hoping to find elsewhere stouter and more helpful allies than they had hitherto found amongst the half-starved cottiers of Mayo.
Crawford, afterwards the celebrated leader of the light division in Spain, rashly attacked them on the 7th of September with an inferior force near Ballynamore, and was very roughly handled by them; but on the 8th, Humbert, closely followed by Lake and Crawford, found himself confronted at Ballynamuck by Cornwallis and the main army. In this desperate situation, surrounded by upwards of 25,000 men, Humbert coolly drew up his little force, with no other object, it must be presumed, than to maintain the honour of the French flag. His rearguard, again attacked by Crawford, surrendered, but the remainder of the French continued to defend themselves for about half-an-hour longer, and contrived to take prisoner Lord Roden and some of his dragoons. They then, on the appearance of the main body of General Lake's army, laid down their arms—746 privates and 96 officers; having lost about 200 men since their landing at Killala, on the 22nd of August.
The loss of the British at the battle of Ballynamuck was officially stated at three killed, and thirteen wounded. Their losses at Castlebar and elsewhere were never communicated to the public.
Plowden, who gives a detailed account of Humbert's invasion in his Historical Review of the State of Ireland, published but five years after the event, observes:—"It must ever remain a humiliating reflection upon the power and lustre of the British arms that so pitiful a detachment as that of 1,100 French infantry should, in a kingdom in which there was an armed force of above 150,000 men, have not only put to rout a select army of 6,000 men prepared to receive the invaders, but also provided themselves with ordnance and ammunition from our stores, taken several of our towns, marched 122 Irish (above 150 English) miles through the country, and kept arms in their victorious hands for seventeen days in the heart of an armed kingdom. But it was this English army which the gallant and uncompromising Abercromby had, on the 26th of the preceding February, found 'in such a state of licentiousness as must render it formidable to every one but the enemy.'"
Although the private letters of Lord Cornwallis, General Lake and Captain Herbert Taylor, which are now submitted to us, breathe nothing but indignation and disgust at the misconduct, insubordination, and cruelty of their panic-stricken troops, the public despatches, as the custom is, contain unalloyed praise.
A lengthy despatch penned by General Lake, on the evening of the surrender of Humbert's little band, is worded almost as emphatically as Wellington's despatch after Waterloo; about thirty officers are especially mentioned in it by name, and the conduct of the cavalry is sub-sarcastically described as having been "highly conspicuous." Lord Cornwallis's general order, too, dated on the following day, declares "that he cannot too much applaud the zeal and spirit which has been manifested by the army from the commencement of the operations against the invading enemy until the
