7. Subjugation of Ireland is completed.

(1) Limerick is besieged. William entered Dublin in triumph, and shortly after marched through the country and laid siege to Limerick. The command of the city had been entrusted to a brave and skilful general, Patrick Sarsfield, who cleverly captured William's siege guns, while they were being brought up to batter down the walls. The failure of a desperate attempt to storm the town, and the approach of winter, compelled William to raise the siege, and he returned to England, leaving the command of the investing army to Ginkel.

(2) Capture of Athlone and Battle of Aughrim, 1691. The capture of Athlone, which commanded the passage of the Shannon, brought Ginkel face to face with the main body of the Irish army at Aughrim, under St. Ruth, a distinguished French general. A decisive battle followed, in which the Irish were totally defeated, their gallant general slain, and all their baggage, ammunition, and artillery fell into the hands of the victors.

(3) Surrender and Treaty of Limerick, 1691. Tyrconnel and Sarsfield retreated, but determined to make a bold stand behind the walls of Limerick. After Ginkel had invested the city for three months, it capitulated. The terms of the capitulation were twofold::

(a) A military treaty, signed by the generals of both parties, by which all Irish soldiers were allowed either to disband, or enlist in William's service, or be conveyed to France under their own generals.

(b) A civil treaty, signed on behalf of William by the Lords-Justices of Ireland, in virtue of which, all Irish Roman Catholics were allowed to enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as they enjoyed in the reign of Charles II., or as were consistent with the laws of Ireland.

NOTE 1. In accordance with the military treaty about 10,000 men passed over into the service of Louis XIV., and, under the name of the "Irish Brigade," played a conspicuous part in the wars of France under Louis XIV.

NOTE 2.-The Irish Roman Catholics regarded the Treaty of Limerick as the great charter of their civil and religious liberty, but they were doomed to grievous disappointment. The Irish Parliament, composed almost entirely of English, said that Ginkel and the Lords-Justices had greatly exceeded their powers, and proceeded

to pass a new code of penal laws of the utmost severity against the
Irish Roman Catholics :-
:-

(a) All Roman Catholics were prohibited from practising as lawyers, physicians, or schoolmasters, from sitting in Parliament or from possessing arms.

(b) No Roman Catholic could be a guardian, purchase land for more than thirty-one years, or take property accruing to him by descent or otherwise.

(c) All marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics were declared illegal.

(d) All monks and clergy, except registered parish priests, were banished from the realm. To use Swift's bitter words of contempt, "the conquered people became hewers of wood and drawers of water to their conquerors."

SECTION IV. THE WILLIAMITE WAR WITH

FRANCE.

1. Cause. For a long time Louis had been desirous of adding to his dominions the Spanish Netherlands, the Palatinate, and the Duchy of Lorraine, and so make the Rhine the great northern boundary of his kingdom. He possessed the finest army and the most experienced generals in Europe, and had already taken some steps to secure his ambitious ends by seizing Alsace and part of Flanders. William had spent the greater part of his life in opposing this aggressive policy, and it was with the hope that England would assist him in his great cause that he had accepted the English throne. Louis saw clearly enough what William's aims were, and used his endeavours to the utmost to overthrow him and re-establish James. Not only had he given the fugitive king a cordial welcome to France, but he had sent him men and money, while he was in Ireland, to assist him in regaining that part of his lost dominions. This interference on the part of Louis induced the English Parliament in 1689 to declare war against France, and vote £4,000,000 to defray the expenses of the war. NOTE 1.--William knew well enough that if England undertook the war alone, she would have little chance of coming out of the struggle as victor. He therefore built up a great European coalition with himself as head, called the Grand Alliance, in which England, Holland, Spain, and the Empire pledged themselves to oppose France.

NOTE 2.-The war, which followed, was long and costly, but it was necessary, as being the price which England had to pay to get rid of the Stuarts, to keep William on the throne, and to secure for herself civil and religious liberties.

2. Events in the War.

I. At sea.

On the whole the war was unsuccessful. Even at sea the English were beaten, mainly owing to the incompetence or disloyalty of those in command.

(1) Battle of Beachy Head, 1690. While William was away in Ireland, Louis sent his best admiral, Tourville, with a fleet of eighty-two ships, to sweep the Channel and intercept William's return to England. Off Beachy Head, Tourville met the combined English and Dutch fleets, numbering sixty vessels, under the command of Herbert, now Lord Torrington. In the battle, which followed, Torrington disgracefully retreated with his fleet up the Thames, and left the Dutch to bear the brunt of the attack.

(2) Burning of Teignmouth. The French were now complete masters of the Channel, and about a month after the disaster off Beachy Head, they landed 1000 men in Devonshire, but were contented with merely destroying the little fishing village of Teignmouth. This roused the spirit of the nation; the most liberal offers of assistance were made to William, and when he returned from Ireland, he found his position as king more secure than ever.

NOTE.-Torrington was brought to trial "for having drawn dishonour on the British nation." In his defence, however, he showed that he had been compelled by the Government to contend with a force infinitely superior to his own, and so he was acquitted, but William dismissed him from his service, and never afterwards admitted him to his presence.

(3) Threatened Jacobite invasion of England and Battle of La Hogue, 1692. Many of the leading men, who had been foremost in expelling James, now began to feel sympathy for him in his misfortunes, and to intrigue for his return. The most conspicuous of these were Admiral Russell (who had succeeded Lord Torrington as commander of the Channel Fleet) and Marlborough.

The promise of assistance from Russell and Marlborough, and the supposed disaffection of the fleet and the English people generally, encouraged Louis to make a great attempt on England. He collected an army of 30,000 men near La Hogue, and had 300 transport ships in readiness to carry his army across the Channel. A French squadron under Tourville was ordered up from Brest to protect the army in its passage. Meanwhile James had estranged many of his adherents in

England, by issuing a proclamation, in which he declared, that if he regained his throne, he would punish many of the noblemen, who had taken part in his dethronement, all the judges, lawyers, jurymen and others, who had been employed in the prosecution and punishment of any of his adherents, and even the mob, who had ridiculed him in his flight at Faversham. The publication of this foolish document by order of the queen, into whose hands it had fallen, roused the indignation of the country, and did serious injury to the cause of James.

The combined fleets of England and Holland, consisting of ninety-nine sail of the line, were under the command of Admiral Russell. Although the queen was fully aware that the English admiral was intriguing with the exiled king, she wrote him a letter expressing her entire confidence in the self-devotion, bravery, and patriotism of the fleet and its commanders. The letter had the desired effect. Passing from ship to ship, Russell exhorted the crews to do their duty. "If your comrades play false," said he, “overboard with them, and myself the first." He had no intention, he told his Jacobite agent, of allowing the French to triumph over the British flag at sea. "Do you think," said he, "that I would let the French beat us in our own waters? Understand this, that, if I meet them, I fight them, even though King James himself should be on board." As soon as the French fleet appeared in sight, the English squadron bore down upon it, and after five hours' brisk fighting, the enemy were forced to fly. Twenty-two vessels reached St. Malo. Twelve of the largest ships, which had taken refuge under the forts of La Hogue, were attacked and destroyed by Sir George Rooke, under the very eyes of James himself. The results of this great victory were—(a) It saved England from all danger of a French invasion for a long time to come. (b) It once more established our supremacy over the sea. NOTE. -La Hogue was undoubtedly the greatest naval victory which England had gained since the days of the Armada.

(4) Loss of the Smyrna Fleet, 1693. A great disaster befell the English nation in the capture of the Smyrna fleet. About 400 merchantmen, carrying goods to the value of several millions for the Eastern markets, set sail from London under the convoy of the English and Dutch fleets. After passing Brest, the main body of the fleet returned, leaving Rooke with

only twenty ships of the line to escort the trading fleet to its destination. Meanwhile Tourville had effected a junction of the Brest and Toulon fleets, and lay waiting for the unsuspecting vessels in the Bay of Lagos. An engagement followed, in which the English and Dutch acquitted themselves honourably, but three-fourths of the merchantmen were either captured, sunk, or fled for safety to the harbours of Faro Cadiz, and Gibraltar. It is estimated that this disaster inflicted a loss of several millions upon English merchants.

II. On land.

(1) Fall of Namur and battles of Steinkirk and Landen. The English arms under William were not so prosperous by land. He lost the strong fortress of Namur in 1692, and was defeated at Steinkirk (1692), where five British regiments, engaged in the thickest of the fight, were literally cut to pieces. Next year he was again defeated at Landen, where Luxembourg, the great French general, with 80,000 men, surprised him as he lay encamped behind the little river of Landen, and compelled him to give battle. For a whole day the Allies stubbornly resisted the fierce onsets of the French, but at length, being overpowered, they gave way.

NOTE.-William was no match for the wily strategist Luxembourg, nor were his soldiers equal to the veterans of Louis, yet he showed consummate skill in making the best of his defeat. Even after Steinkirk and Landen, he presented such a formidable front, that the enemy gained little advantage by their victories.

(2) Re-capture of Namur. In 1695 the fortune of war changed in favour of the Allies, chiefly owing to the death of William's great opponent, Marshal Luxembourg, and the appointment of two inferior generals, Villeroi and Boufflers, to take his place. Namur is the strongest fortress in the Netherlands, and William had set his heart on regaining it. In its capture he was greatly assisted by a celebrated engineer, named Cohorn, who had originally fortified the town. The town itself was taken after a series of fierce assaults, in which the English, under Lord Cutts (called "the Salamander" on account of his bravery under fire), greatly distinguished themselves. The citadel, however, which was under the command of Boufflers, still held out, but when Villeroi approached with an army of 50,000 men to relieve it, the English troops made a desperate assault on the place, and having forced their way into

C