would have escaped. The obscurity enabled Sarsfield, with a few squadrons which still remained unbroken, to cover the retreat. Of the conquerors six hundred were killed, and about a thousand wounded.
The English slept that night on the field of battle. On the following day they buried their companions in arms, and then marched westward. The vanquished were left unburied, a strange and ghastly spectacle. Four thousand Irish corpses were counted on the field of battle. A hundred and fifty lay in one small inclosure, a hundred and twenty in another. But the slaughter had not been confined to the field of battle. One who was there tells us that, from the top of the hill on which the Celtic camp had been pitched, he saw the country, to the distance of near four miles, white with the naked bodies of the slain. The plain looked, he said, like an immense pasture covered by flocks of sheep. As usual, different estimates were formed even by eyewitnesses. But it seems probable that the number of the Irish who fell was not less than seven thousand. Soon a multitude of dogs came to feast on the carnage. These beasts became so fierce, and acquired such a taste for human flesh, that it was long dangerous for men to travel this road otherwise than in companies.[1]
The beaten army had now lost all the appearance of an army, and resembled a rabble crowding home from a fair after a faction fight. One great stream of fugitives ran towards Galway, another towards Limerick. The roads to both cities were covered with weapons which had been flung away. Ginkell offered sixpence for every musket. In a short time so many waggon loads were collected that he reduced the price to twopence; and still great numbers of muskets came in.[2]
- ↑ Story's Continuation; London Gazette, July 20, 23, 1691; Mémoires de Berwick; Life of James, ii. 456; Burnet, ii. 79; Macariæ Excidium; Light to the Blind; Letter from the English camp to Sir Arthur Rawdon, in the Rawdon Papers; History of William the Third, 1702.
The narratives to which I have referred differ very widely from each other. Nor can the difference be ascribed solely or chiefly to partiality. For no two narratives differ more widely than that which will be found in the Life of James, and that which will be found in the memoirs of his son.
In consequence, I suppose, of the fall of Saint Ruth, and of the absence of D'Usson, there is at the French War Office no despatch containing a detailed account of the battle.
- ↑ Story's Continuation.
