6

HISTOBY OB ENGLAND.

chap, scarcely be more injurious to bis fame and to his interests than■ ■■■ a languid and indecisive campaign.

The country through •which he advanced had, duringeighteen months, been fearfully wasted both by soldiers andbyRapparees. The cattle had been slaughtered: the plantationshad been cut down: the fences and houses were in ruins. Nota human being was to be found near the road, except a fewnaked and meagre wretches who had no food but the husks ofoats, and who were seen picking those husks, like chickens,from amidst dust and cinders.* Yet, even under such dis-advantages, the natural fertility of the country, the rich greenof the earth, the bays and rivers so admirably fitted for trade,could not but strike the King’s observant eye. Perhaps hethought how different an aspect that unhappy region would havepresented if it had been blessed with such a government andsuch a religion as had made his native Holland the wonder ofthe world; how endless a succession of pleasure houses, tulipgardens and dairyfarms would have lined the road fromLisburnto Belfast; how many hundreds of barges would have beenconstantly passing up and dow r n the Laggan; what a forest ofmasts would have bristled in the desolate port of Newry; andwhat vast warehouses and stately mansions would have coveredthe space occupied by the noisome alleys of Dundalk. “Thecountry,” he was heard to say, “is worth fighting for.”

The Irish The original intention of James seems to have been to trytreats. 16 " the chances of a pitched field on the border between Leinsterand Ulster. But this design was abandoned, in consequence,apparently, of the representations of Lauzun, who, thoughvery little disposed and very little qualified to conduct a cam-paign on the Fabian system, had the admonitions of Louvoisstill in his ears.** James, though resolved not to give up Dublin

* Story’s Impartial Account.

** Lauzun to Louvois, 1690; Life of James, ii. 393,, Orig. Mem.