Chapter XII: Reign of William and Mary (5)

This disaster broke the spirit of the Irish entirely. Even the stout-hearted Sarsfield was convinced that all was over, and it was resolved to capitulate. An armistice was agreed to. The Irish demanded that they should retain their property and their rights; that there should be perfect freedom for the Catholic worship, a Catholic priest for every parish, full enjoyment of all municipal privileges, and full capability to hold all civil and military offices. Ginkell refused these terms, but offered others so liberal that they were loudly condemned by the English, who were hungering after the estates of the Irish. He consented that all such soldiers as desired to continue in the service of James should be not only allowed to do so, but should be shipped to France in English vessels; that French vessels should be permitted to come up and return in safety; that all soldiers who were willing to enter William's service should be received, and that on taking the oath of allegiance all past offences should be overlooked, and they and all Irish subjects taking the oaths should retain their property, should not be sued for any damages or spoliation committed during the war, nor prosecuted for any treason, felony, or misdemeanour, but should, moreover, be capable of holding any office or practising any profession which they were capable of before the war. They were to be allowed to exercise their religion in peace as fully as in the reign of Charles II. It is to the disgrace of England that this part of the treaty should not have been kept.

These terms were accepted, and the treaty was signed on the 3rd of October, and thus terminated this war, which, in the vain endeavour to restore a worthless monarch, had turned Ireland into a desert and a charnel-house. When it came to the choice of the soldiers to which banner they would ally themselves, out of the fifteen thousand men, about ten thousand chose to follow the fortunes of James, and were shipped off with all speed, as they began to desert in great numbers. Many of those who actually embarked did it under a solemn assurance from Sarsfield that their wives and children should go with them; but, once having the men on board, this pledge was most cruelly broken, and the greatest part of the women and children were left in frantic misery on the shore. The scenes which took place on this occasion at Cork are described as amongst the most heartrending in history. But this agony once over, the country sank down into a condition of passive but gloomy quiet, which it required more than a century to dissipate. Whilst Scotland again and again was agitated by the endeavours to reinstate the expelled dynasty, Ireland remained passive; and it was not till the French Revolution scattered its volcanic fires through Europe that she once more began to shake the yoke on her galled neck. Yet during all this time a burning sense of her subjection glowed in her blood, and the name of the Luttrel who went over to the Saxon at the dividing day at Limerick, and received for his apostacy the estates of his absent brother, remained a term of execration amongst the Irish. Meanwhile the Irish regiments which went to France won a brilliant reputation in the wars of the Continent, and many of the officers rose to high position in France, in Spain, in Austria, and Prussia. Their descendants still rank with the nobility of those countries.