cluded the necessary measures for the defence of Mullingar, and having planted four pieces of cannon on the south side of that town, despatched the Rev. Mr. Trench, a Protestant clergyman, and a staunch Williamite, with a small party of horse, numbering thirty, to Ballyboy, where the Duke de Wirtemberg was stationed, to tell his Grace to reconnoitre about Banagher, and encamp in that neighbourhood. When this party reached their destination, they found Ballyboy in possession of the Irish, through whom, with great difficulty, they fought their way to Roscrea, where they found the Duke. On the 7th, the Baron de Ginckell sent another messenger to the Duke de Wirtemberg, with orders to join the rest of the army, and then marched to Ballymore, which was situated about half-way between Athlone and Mullingar. Convenient to this place was a fort bearing the same name. This fortification was erected on a peninsula that jetted into the lough, and had an area of about ten acres. On the south side, which was not protected by the waters of the lake, there were a wall and ditches, and on this side also stood the entrance. The road which led to it was very narrow, and a bog extended from the south-west in a north-western direction. The Irish, during the winter, fortified this place, and on the following spring a detachment of the regular army, withdrawn from the garrison of Athlone, under Lieutenant-Colonel Ulick Burke, arrived there. The whole garrison of regular troops and Rapparees amounted to 1,130 men. The place was not suited in any way to stand a siege, as every part of the fort was commanded by an adjoining eminence. The garrison had scarcely any powder, and their cannon consisted of two small pieces, mounted on cart-wheels. On the approach of his army, the Baron de Ginckell despatched a messenger to the Governor, to demand the surrender of the fort, and offering favourable terms, but Lieutenant-Colonel Burke refused to comply, and fired on the advanced guard of the English. The Baron de Ginckell now ordered four field pieces to cannonade the fort. For four hours they kept up an incessant fire, but still the Irish would not surrender to the superior forces of the Commander-in-chief. Finding they could not succeed by this means, the Williamites had to formally besiege this wretched fort. There was an old ruined castle to the south-west of the peninsula which commanded it, and therefore the Baron de Ginckell resolved to take possession of this fortification, in which were stationed fifteen men, under the command of a sergeant. In attempting to execute their design the troops were fired upon several times by the Irish, who, after some time seeing that further resistance was useless, reluctantly surrendered; and the Baron de Ginckell ordered the brave sergeant to

be immediately hanged for his obstinate defence of an untenable place. The remainder of the day the Baron de Ginckell was busily employed in making as strict preparations as if he were about to besiege a strongly-fortified city; and at ten o'clock that night he had succeeded in erecting four strong batteries, on which he caused to be mounted fourteen cannon and four mortars, with which, on the next morning, the 8th of June, between half-past three and four o'clock, he opened a galling fire on the fort. After four hours' hard cannonading, the Baron de Ginckell imagining that Lieutenant-Colonel Burke's stubbornness was overcome, summoned him to surrender the fort, at the same time threatening him thus:-"If you will not deliver up the place within two hours, by you shall have the same treatment your sergeant met with yesterday." On receiving this message, the Governor, instead of complying, replied by saying, that he hoped any message the Commander-in-chief of the army of the Prince of Orange wished to send him would for the future be in writing. The Baron then wrote him the following note:

"Since the Governor desires to see in writing the message which I just now sent him by word of mouth, he may know that if he surrenders the Fort of Ballymore to me within two hours, I will give him and his garrison their lives, and make them prisoners of war; if not, neither he nor they shall have any quarter, nor another opportunity of saving themselves. However, if in that time their women and children will go out, they have my leave.

"Given at the Camp, this 8th day of June, 1691, at eight o'clock in the morning.

"BARON DE GINCKELL."

The Governor was unmoved by this threat, and asked permission to march out on honourable terms, but was positively refused leave to do so; and all the women and children remained in the fort, preferring to suffer death with their relatives, than throw themselves on the mercy of the enemy. All the guns and mortars again opened on the fort. The newly-erected works quickly fell before the incessant fire of cannonball and shell. The garrison behaved most heroically, and continually fired their two small guns, in order to preserve themselves; but their powder being exhausted, and Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, their principal engineer, killed, they saw the necessity of endeavouring to obtain a treaty from the Commander-in-chief of the Williamite army. Accordingly, at twelve o'clock in the afternoon, they hung out a white flag, as a signal of their intention to surrender; but the Baron de

Ginckell, being very much annoyed with the Governor for having refused to accept the conditions he offered, commanded the firing to continue without intermission. At seven o'clock that evening, two large breaches having been effected, a strong body of men, well armed, proceeded in four boats to attack the place in an unguarded quarter. The Irish now, for the second time, hung out a signal of surrender, and the Baron de Ginckell ordered the firing to cease. Lieutenant-Colonel Burke then came out, with some of his officers, and surrendered the fort. Forty of the Irish were killed, and the prisoners amounted to fifty-one officers, 780 privates, 260 Rapparees, and about 400 women and children. These were secured by Colonel Earle, who entered the fort by the breach after its surrender. The Irish officers were sent to Dublin by their captors, and there confined; and the unfortunate soldiers and Rapparees were transported to the Island of Lambay, where their four days' allowance of food was scarcely sufficient for one meal; and their friends being prohibited from seeing them, they died miserably, after suffering the most direful want. The women and children were liberated, but, being homeless and friendless, only to wander for a short time over the country, and then die of neglect and starvation. Though the Williamites claim the credit of having spared the lives of those unfortunate creatures, still, in reality, they were their murderers, for they banished their fathers, husbands, and brothers, who alone on earth would have afforded them succour.

The Baron de Ginckell was engaged from the 10th to the 17th of June, in repairing the fort and putting it into a state of defence.

On the 17th, Lieutenant-Colonel Toby Purcell was appointed Governor of Ballymore, and four companies of Lieutenant-General Douglas's regiment were left under his command, and on the 18th the whole of the Williamite army was on its march to besiege Athlone. On reaching Ballyburn Pass, where they halted for the night, they were joined by 7,000 foreign troops, under the command of the Duke de Wirtemberg and the Count de Nassau, which augmented the Baron de Ginckell's forces to about 27,000 men.

CHAPTER XXX.

BARON DE GINCKELL BESIEGES ATHLONE.

DURING the last siege of Athlone the English Town was not defended, but now 400 men were stationed there, under the command of Colonel Sir John Fitzgerald, Baronet. Its walls were not razed to the ground by Lieutenant-General Douglas in his cowardly and hasty flight from before the town in the previous year. He feared waiting to do so, believing he was pursued by Sarsfield. They were, however, old, and not sufficient in strength to resist artillery such as the Baron de Ginckell had at his command. A small advanced party of cavalry belonging to LieutenantGeneral the Sieur de St. Ruth, Commander-in-chief of the Irish army, having arrived, it was then resolved to defend the Leinster side of the Shannon, in order to gain time until the whole Irish army would have come from Limerick to relieve the garrison. Such was the state of Athlone when, at three o'clock on the morning of the 19th of June, the Baron de Ginckell, at the head of nearly 27,000 men, appeared before it.

Sir John Fitzgerald despatched some grenadiers and irregulars to the moat of Grenoge, and at the break of day they beheld Baron de Ginckell and his forces approaching. The Irish defended every pass for five miles, retreating in regular order, and by their gallantry prevented the Baron de Ginckell's forces from pressing onward more quickly. During this slow march, the English, Dutch, and Danes lost considerably. So successfully did this small body of Irish engage the enemy that it was nine o'clock before they returned to the English Town. The Baron de Ginckell, seeing that the Irish were prepared to offer every resistance, and defend the English Town as well as the Irish Town, though the walls of the former were old and weak, and all the houses within and without them burned, immediately ordered three cannon to be planted on the Lanesborough side, and to open fire on a breastwork possessed by them on the Connaught side of the river. At six o'clock in the evening a second battery was erected by the English. During the entire of the ensuing night the Williamites were hard at work, so that at eight o'clock on the following morning their exertions were rewarded by having a strong battery mounted, with nine eighteenpounders, ready to open fire on the town. Their heavy ordnance was by this time all drawn up before the walls of Athlone, and now thun

dered forth upon the devoted town. For a time nothing could be seen but clouds of black smoke gradually ascending, and then blending with the atmosphere, and nothing heard above the loud booming of the cannon, which, reverberating through the country, shook the very earth. The result of this heavy and deadly fire was that by twelve o'clock they had succeeded in making a large breach in the bastion near the Dublin Gate. When this was effected, De Ginckell gave orders to continue the fire without intermission, in order to prevent the garrison from repairing the breach. At three o'clock the Baron de Ginckell held a council of war, and, after much debate between his principal officers, it was agreed on to make an effort to take the town by storm. At five o'clock in the evening, the storming party, which consisted of 4,000 men, Dutch, Danes, Huguenots, Hanoverians, and English cavalry and infantry, boldly advanced to the breach. Here they were opposed by the Irish, who fought bravely, though almost exhausted from fatigue and hunger, having been engaged with the enemy for forty-eight hours without intermission. Still they persisted in defending the breach, and although many of them fell, their ranks were as quickly filled up by others. Thus the conflict continued, until between killed and wounded the Irish had lost 200 brave soldiers. They then retreated, stoutly contesting the ground, inch by inch, with the enemy, until they reached the narrow bridge that connected both portions of the town. Here the Irish determined to make a last effort, in the hope that in the meantime they might receive reinforcements from Lieutenant-General de St. Ruth. A thought now occurred to the Governor which reassured him to a certain extent. He conceived that by breaking down the arches of the bridge in the rere, while the small but daring party of Irish on the bridge held their 4,000 well-disciplined foes in check, the English would be prevented from crossing the river. In a few moments could be heard the sounds of shovels, spades, and pickaxes hard at work tearing up the ancient bridge, which being overheard by the Scotch veteran, MajorGeneral Hugh Mackay, caused him a great deal of anxiety, and he endeavoured to encourage his men, and even called upon the officers by name to press forward, and by their example incite the English and other foreigners to beat back the Irish from the bridge, as he knew that if they succeeded in breaking any of the arches the Williamites would be as far as ever from victory. The English now pressed forward, crying out "The bridge, the bridge! Drive the Irish from the bridge!" But during this time, while the dauntless Irish soldiers stationed in front kept back the enemy, their companions were actively engaged in tearing up the rere of the bridge. A dull sound now fell on the ears of the

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