assiduously courted by the ambassador of
George the Second, and of bidding defiance in high terms to the
ambassador of George the Third.140 Scattered over all Europe were
to be found brave Irish generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists,
Irish Counts, Irish Barons, Irish Knights of Saint Lewis and of
Saint Leopold, of the White Eagle and of the Golden Fleece, who,
if they had remained in the house of bondage, could not have been
ensigns of marching regiments or freemen of petty corporations.
These men, the natural chiefs of their race, having been
withdrawn, what remained was utterly helpless and passive. A
rising of the Irishry against the Englishry was no more to be
apprehended than a rising of the women and children against the
men.141

There were indeed, in those days, fierce disputes between the
mother country and the colony; but in those disputes the
aboriginal population had no more interest than the Red Indians
in the dispute between Old England and New England about the
Stamp Act. The ruling few, even when in mutiny against the
government, had no mercy for any thing that looked like mutiny on
the part of the subject many. None of those Roman patriots, who
poniarded Julius Caesar for aspiring to be a king, would have had
the smallest scruple about crucifying a whole school of
gladiators for attempting to escape from the most odious and
degrading of all kinds of servitude. None of those Virginian
patriots, who vindicated their separation from the British empire
by proclaiming it to be a selfevident truth that all men were
endowed by the Creator with an unalienable right to liberty,
would have had the smallest scruple about shooting any negro
slave who had laid claim to that unalienable right.

And, in the same manner, the Protestant masters of Ireland, while
ostentatiously professing the political doctrines of Locke and
Sidney, held that a people who spoke the Celtic tongue and heard
mass could have no concern in those doctrines. Molyneux
questioned the supremacy of the English legislature. Swift
assailed, with the keenest ridicule and invective, every part of
the system of government. Lucas disquieted the administration of
Lord Harrington. Boyle overthrew the administration of the Duke
of Dorset. But neither Molyneux nor Swift, neither Lucas nor
Boyle, ever thought of appealing to the native population. They
would as soon have thought of appealing to the swine.142 At a
later period Henry Flood excited the dominant class to demand a
Parliamentary reform, and to use even revolutionary means for the
purpose of obtaining that reform. But neither he, nor those who
looked up to him as their chief, and who went close to the verge
of treason at his bidding, would consent to admit the subject
class to the smallest share of political power. The virtuous and
accomplished Charlemont, a Whig of the Whigs, passed a long life
in contending for what he called the freedom of his country. But
he voted against the law which gave the elective franchise to
Roman Catholic freeholders; and he died fixed in the opinion that
the Parliament House ought to be kept pure from Roman Catholic
members. Indeed, during the century which followed the
Revolution, the inclination of an English Protestant to trample
on the Irishry was generally proportioned to the zeal which he
professed for political liberty in the abstract. If he uttered
any expression of compassion for the majority oppressed by the
minority, he might be safely set down as a bigoted Tory and High
Churchman.143

All this time hatred, kept down by fear, festered in the hearts
of the children of the soil. They were still the same people that
had sprung to arms in 1641 at the call of O'Neill, and in 1689 at
the call of Tyrconnel. To them every festival instituted by the
State was a day of mourning, and every public trophy set up by
the State was a memorial of shame. We have never known, and can
but faintly conceive, the feelings of a nation doomed to see
constantly in all its public places the monuments of its
subjugation. Such monuments every where met the eye of the Irish
Roman Catholics. In front of the Senate House of their country,
they saw the statue of their conqueror. If they entered, they saw
the walls tapestried with the defeats of their fathers. At
length, after a hundred years of servitude, endured without one
vigorous or combined struggle for emancipation, the French
revolution awakened a wild hope in the bosoms of the oppressed.
Men who had inherited all the pretensions and all the passions of
the Parliament which James had held at the Kings Inns could not
hear unmoved of the downfall of a wealthy established Church, of
the flight of a splendid aristocracy, of the confiscation of an
immense territory. Old antipathies, which had never slumbered,
were excited to new and terrible energy by the combination of
stimulants which, in any other society, would have counteracted
each other. The spirit of Popery and the spirit of Jacobinism,
irreconcilable antagonists every where else, were for once
mingled in an unnatural and portentous union. Their joint
influence produced the third and last rising up of the aboriginal
population against the colony. The greatgrandsons of the soldiers
of Galmoy and Sarsfield were opposed to the greatgrandsons of the
soldiers of Wolseley and Mitchelburn. The Celt again looked
impatiently for the sails which were to bring succour from Brest;
and the Saxon was again backed by the whole power of England.
Again the victory remained with the well educated and well
organized minority. But, happily, the vanquished people found
protection in a quarter from which they would once have had to
expect nothing but implacable severity. By this time the
philosophy of the eighteenth century had purifed English Whiggism
from that deep taint of intolerance which had been contracted
during a long and close alliance with the Puritanism of the
seventeenth century. Enlightened men had begun to feel that the
arguments by which Milton and Locke, Tillotson and Burnet, had
vindicated the rights of conscience might be urged with not less
force in favour of the Roman Catholic than in favour of the
Independent or the Baptist. The great party which traces its
descent through the Exclusionists up to the Roundheads continued
during thirty years, in spite of royal frowns and popular
clamours, to demand a share in all the benefits of our free
constitution for those Irish Papists whom the Roundheads and the
Exclusionists had considered merely as beasts of chase or as
beasts of burden. But it will be for some other historian to
relate the vicissitudes of that great conflict, and the late
triumph of reason and humanity. Unhappily such a historian will
have to relate that the triumph won by such exertions and by such
sacrifices was immediately followed by disappointment; that it
proved far less easy to eradicate evil passions than to repeal
evil laws; and that, long after every trace of national and
religious animosity had been obliterated from the Statute Book,
national and religious animosities continued to rankle in the
bosoms of millions. May he be able also to relate that wisdom,
justice and time gradually did in Ireland what they had done in
Scotland, and that all the races which inhabit the British isles
were at length indissolubly blended into one people!

CHAPTER XVIII

Opening of the Parliament--Debates on the Salaries and Fees of
Official Men--Act excluding Papists from Public Trust in Ireland-
-Debates on the East India Trade--Debates on the Bill for
regulating Trials in Cases of High Treason--Plot formed by
Marlborough against the Government of William--Marlborough's Plot
disclosed by the Jacobites--Disgrace of Marlborough; Various
Reports touching the Cause of Marlborough's Disgrace.--Rupture
between Mary and Anne--Fuller's Plot--Close of the Session; Bill
for ascertaining the Salaries of the Judges rejected--Misterial
Changes in England--Ministerial Changes in Scotland--State of the
Highlands--Breadalbane employed to negotiate with the Rebel
Clans--Glencoe--William goes to the Continent; Death of Louvois--
The French Government determines to send an Expedition against
England--James believes that the English Fleet is friendly to
him--Conduct of Russell--A Daughter born to James--Preparations
made in England to repel Invasion--James goes down to his Army at
La Hogue--James's Declaration--Effect produced by James's
Declaration--The English and Dutch Fleets join; Temper of the
English Fleet--Battle of La Hogue--Rejoicings in England--Young's
Plot

ON the nineteenth of October 1691, William arrived at Kensington
from the Netherlands.144 Three days later he opened the
Parliament. The aspect of affairs was, on the whole, cheering. By
land there had been gains and losses; but the balance was in
favour of England. Against the fall of Mons might well be set off
the taking of Athlone, the victory of Aghrim, the surrender of
Limerick and the pacification of Ireland. At sea there had been
no great victory; but there had been a great display of power and
of activity; and, though many were dissatisfied because more had
not been done, none could deny that there had been a change for
the better. The ruin caused by the foibles and vices of
Torrington had been repaired; the fleet had been well equipped;
the rations had been abundant and wholesome; and the health of
the crews had consequently been, for that age, wonderfully good.
Russell, who commanded the naval forces of the allies, had in
vain offered battle to the French. The white flag, which, in the
preceding year, had ranged the Channel unresisted from the Land's
End to the Straits of Dover, now, as soon as our topmasts were
descried twenty leagues off, abandoned the open sea, and retired
into the depths of the harbour of Brest. The appearance of an
English squadron in the estuary of the Shannon had decided the
fate of the last fortress which had held out for King James; and
a fleet of merchantmen from the Levant, valued at four millions
sterling, had, through dangers which had caused many sleepless
nights to the underwriters of Lombard Street, been convoyed safe
into the Thames.145 The Lords and Commons listened with signs of
satisfaction to a speech in which the King congratulated them on
the event of the war in Ireland, and expressed his confidence
that they would continue to support him in the war with France.
He told them that a great naval armament would be necessary, and
that, in his opinion, the conflict by land could not be
effectually maintained with less than sixty-five thousand men.146