up. By the latest intelligence, they would have probably twenty-four hours at least, and could therefore set to work deliberately. After consulting his American ally, General Sackville, La Roche decided upon a plan made from a local map, which had previously been supplied to him from Cork.
The American contingent, only thirty thousand strong, and consisting wholly of infantry, was stationed at Whitegate; twenty thousand men in line holding that village, together with the wooded shoulder of the hill above it westward which commands a view of Queenstown [ref. Chap. XIII. ],and ten thousand being held in reserve, along with five thousand French cavalry, in the hollow behind, on the road by which it will be remembered our heroine and her uncle, in their excursion, walked up from Whitegate to Fort Carlisle. This force of thirty-five thousand occupying the left of the invader’s position, was placed under the American commander, whose special duty it was, aided by the fleet in the basin, to keep a firm grip upon the landing place.
The French then deployed along the whole ridge of the downs as far as Roche’s Tower, throwing up redoubts and strengthening by embankments the stone walls of the pastures, some of which they loopholed. Their central or main body, thus arrayed in line, was forty-five thousand strong, and before laying out his right wing, General La Roche posted his reserve, cavalry and infantry, fifteen thousand, in the hollow in rear, the centre of the line being directly in front of that hollow, or at the point where the western arm of the B
AΤC
D (B C) runs up from the main road between Whitegate and Trabolgan [ref. Chap. XIII.]; finally, the mansion, grounds, and woods of Trobolgan itself were held by a French force of twenty-five thousand men, which, forming the right wing and touching the cliff all along, effectually guarded that flank
