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that time, have ever associated his name with an epithet of ineffable contempt, the country was by no means reduced to submission by the conqueror. Several cities and strong places opposed a more or less strenuous resistance to his arms. Limerick, in particular, underwent two sieges, successfully repelling his first attempt in 1690, of which our author

says,

"Never was a town better attacked or defended. During the siege nothing was untried that the art of war, the science of great generals, and the valour of veteran soldiers could put into execution to carry it; the Irish omitted nothing that constancy and courage could effect, to defend it. But the general assault terminated in the utter discomfiture of William.”

"In the interval of the two sieges," adds Mr. O'Conor, from the winter of 1690, to June, 1691,

"Universal despondency prevailed, as the promised French succours failed to arrive, except in Galway, where all thought of the approaching campaign was buried in a succession of revelries, balls, and banquets. The ladies, famed for their beauty, accomplishments and address, even in the holy time of Lent, when their love of pleasure had been usually under the control of penance and prayer, did not relax their festivities."

But the renewed attack on Limerick exhibited a very different picture.* Noble as the defence was, participated, too, in all its trials and perils by the women, the city was doomed to fall; while the terms of capitulation, though generally attesting the bravery of the garrison, still, in the second article, " consigned," in the words of our author, "many illustrious Irish

The writer well recollects, that in his eleventh year, (1781,) in Limerick, his native city, he heard a venerable lady, a Mrs. Arthur, aged one hundred and eight, relate some of the horrors which she had witnessed during the siege, when eighteen.

men to poverty and perpetual exile. The capacity and courage of some were crowned with fortune in foreign service, but many others pined in misery, aggravated by the recollection of former opulence, and humbled by the indifference and contempt which invariably follow the fallen gentleman." This observation, our own experience, as applied equally to the descendants of these Irish victims to their principles, and to the French emigrants from 1790 to 1814, fully confirms. To the latter, too, whom we had known in their prosperous days, incredulous to the extent of Irish fallen positions, we often found it necessary to recall this unbelief, and its consequences, when exemplified in their own adverse fate.

"The names of a few," subjoins Mr. O'Conor, "whose estates were thus sacrificed through the incapacity of the Irish Commissioners, will excite the sympathy of the reader, even after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years. Richard, Duke of Tyrconnel; his nephew, Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel; Donough, Earl of Clancarty; Lords Clare, Galway, Galmoy, Enniskillen, Slane, Lucan, Kilmallock, Mount Cashell, Brittas; Sir William Talbot ; Sir Neal O'Neal; Sir John Fitzgerald; Sir Patrick Trant; Sir Richard Nagle; Sir Luke Dowdal; Sir Terence Dermott; James Lally, of Tullanadaly; Richard Fagan, of Feltrim; Nicholas D'Arcy, of Platton; besides others of less note: the Goolds, Galways, Murroghs and Coppingers of Cork; the Chevers of Drogheda; the Savages of Down; the O'Hara's of Antrim; the Bagots of Carlow; the Barretts of Cork; the O'Flynns, and O'Connors of Roscommon; the Nugents of Dardistown; the O'Garas of Coolavin. They had committed no offence, were guiltless of treason or rebellion; they had fought for their legitimate King, and now suffered the penalties of treason, because they had not recognised the authority of an English Convention, to substitute a foreign invader for him, whom their principles taught them to regard as the lawful sovereign of the British Islands."-pp. 177, 178.

This capitulation to Ginkle, on the 3d October, 1691,

had been preceded by that to Ireton, the 27th October, 1651, when, among the twenty persons excepted from its benefit was the Friar, Francis Wolfe, who with six others was executed, while his brother, Captain George Wolfe, escaped to Yorkshire, where he settled and married. The family afterwards removed to Westerham in Kent, and there was born G. Wolfe's greatgrandson, General James Wolfe, the conqueror of Canada. His father, Major-General Wolfe, had also distinguished himself under Marlborough, &c. The fugitive from Limerick, or his son, changed the religion, for which the conscientious friar had intrepidly encountered death. One of the six catholics who suffered with him, General Purcell, was a near connexion of the writer's family, but though a soldier, and a brave one, he did not, we are told, meet his fate, with the resignation imparted by religion to the friar. The civil conditions of this capitulation, to William's arms in 1691, which promised to secure various advantages to the Catholics, it is too well known, were shamefully violated. History cannot offer a more disgraceful instance of ill-faith; practically exemplifying what, by many was boldly asserted, that no faith should be kept with Irish papists, and rebels; for the penal laws, in place of their pledged relaxation, were almost immediately executed and extended.

The military stipulations, more in direct connexion with the author's subject, are given at full length, with the consequent removal of the garrison, and transfer of their services to France, where their regimental organization is minutely detailed. A short view of the position of the French monarch's affairs at the time then follows, which, however, challenges some animad

version. At page 200, it is asserted, "That, by the treaty of Nimeguen, the territory of Alsace had been ceded to France, in right of which Louis set up numerous claims, leading to a series of aggressions. In the last of these, the death of the Elector of Cologne furnished a pretext, and thence originated the formidable league, against which Louis was contending, when the expatriated Irish entered his service. The Pope and Emperor with whom the nomination legitimately lay, bestowed the vacant Electorate on one of the Princes of Bavaria, while Louis insisted on intruding his nephew, the Cardinal Furstemberg, and on the refusal of the Papal See to accede to this violent usurpation, seized on Avignon."

We must first observe, that it was by the treaty of Munster in 1648, that Alsace, at least the greater portion of the province, including the Lower Alsace in full, was ceded to France, with ten towns transferred from the Imperial to the French jurisdiction, or seignioralty, and leave to garrison Philipsbourg. The treaties of Nimeguen and Ryswick, confirmed this cession of many years pre-existence, with some few additions; for few remained unpossessed by Louis; but in 1681, the surrender of Strasbourg made him master of the whole province. And secondly, with regard to the Electoral Archbishop of Cologne, the statement is almost literally borrowed from Voltaire's "Siècle de Louis XIV.," chapter xiv., with, however, a strange misconstruction of the sense; for the Cardinal de Furstenberg is there properly called the creature, not the nephew of the monarch, to whom, in truth, he was in no sense related: "Le Pape, Innocent XI., et l'Empereur," says Voltaire, "persuadés que c'était

presque la même chose de laisser Furstenberg sur ce trône électoral, et d'y mettre Louis XIV., s'unirent pour donner cette principauté au jeune Clément de Bavière frère du dernier mort. (Octobre, 1688.) Le roi se vengea du pape en lui ôtant Avignon, et prépara la guerre à l'Empereur." Louis had only one nephew, who became Regent after his death-the son of Philip, Duke of Orleans, from whom descends the late reigning dynasty of France. (See also, "Mémoires de Madame La Fayette," page 65.)

In 1701, the memorable "War of the Spanish Succession," or contest between the Archduke Charles of Austria, and Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., for that magnificent inheritance, interrupted, during a dozen years, the repose of Europe. As the issue of Philip the Fourth of Spain's eldest daughter, the French prince's claim was superior; for the Salic exclusion from the throne then extended not to that kingdom; but Louis, on his marriage with the Infanta, in 1660, had formally renounced that right for himself and successors, although so conscious was the Spanish Minister, Don Luis de Haro, of the eventual inefficacy of this renunciation that, on affixing his signature to the compact, he observed to Mazarin, "Esto es una patarata!""This is all a humbug!"—and so it proved. The protagonists on the adverse fields, were the Prince Eugene of Savoy, and our Marlborough, for Austria; and Catinat, Vendôme, and Villars for France.

A parallel between Eugene and Vendôme, occupies a paragraph in page 260 of Mr. O'Conor's volume, which appears entitled to notice, and is thus expressed: Eugene, as a military character, was all virtue; a

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