could be a great crime to shut the gates against those whom they believed had been sent to cut their throats." Archbishop King observes-"No man could blame the youthful heroes for their decision on the occasion; they were startled even at the external appearance of the pack of ruffians now approaching the city, attended by crowds of ferocious women and armed boys; many of the captains and other officers of the regiment were well known there, having been confined in the goal for thefts and robberies."

The soldiers become impatient waiting at the gates, and clamour for admittance. The discussion is still going on between the officers and the leaders of the people. One James. Morrison mounted the walls, and bid the soldiers "begone." As they refused to leave the gates, he turned around and cried out,—“bring about a great gun here." Immediately the soldiers fled, and re-crossed the river, to the main body. On Saturday the 8th, the Bishop left the place for his castle of Raphoe, and the greater part of the Papists departed from the city. Many of the Protestants in the surrounding country came within the walls for protection; and the inhabitants became more unanimous in the defence of the place.

The dreaded Sunday passed. There was no massacre. It will probably remain a mystery for ever to what extent a massacre was intended, whether for the whole Protestant population, or some neighbourhoods; and also whether the conspiracy failed from want of concert, or from the alarm that had aroused the whole country. But with the day, the fears of the Protestants of Derry did not pass. They kept the city closed and guarded. The forces of Antrim commenced the siege. News that the Prince of Denmark, the Duke of Ormond, and many of the nobility, had joined the Prince of Orange, encouraged the inhabitants of Derry to maintain their rights and defend their lives. The soldiers watched an opportunity to enter the town; and the inhabitants were on the alert to prevent surprise. The number of men in the city able to bear arms was small, not exceeding three hundred. About the same number might have been in the suburbs. The space included by the walls was small, of an oval form, its greatest diameter being about two thousand feet, the shortest about six hundred, situated on rising ground in the bend of the river on the west bank of the Foyle.

The Protestants and Papists, in the North of Ireland, passed the winter in military preparations and skirmishes, ranged as they now were, the one for King William, was proclaimed in January 1689, and the other for James, who had fled to France. The forces of James gradually got the better of the Protestants, and wrested from them one town after

another, till few places besides Derry were left in their possession.

James, assisted by the troops and money of Lewis XIV. landed in Ireland the 12th of March 1689. After a short stay in Dublin, he marched with twelve thousand men, and a train of artillery, intending to overrun the province of Ulster, cross to Scotland, unite with Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, and make a descent on England. By the 18th of the month he appeared before Derry. All other places submitted, except Inneskillen. The Protestant forces were dispersed, or gathered within the ramparts of these two places. The inhabitants of the country fled, in great numbers, at the approach of James; and when he commenced the regular siege and destructive bombardment of the city, there were crowded in the narrow space of the oblong walls of Derry, about twenty thousand people, men, women, and children, besides seven thousand three hundred soldiers armed for defence, but illy provided with artillery or ammunition. On the fate of Derry hung the fate of Ulster, and of Ireland. James is contending for his crown; the Protestants for religion and the blessings of a government of law; and neither is aware of the full importance of the struggle that is going on around the walls of that little city.

Colonel Lundy who commanded the forces within the city, in council with some of his officers, drew articles of capitulation, agreeably to a promise he had sent the king; and James waited, on horseback, through a whole drizzly day, without eating, to receive the articles, and make his repast within the walls. Many of the principal men were in favour of surrender; but the great body of the people were opposed, and under the guidance of Captain Adam Murray, a gallant Presbyterian gentleman, expressed their feelings so strongly, that Lundy first. secreted himself, and then escaped from the city in disguise of a pedlar of matches. Major Henry Baker, and the Rev. George Walker, an Episcopal clergyman, from the county of Tyrone, advanced in years, a strenuous defender of the Protestant cause, who had taken refuge in Derry, were chosen governors. The armed forces were divided into eight regiments, with proper officers; Baker and Walker each retaining the command of one. James, wearied with the life in camp, returned to Dublin. By his inconsistent course he fixed the wavering Protestants in favour of his rival, and scarce made an attempt to gain. the affections of those whom he subdued.

As Derry was the only remaining obstacle in Ireland, its reduction became an object of immediate importance. On the 18th of June, Count De Rosen entered the camp, with fifteen hundred men, to take the command and press the siege to a

conclusion. The friends in Scotland were anxiously waiting the arrival of the French forces, and the supply of money. The siege therefore became more close, the assaults more frequent, the bombardment more severe. The besieged endured wounds, famine, pestilence, and all the miseries of a population crowded into a small area, and all exposed to the fire of the enemy. Their sufferings increased with the heat of summer. They were aggravated by the want of pure water. The wells were drawn low by the multitude, and the water became impure from the shaking of the foundations of the city, by the discharge of cannon from the walls, and from the camp of the enemy. The water from the clouds was tainted with brimstone from the showers of balls and shells that fell upon their roofs without intermission.

About the middle of June, Walker says in his journal"Fever, dysentery and other diseases became very general, and a great mortality existed among the garrison and inhabitants of the city. In one day no less than fifteen commissioned officers died." The havoc among the besieged was immense. It is stated on good authority that upwards of twenty-seven thousand persons were shut in the city at the commencement of the siege. Of these, it is agreed, that about one-third perished; more than a thousand per month, or two hundred and fifty per week, or about thirty-five or six every day.

"On the 9th of July"-says Walker-"the allowance was a pound of tallow dignified by the name of French butter, to every soldier in the garrison. They mixed it with meal, ginger, pepper and anisseed, and made excellent pancakes.

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Charming meat"-says Captain Ash-" for during the preceding fortnight, horseflesh was eaten; and at this time the carcase of a dog was reckoned good meat. The famine became more severe and was aggravated by disease. Oatmeal, which before the siege, was sold for four pence the peck, could not be bought for less than six shillings. Butter sold for five pence the ounce. Other food was proportionably dear. Captain Ash mentions a poor famished man that dressed his dog to satisfy the cravings of his stomach. An equally hungry creditor enters and demands a debt, just as the feast was prepared. The debtor was unable to pay; the creditor was inexorable; and the dainty morsel was resigned to satisfy the claim.

On the 27th of July the market prices were, according to Walker's diary-Horseflesh one shilling and eight pence per pound; a quarter of a dog four shillings and six pence; a dog's head two shillings and six pence; a cat four shillings and six pence; a rat one shilling; a mouse six pence; a pound of tallow four shillings; a pound of salted hides one shilling; a quart of horse blood one shilling; a horse pudding six pence;

a quart of meal, when found, one shilling. A small fluke, a little fish, taken in the river could not be purchased for money, and could be got only in exchange for meal. "Mr. James Cunningham showed them"-says Walker-"where was a considerable quantity of starch, which they mixed with tallow, and fried as pancakes. This food proved a providential remedy for the dysentery which prevailed in the city, from excessive fatigue, mental anxiety, and unwholesome food."

On Sabbath, the last day of June, Governor Henry Baker died. His prudence, resolution, gentlemanly behaviour, patience and freedom from jealousy, rendered his loss to the garrison irreparable. Some days before his death, a council, in his sick room, united with him in appointing Col. Mitchelburn as his successor. There had been formerly a difference between these two men; this settlement of it proclaims at once the honourable standing of Mitchelburn, and the nobleness of Baker.

A graphic description of the actors and events of the eight months, appeared in a historical drama published soon after the siege. One scene characterizes the good humour of the heroic defenders of Derry amidst their severest sufferings. Mitchelburn is represented as giving a dinner to Governor Walker and four distinguished ladies. He thus addresses his guests at table,— "Gentlemen and Ladies-the first dish you see, in slices, is the liver of one of the enemy's horses that was killed the other day: it is very good meat, with pepper and salt, eaten cold. I have seven of these livers boiled, and after they are pickled they eat very well. This other is horse's blood fried with French butter, otherwise tallow, and thickened with oat meal. The third dish is what we call in French, ragout de chien,-in English, a ragout of the haunch of my dog; it does not eat so well boiled as roasted; but it eats best when baked. I have a horse's head in the oven, very well seasoned, but it will not be eatable till night.

On the day Governor Baker died, Mareschal de Rosen sent a declaration into Derry, that unless the place were surrendered that day, he would drive all the Protestants from Inneskillen to Charlemont, under the walls, and then make a general assault. On the next day he issued the following order "As I have certain information that a considerable number of the wives and children of the rebels in Londonderry, have retired to Belfast and the neighbouring places, and as the hardness of their husbands. and fathers deserves the severest chastisement, I write this letter to acquaint you, that you are instantly to make an exact search in Belfast and its neighbourhood, after such subjects as are rebellious to the King, whether men women boys or girls, without exception, and whether they are protected or unprotected, to arrest them and collect them together, that they may be

conducted to this camp and driven under the walls of Londonderry, where they shall be allowed to starve, in sight of the rebels within the town, unless they choose to open their ports to them." On the next day the second of July, he drove about three thousand men, women and children, without respect to age or condition, sickness or health, to the walls of Derry, and there left them exposed, having first plundered them of food and clothing. On the next day he drove about a thousand more to join the naked starving company. Cries and lamentations resound from the walls, and from this wretched multitude. On the one side were the horrors of a siege, on the other nakedness, and famine in the open air and upon the wet ground. Yet no voice from the common people proposed a surrender. The magistrates erected a gallows on a prominent part of the walls, and sent to De Rosen for a priest to come and confess the prisoners, some of whom were officers of distinction, in preparation for death, as unless the multitude around the walls were sent away speedily, these prisoners should be hanged upon the gallows in sight of their friends in the camp. The distressed people around the walls exhorted the townsmen to hold out, and not be moved by their sufferings. The officers in De Rosen's camp exclaimed against the barbarity exercised upon the people under the walls and the ignominious death that awaited their friends, prisoners in the city. On the fourth of July, De Rosen gave permission for the unhappy people under the walls to return to their homes, having kept some of them two, and others three days, without food. Hundreds were left dead under the walls, from the three days' famine and exposure; hundreds perished from hunger and fatigue before they reached their homes; and multitudes more were soon laid in their graves from the exposures of this dreadful pilgrimage, and the privations they suffered after their return to their homes plundered of every comfort, and many burned to the ground by the soldiery and the Rapparees. De Rosen plead as his excuse for this barbarity, the usages of the Continental commanders with whom he had served.

The women often took part in the battles that were waged almost daily around the ramparts. On the 4th of June this record was made-"the fair sex shared the glory of the defence of Londonderry on this occasion, for when the men, to whom they had, for the whole time, intrepidly carried ammunition, match, bread and drink, began to fall back, they rushed forward in a considerable number and beat back the grenadiers with stones as they attempted to climb up the trenches; and altogether they stemmed the torrent of war, till a reinforcement rushed from the city and repelled the assailants." The courage and endurance of the females never failed, in the sad offices of