was at hand, was proclaimed from all the altars of three and twenty counties. One last chance was left; and, if that chance failed, nothing remained but the despotic, the merciless, rule of the Saxon colony and of the heretical church. The Roman Catholic priest who had just taken possession of the glebe house and the chancel, the Roman Catholic squire who had just been carried back on the shoulders of the shouting tenantry into the hall of his fathers, would be driven forth to live on such alms as peasants, themselves oppressed and miserable, could spare. A new confiscation would complete the work of the Act of Settlement; and the followers of William would seize whatever the followers of Cromwell had spared. These apprehensions produced such an outbreak of patriotic and religious enthusiasm as deferred for a time the inevitable day of subjugation. Avaux was amazed by the energy which, in circumstances so trying, the Irish displayed. It was indeed the wild and unsteady energy of a half barbarous people: it was transient: it was often misdirected: but, though transient and misdirected, it did wonders. The French Ambassador was forced to own that those officers of whose incompetency and inactivity he had so often complained had suddenly shaken off their lethargy. Recruits came in by thousands. The ranks which had been thinned under the walls of Londonderry were soon again full to overflowing. Great efforts were made to arm and clothe the troops; and, in the short space of a fortnight, every thing presented a new and cheering aspect.[1]
The Irish required of the King, in return for their strenuous exertions in his cause, one concession which was by no means agreeable to him. The unpopularity of Melfort had become such, that his person was scarcely safe. He had no friend to speak a word in his favour. The French hated him. In every letter which arrived at Dublin from England or from Scotland,
- ↑ I will quote a passage or two from the despatches written at this time by Avaux. On September 7/17. he says: "De quelque costé qu'on se tournât, on ne pouvoir rien prevoir que de désagréable. Mais dans cette extrémité chacun s'est évertué. Les officiers ont fait leurs recrues avec beaucoup de diligence." Three days later he says: "Il y a quinze jours que nous n'espérions guère de pouvoir mettre les choses en si bon estat mais my Lord Tyrconnel et tous les Irlandais ont travaillé avec tant d'empressement qu'on s'est mis en estat de deffense."
