whliam and maey.

237

undoubtedly been such as would have moved the great warriorsof the Continent to laughter; and this is the very circumstance ■which gives so peculiar an interest to the history of the contest.It was a contest, not between engineers, but between nations;and the victory remained with the nation which, though inferiorin number, was superior in civilisation, in capacity for self-government, and in stubbornness of resolution. *

As soon as it was known that the Irish army had retired, adeputation from the city hastened to Lough Foyle, and invitedKirke to take the command. He came accompanied by a longtrain of officers, and was received in state by the two Governors,who delivered up to him the authority which, under thepressure of necessity, they had assumed. He remained only afew days; but he had time to show enough of the incurablevices of his character to disgust a population distinguished byaustere morals and ardent public spirit. There was, how'ever,_ no outbreak. The city was in the highest good humour. Suchquantities of provisions had been landed from the fleet, thatthere was in every house a plenty never before known. A fewdays earlier a man had been glad to obtain for twenty pence amouthful of carrion scraped from the bones of a starved horse.A pound of good beef was now sold for three halfpence. Mean-while all hands were busied in removing corpses which hadbeen thinly covered with earth, in filling up the holes whichthe shells had ploughed in the ground, and in repairing thebattered roofs of the houses. The recollection of past dangersand privations, and the consciousness of having deserved well

* “You will see here, as you have all along, that the tradesmen ofLondonderry had more skill In their defence than the great officers of theIrish army in their attacks.” — Light to the Blind. The author of thiswork is furious against the Irish gunners. The boom, he thinks, wouldnever have been broken if they hud done their duty. Were they drunk?Were they traitors? He docs not determine the point. “Lord,” he ex-claims, “who seest the hearts of people, wo leave the judgment of thisaffair to thy mercy. In the interim those gunners lost Ireland.”

CHAP.

XII.

1 ( 181 ).