Page:History of England (Macaulay) Vol 4.djvu/68

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appearance there raised the hopes of the garrison to a strange pitch. Numerous prophecies were recollected or invented. An O'Donnel with a red mark was to be the deliverer of his country; and Baldearg meant a red mark. An O'Donnel was to gain a great battle over the English near Limerick; and at Limerick the O'Donnel and the English were now brought face to face.[1]

While these predictions were eagerly repeated by the defenders of the city, evil presages, grounded not on barbarous oracles, but on grave military reasons, began to disturb William and his most experienced officers. The blow struck by Sarsfield had told; the artillery had been long in doing its work; that work was even now very imperfectly done; the stock of powder had begun to run low; the autumnal rain had begun to fall. The soldiers in the trenches were up to their knees in mire. No precaution was neglected; but, though drains were dug to carry off the water, and though pewter basins of usquebaugh and brandy blazed all night in the tents, cases of fever had already occurred, and it might well be apprehended that, if the army remained but a few days longer on that swampy soil, there would be a pestilence more terrible than that which had raged twelve months before under the walls of Dundalk.[2] A council of war was held. It was determined to make one great effort, and, if that effort failed, to raise the seige.

On the twenty-seventh of August, at three in the afternoon, the signal was given. Five hundred grenadiers rushed from the English trenches to the counterscarp, fired their pieces, and threw their grenades. The Irish fled into the town, and were followed by the assailants, who, in the excitement of victory,

  1. See the account of the O'Donnels in Sir William Betham's Irish Antiquarian Researches. It is strange that he makes no mention of Baldearg, whose appearance in Ireland is the most extraordinary event in the whole history of the race. See also Story's Impartial History; Macariæ Excidium, and Mr. O'Callaghan's note; Life of James, ii. 434; the Letter of O'Donnel to Avaux, and the Memorial entitled, "Mémoire donnée par un homme du Comte O'Donnel à M. D'Avaux."
  2. The reader will remember Corporal Trim's explanation of radical heat and radical moisture. Sterne is an authority not to be despised on these subjects. His boyhood was passed in barracks; he was constantly listening to the talk of old soldiers who had served under King William, and has used their stories like a man of true genius.