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used his guns with great effect. At length the little squadron came to the place of peril. Then the 'Mountjoy' took the lead, and went right at the boom. The huge barricade cracked and gave way; but the shock was such that the 'Mountjoy' rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A yell of triumph rose from the banks: the Irish rushed to their boats, and were preparing to board; but the 'Dartmouth' poured on them a well-directed broadside, which threw them into disorder. Just then the 'Phoenix' dashed at the breach which the 'Mountjoy' had made, and was in a moment within the fence. Meantime the tide was rising fast. The 'Mountjoy' began to move, and soon passed safe through the broken stakes and floating spars. But her brave master (Micaiah Browning) was no more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck him; and he died by the most enviable of all deaths, in sight of the city which was his birth-place, which was his home, and which had just been saved by his courage and self-devotion from the most frightful form of destruction. The night had closed in before the conflict at the boom began; but the flash of the guns was seen, and the noise heard, by the lean and ghastly multitude which covered the walls of the city. When the 'Mountjoy' grounded, and when the shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both sides of the river, the hearts of the besieged died within them. One who endured the unutterable anguish of that moment has told us that they looked fearfully livid in each other's eyes. Even after the barricade had been passed, there was a terrible half hour of suspense. It was ten o'clock before the ships arrived at the quay. The whole population was there to welcome them. A screen made of casks filled with earth was hastily thrown up to protect the landing-place from the batteries on the other side of the river; and then the work of unloading began. First were rolled on shore barrels containing six thousand bushels of meal. Then came great cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter, sacks of peas and biscuit, ankers of brandy. Not many hours before, half a pound of tallow and three-quarters of a pound of salted hide had been weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man. The ration which each now received was three pounds of flour, two pounds of beef, and a pint of peas. It is easy to imagine with what tears grace was said over the suppers of that evening. There was little sleep on either side of the wall. The bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts. The Irish guns continued to roar all night; and all night the bells of the rescued city made answer to the Irish guns with a

peal of joyous defiance. Through the whole of the 31st of July the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But, soon after the sun had again gone down, flames were seen arising from the camp; and, when the 1st of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers; and the citizens saw far off the long column of pikes and standards retreating up the left bank of the Foley towards Strabane.-Lord Macaulay's 'History of England.'

WILLIAM THE THIRD'S DIFFICULTIES AND DEATH.

WE have now arrived at the year 1689. William is on the throne of England-the stadtholder, or hereditary chief magistrate of Holland, the chief of the protestant powers of Europe, and engaged in a ceaseless struggle against the ambition of Louis XIV., the most vainglorious and magnificent of the French kings. It might have been thought that William, the leader of a small and nearly overwhelmed confederacy, suddenly elevated to the throne of England, and hailed on all hands as our deliverer from many evils, would have been supremely happy; for when he appeared in hostile array upon the English coast never was astonishment so complete as that which seized King James, when he saw his courtiers, kinsmen, generals, favourites, one after another, recede from his side and join the invader. But William, after all the ceremonies of acceptance and allegiance had been gone through, was in no better position, as regarded the fidelity of his friends, than James. The pure-minded patriots who had brought him over to deliver us from arbitrary power, determined to be paid for their services, or revolt to their old master. The French fleets put to sea; our fleets, for very shame, were forced to put to sea too, but the commanders regularly communicated their instructions to the court of St. Germains, as it was called, where King James resided under the protection of the French king, and great disgrace, for the last time in our naval history, fell on the British flag. There was a certain Admiral Russell, a great supporter of free and enlightened government, as long as his object was to raise his own party to power, but who had quite different views on the subject when he found he was not consti

tuted chief of the admiralty, with all the pay and patronage of that office.

William defeated his rival in Ireland, pacified that country as well as he could, and headed the armies of Europe against the colossal power of France. As if to see who really were the traitors, he devised some plans of hostile operations himself, laid down the particulars, and communicated them to no human being but his ministers. In a week they were in the hands of Louis XIV., preparations made to resist them, and a great expedition against Brest miscarried. Still the people at large were on the side of William. They supported him in his foreign wars, as the surest way to keep the sound of cannon from our own shores. Many battles were fought in the Low Countries, and the foreigners began to have an idea that the English soldier was not so easily beaten as they had supposed. Even the fleet began to do its duty, when commanded by the gallant Sir George Rooke, and played such havoc among the enemy at the battle of La Hogue, that the empire of the sea came once more into its proper place. James himself, who had been a sailor in his youth, and was witness of the defeat of the French expedition in his cause, could not help crying out, "My gallant English sailors!" Against all difficulties William kept up in heart and hope, and returned on one occasion with the glories of a conqueror, having succeeded in the capture of Namur, in the very presence of an army superior to his own. Bonds of association in defence of the king were entered into in all parts of the country, containing a declaration, sanctioned by both Houses, "that his present Majesty, King William, hath a right by law to the crown of this realm, and that neither King James, nor the pretended Prince of Wales, nor any other person, hath any right whatever to the same." A treaty was concluded at Ryswick, in the year 1697, by which the claims of James were given up, the alliance against France dissolved, and the whole war declared to have been a massacre and mistake by the agreement now entered into to replace everything in the same condition as before it was commenced. This is a very common ending of national wars, and ought to be a reason the more for maintaining peace. A great idea still survived, that a king constituted in his own person the nation he ruled over; so Louis of France thought that if he could get a grandson of his own made king of Spain, the whole peninsula would be at his command. William, and other nations, considered that if Spain were added to France the united forces would become the

tyrannisers over Europe, and soldiers were brought together from all quarters, drilling went on from morn to night, dockyards were thundering with hammers; and, on the other side, France and Spain were not idle, and Louis put the last stroke to his opposition to the protestant champion by acknowledging the Prince of Wales, the son of old James, as legitimate king of England. All Europe was again shaken with marchings and counter-marchings. Great supplies were voted by Parliament for a vigorous prosecution of the war. The nation seemed to rally more than ever round their chosen chief, and visions of conquest and glory were floating in his brain. But death ends all. Weak in body and overwrought in mind, the heroic king still bore up against all the evils that surrounded him. He went to hunt at Hampton Court; the horse fell as he galloped along the road, and his collar-bone was broken. The doctors fought over his couch as to whether he should be bled or not. He resisted both the accident and the doctors for a week. His thoughts, even at the last, were on public affairs. He sent a message to Parliament, expressing his anxiety for an honourable union between England and Scotland. On Sunday, the 8th of March, 1702, Bishop Burnet attended him for the last time. The archbishop also was there. William was too weak to speak, but gave him his hand, as a sign that he firmly believed the truth of the Christian religion. He received the sacrament and took leave of his friends. When his old companion, Bentinck, Earl of Portland, came into the room, William could not utter a word, but took Bentinck by the hand, and carried it to his heart with great tenderness.

People, at first, were divided in the estimate of his character. He was cold and reserved in his manners, and never thoroughly reconciled himself to English habits. His happiest days were those he allowed himself, after his campaigns in Flanders, at his hunting seat of Loo, near the Hague. There he was again the hereditary Prince of Orange, and nothing more, surrounded by the friends of his youth, and beyond the jarring arguments of Whigs and Tories. For this comparatively private station he sighed when he was on the English throne.-White's 'Landmarks of the History of England.'

BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION.

JOHN HOWARD.

HE biography of John Howard is the biography of a man whose life was spent, not in accumulating riches, or in seeking exalted worldly position, but in promoting the welfare of the most abandoned of his fellow-creatures. He freely spent his money and his time on the Christian labour which he voluntarily chose, and had the happiness of seeing, before he died, his great efforts crowned with success. John Howard's life affords an example of the truth, that if a man sets before himself a truly good object to be effected, a really noble work to be done, he will scarcely fail, even in this life, to be rewarded by beholding at least some portion of the fruit which his exertions deserve. When we think of all that John Howard accomplished by years passed in journeys and labours, we find it a difficult task to picture to our minds the neglected and saddening state of English and European prisons and prisoners before he began his great work; words seem to be too weak to convey an idea of the evils which Howard sought to lessen or remove. Let us try to imagine the room of a prison crowded with prisoners of all ages and of all degrees of crime— aged hardened offenders, and young men and lads who have as yet advanced only a little way along the path of vice. The floor of this room is perhaps nothing but earth, through which the water comes upward to stand in small pools; the walls of the room are damp, slimy, and green, and even exhibit the shining traces of snails. The prisoners are unshaven and covered with vermin; they have pale sunken cheeks and matted hair; they are destitute of employment, restless, dispirited, hopeless, and at times savage. Time passes slowly and heavily, for they have no means of making it pleasant, no occupation to relieve its dull tediousness. In winter they lie without sufficient covering, on the wet earthen floor, their joints shaking with the cold. There is neither sufficient light, sufficient drainage, nor sufficient ventilation, and as if to add to their misery, prison-fever breaks out among them,

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