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Such was the battle of Aughrim, or Kilconnel, as it was called by the French, from the old Abbey to the left of the Irish position; a battle, unsuccessful indeed on the side of the Irish, but a Chæronea, or a Waterloo, fought with heroism, and lost without dishonour. "Looking amongst the dead three days after," says Story, "when all our own, and some of theirs were buried, I reckoned in some small inclosures 150, in others 120, &c. lying most of them by the ditches where they were shot!" Over such men, there was, and there could be, no superiority, but the success of chance, and the triumph of barbarity. Their remains were nearly all left exposed on the ground where they so nobly fell—a prey, says my authority, "to the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field." Yet, even among these, we find an instance of an affecting nature, which it is pleasing to contrast with the merciless ferocity exercised by the human brute against the brave defenders of their country. "There is," observes the English chaplain, "a true and remarkable story of a grey-hound belonging to an Irish officer: the gentleman was killed and stript in the battle, whose body the dog remained by night and day; and tho' he fed upon other corps with the rest of the dogs, yet he would not allow them or any thing else to touch that of his master. When all the corps were consumed, the other dogs departed, but this used to go in the night to the adjacent villages for food, about 4 hours—the horse-combat commencing at, and going on from, 2 to 3 o'clock-the contest being renewed by the 3 Huguenot regiments, on the English left, at 5-the combat being general at 6—and it being after 8 before Ginckle was victorious. (Story, Gazette, &c. ut sup.) French writers, London Gazette, and Dutch accounts, &c.

2 Cont. Hist. p. 137.

3 "It must in justice be confessed," says William's Orange biographer, Harris, from contemporary official sources, which I, also, have perused -"it must in justice be confessed, that the Irish fought this sharp battle with great resolution; which demonstrates, that the many defeats before this time sustained by them cannot be imputed to a national cowardice, with which some without reason impeached them, but to a defect in military discipline, and the use of arms, or to a want of skill and experience in their commanders. And now, had not St. Ruth been taken off, it would have been hard to say what the consequence of this day would have been." This admission is every thing from an Irish Williamite. 4 Mr. Otway very properly calls this dog a wolf-hound," or as we say, "an Irish wolf-dog;" the breed of which, though now almost extinct, was numerous in Ireland in Story's time, and familiarly known by the name of "grey-hound," though that appellation conveys quite a different idea at present.

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and presently to return again to the place where his master's bones were only then left: and thus he continued,” from July, when the battle was fought, "till January following, when one of Colonel Foulks's soldiers being quartered nigh hand, and going that way by chance, the dog, fearing he came to disturb his master's bones, flew upon the soldier: who, being surprized at the suddenness of the thing, unslung his piece, then upon his back, and killed the poor dog.' He expired, with the same fidelity to the remains of his unfortunate master, as that master had shown devotion to the cause of his unhappy country. And, in other countries, such devotion and fidelity would have been adorned and immortalized in the brightest colouring of sentiment and genius." But, in Ireland, all virtue was doomed

To fall beneath the arm of evil power,
And perish hopeless-

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to be crushed in life-and remain "cold and unhonoured” in death. Yet "other men and other times will arise,' perhaps even now have arisen-" to do justice to its memory;" for, in the history of nations, there are few spectacles more entitled to the admiration of the noble mind, and the sympathy of the generous and feeling heart, than the fate of the gallant men, and the faithful dog of Aughrim.

CHAPTER VIII.

Complete confutation of the notion of the Irish having "fought badly at home," by a full exposé of what an immense sum it took to put them down. Capabilities of Ireland for national or self-legislative independence, as contrasted with the native strength of Greece in the time of Philip and Alexander, Spain under Philip II., Holland from the time it threw off the Spanish yoke to the French revolution, Portugal before and after it cast off the same yoke, and Prussia down to the French Revolution. Concluding induction from the whole of the preceding facts, that Ireland is entitled to, would be able to attain, and can only expect justice from, a REPEAL OF THE UNION.

THE limits of this essay-already extended far beyond what was originally contemplated-compel me to close any Cont. Hist. p. 147.

2 I need scarcely advert to the Odyssey and the dog of Ulysses, and to the beautiful poem on "the dog of the nameless brave," during the 3 days of July, by Casimir Delavigne-of which a spirited English ver

observations on this war for the present with the following facts, from which the statements of those Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-Irish authorities, by whom Voltaire was led to mention the Irish as "fighting badly at home," will appear in a light more discreditable, perhaps, than the assertions of any set of scribblers that have ever contributed to mislead an historian's judgment, with the misrepresentations of national prejudice, factious rancour, and sectarian intolerance. The population of Ireland at the Revolution was not, at the outside, more than 1,500,000 persons. The Catholic, or genuinely Irish portion of these, who did not consider themselves as mere settlers in, but as natives of, the country, were not, at the most, above 1,000,000. The remaining 500,000 were Protestants, the great majority of whom owed their obnoxious possessions to conduct so contrary to all justice, that they were as hostile to Ireland as they were devoted to England, to whom they were alone indebted for existing as a privileged caste of bigoted and domineering planters, at the expense of the rights of others. The revenue of Ireland, about this period, when in its most flourishing state, or from 1682 to 1685, before the war in the country that reduced it to the lowest pitch, was only £266,209 a year. The war with this little Irish or Catholic population, of no more than 1,000,000 of persons of all descriptions, cost England and her Anglo-Irish planters 3 campaigns. In these the expenditure for her regular forces alone-in 1689 above 25,000, in 1690 above 41,000, and in 1691 above 37,000 men,-was as follows, according to her own official writer, so often quoted:

I.-"The army that landed with Duke Schomberg,

and that came some time after into Ireland, with those of the Derry and Inniskillin troops, received into pay under his Grace's command in the year 1689, being 9 regiments and 2 troops of horse, 4 regiments of dragoons, and 30 regiments of foot;"

their whole pay for that year would come to.... £869,410 7 6 II." His Majesty's (William's) royal army in that kingdom, in the year 1690, consisting of 2 troops of GUARDS, 23 regiments of horse, 5 regiments of dragoons, and 46 regiments of foot," their pay, considering the difference between the numbers

sion is to be found in the Reliques of Father Prout. But how could Moore have passed by such an incident for an Irish poet as that in the

text?

in the British and foreign regiments, would

amount to...

£1,287,630 2 0

III.—“ The army in that kingdom in the year 1691, commanded by Lieutenant-General Ginckle, being 20 regiments of norse, 5 of dragoons, and 42 regiments of foot," their pay for that year came to £1,161,830 12 10 IV. "Then the General Officers' pay, the train,

bread, wagons, transport ships, and other contin

gencies, make at least as much more, which is.. £6,637,742 5 0

Total expense of English regular forces in Ireland for 1689, 1690 and 1691, by Story's foregoing statements.....

English national debt (funded and unfunded) in
Dec. 1697, after the peace of Ryswick,..
Deduct national debt in March, 1689,...

.........

Total expense of war in Ireland and on the Continent,...

Deduct on account of Ireland,..

English war on the Continent,..

English war in Ireland,.....

£9,956,613 74

£21,515,742 13 84 £1,054,925 0 0

..£20,460,817 13 81

£9,956,613 7 4

£10,504,204 6 4

£9,956,613 7 4

Yet, to the immense sum of £9,956,613, 7s. 4d., as being only the expense of the British regular forces in Ireland, must be added, out of the seemingly-greater cost of the war on the Continent, a sum that would make the Irish war, in reality, the more expensive of the two; the deduction, adverted to, being necessary on the score of arms, &c., supplied to the Irish Williamite faction, which furnished as militia or yeomanry, according to Story, "at least 25,000 men."1 So that, without saying any thing of what the Williamite chaplain entitles, "the farther destruction of the Protestant interest, by cutting down improvements, burning houses, destroying of sheep and cattle, taking away of horses," &c., the cost of this 3 years' war to England against but 1,000,000 of Irish, would be nearer to £11,000,000 than £10,000,000-or an expenditure not only far above that of the contest against Louis XIV., but much greater than that to which perhaps any population, so small, and so miserably assisted as the Irish were by France, ever yet

This assertion respecting the full amount of the Irish Williamite militia is given in the concluding page (328) of Story's work, and tends to justify my previous observations on the subject, (page 216 & note,) though made in ignorance of such an assertion; the last 3 pages of the only copy of Story then in my possession having been torn out.

put any hostile nation, so vastly superior in organization, numbers, wealth, and alliances, as England then was. I may add that, even supposing the Irish revenue of £266,209 a year not to have been so much reduced as it was, by the estimated number of 100,000 young and old destroyed, and 300,000 “ruined and undone" in the course of the struggle, England was put to above 40 years' purchase for that revenue; or some millions more than the whole annual rental of her own territory was then worth; its amount being calculated on the very first authority, or that of Sir William Petty, not to have been, at that time, above £8,000,000 a year. Now if, under almost every disadvantage, this one million, not between EIGHT and NINE millions, of Irish, cost William's government such an enormous quantity of time, trouble, bloodshed, and expense to overcome them; and if that resistance which they gave to his immensely-superior power be called, "fighting badly at home," pray when did any nation ever fight well at home?-and can we wonder, that, though the Irish "were worsted," as Story observes, "yet their officers would confidently affirm, That THEIR men had as MUCH courage as those that beat them!" They HAD, at the very least! And, in spite of the long injustice done to their memory by the prejudice of a foreign, and the bigotry of a domestic usurpation, that country for which they suffered and bled would deserve to be enslaved indeed, if it did not deeply feel, in pride for their gallantry, though in sorrow for their defeat,

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Forget not the fields where they perish'd—

The truest, the last of the brave!

But what such a country as Ireland may be made FOR or AGAINST England, according to the justice or injustice with which she may be treated-according to the real union that may succeed, or the mock Union that MUST eventually fail between the 2 islands,-can be most clearly conceived by comparing the following historical circumstances with the great natural powers of a strong, fertile, and finely-situated insular territory, of 32,201 square miles; capable of sup

1 See, for all those facts, Introduction to the Parliamentary Census Report for 1821-Story, Cont. Hist. p. 316, 317, 318, 328, and preface -King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, appendix, p. 51-M'Culloch's edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. IV. p. 25 & 26-Hume, from the Parliamentary Journals, March, 1689-and Sir Wm. Petty, ap. Newenham's View of Ireland, p. 244.

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