PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

THE Publishers consider it requisite to observe, that the earlier sheets of this important work are chiefly and necessarily occupied by what may be termed the Army-List portion of it; or accounts of the several Jacobite regiments, with corresponding notices of their successive commanding officers, of the most distinguished families of Ireland, engaged at first in the War of the Revolution there, and subsequently in the campaigns on the Continent. Such preliminary details, though as essential for an honest or correct treatment, as for a proper comprehension, of the subject, and very attractive for many connected with the families thus noticed, may not be so agreeable to the taste of the general reader. But he will be amply compensated, for the intervention of such introductory particulars, by the remaining narrative, respecting hostile dynasties and conflicting nations for a century, extending from Book III. to Book X. There he will find the

A larger scene of action is display'd;

And, rising hence, a greater work is weigh'd."

DRYDEN'S VIRGIL, Æneis, vii., 60-67.

Nor will those sheets, containing the indispensable regimental and family preliminaries referred to, be without interest, on several points, for the public at large. The campaign of Newtownbutler, for example, will be read by every one; and the author's clear, broad-minded, and liberal account of the great triumph of the men of Enniskillen will be duly appreciated by all parties.

To compress into ciphers, rather than spread into words, whatever the former appeared more specially designed to express, has been adhered to by the author as a general rule; and so, it may be thought, to an extreme extent, as in preferring, for example, to write even 1 or 2, rather in figures, than in letters. But this, even if objected to, will not, it is hoped, be reckoned anything beyond an excusable peculiarity by those, who judge a book in the fair or liberal spirit of the poet's remark, that

"He, who expects a perfect work to see,

Expects what never was, and ne'er will be."

PREFACE.

AMONG the deficiencies of information connected with the history of Ireland, none, perhaps, has been more regretted, than the absence of a satisfactory narrative of the services of the great numbers of Irish, who devoted themselves to a military life abroad; at first, as belonging to the army of James II., and, afterwards, on account of the many obstacles to employment at home, created by the hostile sectarian and commercial legislation that followed the Treaty of Limerick. During the century from the fall of the Stuart dynasty in these islands to the 1st Revolution in France, the Irish exile was to be found, in the various armies of the Continent, from Russia to Spain. But, as a "restoration of the Stuarts was, for a long period, the only occurrence to which the oppressed majority of the Irish nation could look for a deliverance from the penal régime of the Revolution, and as the French cabinet, from the hostilities in which it was so much involved with England, had a greater interest, than other governments, to effect such a "restoration," or keep up an expectation of its being effected, there were far more Irish in the service of France, than of any other Continental power. The existence, in the French service, of a force so considerable in number, so distinguished in reputation, and so attached to the Stuart family, as the Irish Brigades, naturally gave an importance to the cause of that family, which it would not otherwise have possessed, either in these islands, or upon the Continent. An account of those Brigades consequently cannot be without much interest to a British reader, as associated with the claims of opposite dynasties to the government of his country. Indeed, without a due comprehension of the influence of the Irish element in the affairs of the ejected Royal Family, the history of Jacobitism, and, so far, that of Great Britain itself, must remain imperfect. To the feelings of an Irishman, (in the strict sense of the term,) an account of those gallant exiles in the service of France is a subject of higher and more peculiar interest, as constituting, for a century, (and too sad a century!) the bright, as contrasted with the dark side of the national story; Ormuzd abroad, to compensate for Ahriman at home. A general reader, too, cannot but be attracted by a series of military achievements from France, through Flanders, Italy, Germany, the Peninsula, besides Great Britain in

1745-6, to Sweden, Poland, the Crimea, and the East Indies in the Old World, and thence to the West India Islands and North America in the New. "If you would read truly great things," said a Spartan to Augustus Cæsar, "read the 7th book of Thucydides." And the spirit of the Spartan's observation to the Roman Emperor, with reference to the acts related by Thucydides, will be found fully applicable to others recorded in this work, with no inferiority to the Athenian in one respect, or a love of truth equal to his.

The history here submitted to the public consists of 10 books.* The 1st book, after such a view of the Revolution and War from 1688 to 1691, in Great Britain and Ireland, as to explain the origin of the Irish Brigades in France, is devoted to regimental accounts of the 3 earliest established Irish corps there, or those of Mountcashel, O'Brien, and Dillon, under their original and subsequent Colonels; and to the Continental campaigns of those corps till the arrival in France of the remains of King James's army from Ireland, after the Treaty of Limerick. The 2nd book proceeds with similar details respecting the regiments then organized from that army, as well as other subsequentlyformed national regiments; such details, like those respecting Mountcashel's Brigade, comprising biographies of the Colonels of each regiment, from its commencement to its extinction. The 3rd book, having accounted for the long-continued emigration of so many Irish, as soldiers, to France, by legislative as well as dynastic causes, describes the military services of the Brigades from 1692 to 1697, or the Peace of Ryswick; continuing its narrative to the decease of King James II. in 1701, and the acknowledgment of his son as James III. by those Irish corps, as his most zealous and valuable subjects abroad. The 4th book, opening with the War of the Spanish Succession, contains the interesting campaigns in Italy, Flanders, Germany, and the Peninsula, from 1701 to 1707. The 5th book commences in 1708 with James III.'s expedition from France for Scotland, in consequence of the Union; gives an account of that measure, as productive of subsequent struggles having relation to the Irish Brigade; in mentioning the capture of some officers of that corps attached to the expedition, alludes to the excitement occasioned by it in Ireland; and, having brought the War of the Spanish Succession and prolonged hostilities in Germany and Catalonia to a close, relates the Tory ministerial plans, with corresponding apprehensions among the Whigs, that James III., instead of George L., might be Queen Anne's successor. The 6th book, having contrasted George and James, in 1714, as rivals for royalty, notices the general aversion to, and the insurrections against, the former in Scotland and England,

• "All classical histories are in books. Gibbon says, that, if he came to give a complete revision and new edition of his work, he would call his chapters books."-Walpoliana.

shows

joined in Scotland by James and some Irish officers from France; the consequent alarm of the Whig-Hanoverian "ascendancy" in Ireland, and hostility towards the Catholics there; narrates the chivalrous adventures of the gallant Irish Jacobite, Charles Wogan, especially in delivering, along with some of his countrymen of the Brigade, the Princess Sobieski, subsequent Queen of James III., from her AustroHanoverian captivity; gives an outline of the war against France and England by Spain, under the administration of Cardinal Alberoni, and of the very strong Jacobite feeling in Great Britain and Ireland, favoured by the Cardinal, through invasions and risings planned against George I., under the Duke of Ormonde, and the last Sarsfield, Lord Lucan; then, having described the precautionary government measures, and opposite public feeling in Ireland favourable to Spain, presents a general review of the remarkable military career and obnoxious Jacobitism of the Irish Brigades, from a pamphlet, published in 1728, upon the necessity of the British Government's demanding an abolition of those corps in France and Spain; and, after a sketch of the war from 1733 to 1735 between France and Germany, and notices of eminent deceased officers of the Brigade, proceeds to the War of the Austrian Succession, and consequent engagement at Dettingen, in 1743, between the English and French, before any declaration of hostilities by either; and concludes with preparations, as regards the Brigade, for that declaration, in 1744. The 7th book, beginning with the French expedition designed in 1744 to land Prince Charles Stuart in England, glances at the state of Ireland with respect to that undertaking, refers to the baffling of England and her Allies in Flanders that year by the Marshal de Saxe, and gives, in connexion with the addition of a regiment to the Irish Brigade, a memoir of the Colonel, Count Thomas Arthur Lally. In 1745, it describes the battle of Fontenoy with the important part taken there by the Irish Brigade, the fortunate results for France during the rest of the campaign, and the consequent hostile legislation to the Brigade in Ireland by the colonial and sectarian "ascendancy" there. The enterprise of Prince Charles Stuart to Scotland, with which so many Irish of the Brigade, or others, were associated, follows, from his landing till his return from England at the close of 1745; when, after a notice of the death, &c., at Avignon, that year, of the old Duke of Ormonde, as head of the Jacobite party, a sketch is given of the effects of the Prince's enterprise in Britain upon political feeling in Ireland. The 8th book contains the sequel of the Prince's career in Scotland in 1746, till his escape, after the battle of Culloden, to the Continent; and resumes the narrative of the successful contest of France against England and her Allies in Flanders, from 1746 to the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, and conclusion of the most flourishing period of the history of the Irish Brigade. The 9th book, referring to the decline, from 1748, of the