18

HISTOBY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XVI.

1690 .

It required many years and many heroic exploits to takeaway tjje reproach which that ignominious rout left on the Irishname. Yet, even before the day closed, it was abundantlyproved that the reproach was unjust. Richard Hamilton puthimself at the head of the cavalry, and, under his command,they made a gallant, though an unsuccessful attempt to retrievethe day. They maintained a desperate fight in the bed of theriver with Solmes’s Blues. They drove the Danish brigadeback into the stream. They fell impetuously on the Huguenotregiments, which, not being provided with pikes, then ordi-narily used by foot to repel horse, began to give ground.Caillemot, while encouraging his fellow exiles, received a

the accounts which the French officers who were at the Boyne sent to theirgovernment and their families. LaHoguette, writing hastily to Louvoison the i *4 th of July, says: “Je vous diray seulement, Monseigneur, quenous n’avons pas estd battus, mais que les cnnemys ont chassis devant euxles trouppes Irlandoises comme des moutons, sans avoir essays un seulcoup de mousquet."

Writing some weeks later more fully from Limerick, he says, “J’enmeurs de lionte.” He admits that it would have been no easy matter towin the battle, at best. “Mais il est vray aussi," ho adds, “que lesIrlandois ne firent pas la moindre resistance, et plibrent sans tirer un seulcoup." Zurlauben, Colonel of one of the finest regiments in the Frenchservice, wrote to the same effect, but did justice to the courage of the Irishhorse, whom La Hoguette does not mention.

There is at the French War Office a letter hastily scrawled by Boisse-leau, Lauzun’s second in command, to his wife after the battle. He wrotethus: “Je me porto bien, mj chbre feme. Ne t’inquieste pas de moy.Nos Irlandois n’ont rien fait qui vaille. Ils ont tous lachb le pib."

Desgrigny, writing on the Jgth of July, assigns several reasons for thedefeat. “La premibre et la plus forte est la fuito des Irlandois qui sont envdrit£ des gens sur lesquels il ne faut pas compter du tout." In the sameletter he says: “Il n'est pas naturel de croire qu’une armde de vingt cinqmille hommes qui paroissoit de la meilleure volont6 du monde, et qui b, laveue des ennemis faisoit des cris de joye, dfit etre entibrement dbfaite sansavoir tir£ l’bpbe et un seul coup de mousquet. Il y a eu tel regiment toutentior qui a laissb ses habits, ses armes, et ses drapeaux sur le champ debataille, et a gagnb les montagnes avec ses officiers."

I looked in vain for the despatch in which Lauzun must have givenLouvois a detailed account of the battle.