town in the County Cork, (erected from English confiscations made in Ireland, at the beginning of that, and the conclusion of the previous century,) being from race, from creed, and from the success of the Prince of Orange in England, equally favourable to the Revolution, disaffected to King James, and hostile to the nation arming in his favour, fell by surprise upon their small Jacobite or Irish garrison of only 2 companies of foot, and 1 troop of horse, under Captain Daniel O'Neill, killed a Serjeant and 2 soldiers, seized all their arms, clothes, and horses, and shut the gates, before the Earl of Clancarty, who was advancing with a reinforcement of 6 companies to that detachment of his men which was thus overpowered, could reach the place. About the same time, Captain Henry Boyle, father of the 1st Earl of Shannon, and a descendant of the original English "settler" who founded Bandon, also attempted an insurrection, by standing on his defence at his residence of Castle-Martyr, in the same County, with 140 followers; while William O'Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin, reared a Protestant in London, and who was an experienced officer, having fought in the war of Catalonia, lost an eye in a sea-fight against the Algerines, and been for several years British Governor and Vice-Admiral of Tangier in Morocco, and Colonel of the Tangier Regiment of Foot, headed, with similar intentions to those of Captain Boyle, a considerable number of Williamite insurgents. But Lieutenant-General Justin Mac Carthy prevented any effective co-operation with those movements in the city of Cork, and the adjacent villages, by taking up the arms and horses of the Anglo-Protestant inhabitants, or Revolution party there; and collected such a body of mounted men and 2 or 3 field-pieces, that the Williamites of Bandon found themselves compelled to seek pardon, by opening their gates, agreeing to pay £1000, and to level their walls, which have never since been re-built; Captain Boyle was likewise obliged to surrender; and the Earl of Inchiquin and his followers had to give up their arms. By these successes, and the consequent capitulation, to Captain Phelim Mac Carthy and a superior Irish force, of a party of English colonists, who, with their adherents, had fortified themselves at Kilowen house, in Kerry, under the expectation of assistance from England, every attempt at Williamite insurrection in Munster was put down, previous to King James's arrival from France, on the 22nd of March, 1689, at Kinsale. That Monarch, upon his landing, was received by the Lieutenant-General and his nephew, the Earl of Clancarty. By the Lieutenant-General, the King was informed in council of the state of the country, and was entertained by the Fat.; whom he rewarded, for his loyalty, by making him a Lord of the badchamber, appointing him Clerk of the Crown and Peace for the Provinss by letters patent, and creating his infantry regiment a Royal Kin of Guards. To the Lieutenant-General, James, in order to cove regular force as soon as possible, gave directions, before leaving to regiment and weapon the levies designed there for dragoons; and then to despatch quickly for Dublin the arms, landed from the French fleet. Previous, also, to bar ar for Cork, the King, inspecting Kinsale, left due grace for place from any sudden attempt of the enemy; commite. L of those orders to Lieutenant-General Mac Cartuy command under him, the gallant M. de Bois XIV.'s Guards, who was sent, with the rank of Destin Major-General, to Ireland; and who subsequent g CNE

for the successful defence of Limerick against the Prince of Orange. On James's return to Dublin from Derry early in May, in order to make arrangements for the meeting of the Irish Parliament then at hand, and to forward to his small and very badly-supplied force before the latter place, such means as could be collected for attacking it, LieutenantGeneral Mac Carthy, as the best qualified officer for inspecting the preparation of arms, ordnance, and engineering tools, was made MasterGeneral of Artillery in Ireland. In the Parliament, opened by the King in person on the 17th of the same month, the Lieutenant-General, who was Lord Lieutenant of the County of Cork, likewise sat as its representative along with the Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir Richard Nagle of Aghnakishy and Carrignaconny Castle, in that County, who framed the Bill for the Repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation; or the restoring to the Irish royalists the properties lost by them in fighting against the Parliamentarian or Cromwellian revolutionists; and yet confirmed to these revolutionists, after the Restoration, by those Acts. The Bill for their Repeal, thus drawn by one of the representatives of that County, was brought up by the Lieutenant-General as the other, on the 2nd of June, from the Irish House of Commons to the Irish House of Lords. The next day, the Lieutenant-General was created by King James, Lord Viscount Mountcashel, and Baron of Castle-Inchy, in the County of Cork, and, on the 4th, was introduced, and took his seat, by these titles, amongst the Peers of Ireland. The attention of the King, in military matters, being, next to the blockade of Derry, directed towards the equipment of such a force as might, with what were already in the North, be sufficient to reduce Enniskillen, Lord Mountcashel was appointed to command the additional body of troops designed for that undertaking.

The Enniskilleners, a hardy and stubborn race, mostly Scotch by origin, and Presbyterians by creed, had commenced their insurrection against King James's government in December, 1688, by refusing to admit into Enniskillen 2 companies of Sir Thomas Newcomen's Regiment of Foot, sent to quarter there. Between the time of this outbreak and the end of January, 1689, they continued to arm, and sent 2 envoys to the Prince of Orange, for assistance from England; in March, proclaimed the Prince and Princess as Sovereigns of these islands; and, early in April, rejected the terms offered to them, from King James, by Brigadier Pierce Butler, 3rd Lord Galmoy. That officer, after trying what could be accomplished, rather by intimidation than by other means, against the castle of Crom, a frontier post of the enemy, about 16 miles from Enniskillen, found himself obliged by the determination of his opponents, the insufficiency of his force, and his want of artillery, to retire without effecting any thing. The Enniskilleners, being strengthened by numbers of the bravest of the Protestants of Sligo, Donegal, Cavan, Leitrim, and Monaghan, whom the defeats of their forces elsewhere by the Irish army could not frighten into submission, occasioned such a diversion to the Irish blockade of Derry, and extended their predatory excursions so widely, that, besides a force stationed under Brigadier Patrick Sarsfield on the Connaught side of Lough Erne to guard the country in that direction, and the detachment of another force, under the Duke of Berwick, from the Irish army before Derry towards Enniskillen, that 3rd body of troops, previously mentioned as more especially designed for reducing those insurgents, was to proceed against

them, under Lord Mountcashel. From the scarcity and the difficulty of preparing military necessaries in Ireland, and the insufficiency with which such supplies had been furnished by France, Lord Mountcashel's troops could not be assembled for action at Belturbet, before the 6th of August. They consisted of 3 complete regiments of infantry, 2 regiments of dragoons, and some horse; the infantry 2418, the dragoons 1086, the horse 96; the total 3600 men; and they had 7 brass fieldguns, with 1 heavy iron piece, for battery. These levies were the bestequipped portion of the King's army, and, with the aid that might be expected from Brigadier Patrick Sarsfield, and the Duke of Berwick, were judged sufficient for the reduction of the Enniskilleners; whose force then under command, besides irregulars, amounted to 30 companies of foot, 17 troops of horse, and 3 troops of dragoons; the foot 2216, the horse 950, the dragoons 180; the total 3346 men; and their artillery 6 field-pieces. But, as belonging to a class, who, having constituted both a political and religious "ascendancy" in Ireland, were before, as well as since, the Revolution, familiar with the use of fire-arms, and whose independent sort of creed, and comparatively easy circumstances, served to form an equally spirited and comfortable yeomanry, the Enniskillen soldiery were composed of an order of men much superior to the mass of Lord Mountcashel's troops; who, besides the moral, political, and military disadvantages under which they laboured, from the general inferiority of their condition previous to their entering the army, had not subsequently seen any service to raise them above raw levies.*

Lord Mountcashel, having collected his forces at Belturbet on the 6th of August, came on the 7th before Crom castle, and commenced raising a battery against it; of which an account was forwarded by the Governor, Creighton, to Enniskillen, and received there that night. By the morning of the 8th, this battery began to play upon the castle, while the Irish made their approaches very near it; and, though they suffered by the small shot of the garrison, and the fire of long fowling-pieces in the place, on rests, for killing game about the Lough, which served as a light artillery, yet the Governor was so alarmed at the effects of the besiegers' cannon, that he wrote pressingly to Enniskillen for relief. To this 2nd letter, which reached Enniskillen early the same day, or the 8th, Colonel William Wolseley, an able English officer who had arrived, by the way of Ballyshannon from England, at Enniskillen, only the night before, and upon whom, owing to the sickness of Colonel Gustavus Hamilton, the command of the town and its forces then devolved, replied, that, by the 10th, he would advance from Enniskillen, to endeavour to raise the siege of Crom. The Colonel, from the slight opinion he entertained of the strength of Enniskillen, having determined to march out and engage Lord Mountcashel alone, rather than wait to be besieged there both by his Lordship and Brigadier Sarsfield, accordingly despatched away orders, that all the Enniskillen troops who could be spared from Ballyshannon, as well as those quartered 2 or 3 miles beyond it, should, the following day, or the 9th, make a forced march, so as to be at Enniskillen that

"I should be very sorry," said Napoleon, "to undertake a war with an army of recruits." The only portion of Lord Mountcashel's force, that would appear to have constituted an exception to the term "recruits," as having had any thing like due training, was his own regiment of infantry. The numbers on each side in this Enniskillen contest are either copied or deduced from data unobjectionable to either party.

night, and be ready, on the 10th, to go and fight Lieutenant-General Mac Carthy. The night of the same day, or the 8th, on which he issued these commands, Wolseley, likewise receiving a report of LieutenantGeneral Mac Carthy's intending to send, next day, an Irish detachment to establish itself at the castle of Lisnaskea, within 10 miles of Enniskillen, directed Lieutenant-Colonel Berry, another English officer lately arrived at Enniskillen, to proceed the following morning, or the 9th, with 4 troops of horse, 1 of dragoons, and 2 companies of foot, or about 404 men, towards Lisnaskea, to garrison its castle, if tenable, and to learn all he could respecting the strength and position of the Irish; assuring him of being followed, in due course, by the whole of the Enniskillen forces, to raise the siege of Crom. Berry marched, on the morning of the 9th, to Lisnaskea, to anticipate the Irish in taking possession of its castle; which, however, he reached, without meeting any hostile party; and, finding the edifice too much out of order to be worth a garrison, he kept his men that night in the open fields, about 6 miles from the Irish. By the day of Berry's advance to Lisnaskea, or the 9th, Lord Mountcashel had already gained the entrenchments about Crom castle, with a facility so animating to his raw troops, that, contrary to his express orders to go no further, they had imprudently rushed on towards the very walls of the fortress; the loss being thus greater than it otherwise would, or from 75 to 80 killed or wounded, including the Lieutenant-Colonel and several other officers of his Lordship's regiment, and 3 of his cannoniers. Yet, through the formation of a battery under cover of the night, he calculated on being enabled to give a general assault, when he was informed 4000 men were coming from Enniskillen, in order to relieve Crom. In this state of things, his post there being very ineligible for giving battle, his Lordship withdrew 2 miles thence towards Newtown-Butler; that if the Enniskilleners approached, he might be in a better situation to receive them; or that, if they should not do so, he might still be sufficiently at hand to resume his operations against the castle. And, as an additional precaution with reference to the enemy's approach, the Clare or O'Brien's Regiment of Dragoons were to proceed early next morning, or the 10th, towards Lisnaskea, and after driving before them such a hostile advanced party as it might appear they would be able to dispose of, they were to halt at, and occupy a certain pass, where, it was said, that 100 men might stop 10,000! The officer to command the dragoons, with these instructions, was Brigadier Anthony Hamilton.

This accomplished gentleman, and elegant writer, known, in the light literature of France, as the "Comte Antoine Hamilton," author of the "Mémoires du Comte de Grammont," &c., was (by the Lady Mary Butler, sister of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde) the 2nd surviving son of Sir George Hamilton, of the house of Abercorn, Receiver-General of Ireland, under King Charles I. Anthony had risen to military rank in France, like his 3 brothers-George, created a Count, and Maréchal de Camp or Major-General, for his services against the Germans, and 1st husband of the beautiful Frances Jennings, subsequently Duchess of Tyrconnell-Richard, also an officer of reputation in Louis the XIV.'s armies, banished the French Court for being in love with that Monarch's daughter, the Princess of Conti, to whom his conversation was most agreeable, and, in this war, as a Lieutenant-General in the Irish army, distinguished at Derry and the Boyne-and John, for his military ex

perience abroad, made a Major-General in the same army, and eventually killed at Aughrim. After the accession of James II. to the throne, by which that preferment in their own country was opened to Irish Catholic officers, which they had been previously obliged to seek abroad, Anthony Hamilton was created a Privy Counsellor in Ireland, and Governor of Limerick, with a pension of £200 a year upon the Irish Establishment. On the revolt of England against the King in 1688, he retired, as his Sovereign did, to France, and was one of those officers who accompanied him from Brest to Ireland. He was then appointed Colonel to a Regiment of Infantry by the King, and finally Brigadier in the force, under Lord Mountcashel, designed to reduce Enniskillen.

Early in the morning of the 10th, as has been observed, the Clare Regiment of Dragoons, which might make about 543 men, advanced, under the Brigadier, towards Lisnaskea, and at 6 o'clock, when about 2 miles from that village, or near a place called Donough, they discerned the out-scouts of Lieutenant-Colonel Berry, who was then on his march from Lisnaskea, towards Lord Mountcashel's position. Berry, according to his design of not engaging any Irish corps till he could discover its strength, and be so reinforced and posted as to fight with advantage, ordered his men to retreat before the Irish, and sent off an express to Enniskillen, to represent, that the Irish, having raised the siege of Crom, were on the march towards Enniskillen in pursuit of him; and to impress the consequent necessity of his being joined, as speedily as possible, by Colonel Wolseley, with the rest of the Enniskillen troops. Wolseley, who was on the road from Enniskillen with those forces when he met the express, in order to give the more effectual assistance, despatched, in advance of himself and his main body, some troops of horse and dragoons to reinforce Berry. Meanwhile, Hamilton, when he had driven the Enniskillen detachment beyond the pass, where he might be secure with his dragoons, until rendered still more so by Lord Mountcashel, instead of halting, as he should have done, at that pass, transgressed his orders, by continuing to pursue Berry. In that officer's retreat from Donough to Lisnaskea, the Irish dragoons pressed so hard upon, and occasioned such disorder among, a portion of the Enniskillen cavalry, that, but for his exertions, with 1 or 2 of the best troops, in several times facing about, and thereby bringing the Irish to a stand, in order to draw up, the whole of the retiring force would have been certainly routed to Enniskillen. Of 2 roads, an old one on the right, and a new one on the left, leading from Lisnaskea to Enniskillen, Berry, in retiring through Lisnaskea, determined to follow the latter and nearer one to Lough Erne; as running through boggy and fenny ground, and affording several passes, where a defensive stand might be much more easily made than on the old road. When he had retreated about a mile from Lisnaskea, he arrived at a spot, that was well calculated to be maintained by a force as numerous as his, against one much stronger than the regiment of dragoons by which he was followed. It was a very boggy, deep defile, where a river crossed the road, whose breadth, for a considerable space before reaching the river, was so small, that 2 horsemen could scarcely ride abreast; and this road, through the bog, was, as it led to the river, flanked with underwood, affording a convenient shelter for musketeers, by whose fire, those approaching the river would consequently be commanded. Here Berry determined to engage; if the Enniskillen horse, who, by his efforts, and by the necessary obstacles to their being quickly