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head in the day of battle. His intrepidity, his frankness, his boundless good nature, his stature, which far exceeded that of ordi- nary men, and the strength which he exerted in personal conflict, gained for him the affectionate admiration of the populace. It is remarkable that the Englishry gen- erally respected him as a valiant, skilful, and generous enemy, and that, even in the most ribald farces, which were performed by the mountebanks in Smithfield, he was always excepted from the disgraceful im- putations which it was then the fashion to throw on the Irish nation." ="3 He did not at first receive a command equal to his talents. James II, in whose Irish Par- liament he sat for the County of Dublin, considered him " a brave fellow, but very scantily supplied with brains," After Mountcashel's defeat before Enniskillen, he marched to Sligo with a force for the defence of Connaught ; and after the relief of Londonderry, occupied Athlone. He subsequently secured Galway for James, and expelled the last of William's garrisons from Connaught. Sarsfield held a com- mand at the battle of the Boyne, ist July 1690, on which occasion he is said to have protested against James's precipi- tate retreat. His regiment formed part of the army that fell back on Limerick, where he was made second in command under Major-General Boiseleau. William's army, numbering 38,0x50 men, appeared before the walls on 8th August. In the city were but 10,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, and the English expected that it would prove an easy conquest. TirconneU and Lauzun, v/ith the French troops, re- tired to Galway ; but the citizens, inspired mainly by Sarsfield's enthusiasm, deter- mined to hold out to the last, Boiseleau conducted the engineering operations of defence, whilst Sarsfield, in command of the Irish horse, defended the passages of the Shannon above the town. On the 9th, Sarsfield obtained private information that a convoy, with King William's siege battery, pontoon train, and supplies, was approaching from Waterford. Selecting a body of 500 picked men, he left Lim- erick on Sunday, the loth, and advanced cautiously to Killaloe, but finding the bridge there held in force by the enemy, he passed on and crossed the Shannon at Ballyvally, and, guided by Hogan, a rapparee chief, turned into the deep gorges of the Silver Mines mountains, where the party lay concealed all Monday. At night they again started, and at three o'clock on the following morning surprised the convoy at Ballyneety, some ten miles from Limerick. The guards were sabred 464
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or taken prisoners, and eight heavy bat- tering cannons, five mortars, eighteen tin pontoons, and 200 waggons loaded with ammunition and supplies, fell into his hands. The artillery was spiked, and the other supplies were collected together and destroyed. " If I had failed in this attempt," Sarsfield remarked to one of his prisoners, " I should have been off to France." The party returned in safety to Limerick, driving before them 500 cap- tured horses. William managed to bring together another battering train, and on the 17th the trenches were opened, and a regular bombardment commenced. The efforts of Boiseleau and Sarsfield for the defence of the town were enthusiastically seconded by the inhabitants. Mr. Lene- han remarks in his History of Limerick: " The soul of the defenders was Patrick Sarsfield. . . It had been resolved long before this to remove all the women and children from the city ; but even the ad- verse historians avow that very large num- bers of women could not be induced to abandon the post of danger. . . They mingled with husbands, sons, and brothers in the streets. They appeared on the walls during the hottest cannonade ; they sup- plied the gunners with ammunition ; they attended the sick, removed the disabled, bound up the limbs of the wounded. . . They infused life unto the drooping spirits of those who fought for their country." The heroic repulse of the assault of the 27th August, in which the English oflacial returns admit a loss of 1,689 killed and wounded, led to the raising of the siege. When TirconneU went to France in Sep- tember 1 690, Sarsfield was one of those put in commission to direct the inexperienced Duke of Berwick, to whom the supreme command of the Irish army was entrusted. In the course of the winter he made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Birr ; but baffled the efforts of the English to cross the Shannon, and turn the Irish positions at Limerick and Athlone. In February 1 69 1 TirconneU returned, bringing a patent from James II. creating Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Viscount of TuUy, and Baron of Eosberry. He was also made Colonel of the Life Guards and Commander-in-chief in Ireland. He was soon afterwards super- seded iu the latter office by the French general, St. Euth, sent over by Louis XIV., but made no difficulty about serving under him. Sarsfield took part in the defence of Athlone. At Aughrim, 12th July 1 69 1, though second in command, and at the head of a fine body of horse, he was kept so completely in ignorance of the plans for the battle, that on St. Euth's
