Two officers of | repair to it when the drums beat; and preaching, and praying, and making up ammunition occupied a large portion of every day, while twenty-six clergymen exerted themselves to sustain the ardour of all. Cannon were slung up to the broad tower of the old cathedral. should be hanged over the walls. courage, Major Henry Baker and Captain Adam Murray, now called the men of Derry to arms; and they were assisted by the eloquence of an aged clergyman, George Walker, the Rector of Donaghmore, who with many of his people had sought refuge in the city, where all seemed now to be moved by one common impulse. All rushed to the walls and manned the cannon. The king, who, confident of success, had approached within a hundred yards of the southern gate, was received with uncouth yells and cries of "No surrender!" while a fire was opened upon him from the nearest bastion, and an officer fell dead by his side; and Lundy-at this hour held up to execra The king waited twenty-four hours, and in that time the arrangements to resist were complete. On the following day Claude Hamilton, Lord Strabane, was met at the gate by Adam Murray, the colonel of one of the city regiments, under a flag of truce. Strabane offered a free pardon to all who would lay down their arms, and to Murray himself a colonelcy in the king's service, with £1,000. Londonderry.] TWO SALLIES. "The men of Londonderry have done nothing that requires a pardon," replied Murray, "and own no rovereigns but King William and Queen Mary. It will neither be safe for your lordship to stay longer, nor to return on the same errand. Let me see you through the lines." On finding that he was mistaken in his hopes, James broke loose from the control of his counsellor, Melfort, and resolved to return to Dublin. The peer named John Drummond took his title of 397 in mind that the defenders of Londonderry, being colonists, were men of a mixed race; and having more of the dogged and stubborn Saxon and Scottish blood in their veins, were very different in character from the Celts opposed to them. Maumont, at the head of a body of cavalry, galloped to the place where the fight was raging, and fell killed by a musket-ball. fell killed by a musket-ball. Many officers and men fell before the sally was driven in. Murray had his horse killed under him, and was 200 when old Walker came forth with a party to his rescue. Lord and Duke, not from France as many sup- | surrounded, but he hewed a passage to the gates, pose, but from his patrimony, a farm in Argyleshire. Conrad de Rosen accompanied the king, who had thus no share in the horrors that ensued; the direction of the siege was entrusted to Maumont; Hamilton was second in command, and Brigadier Persignan was third. Richard Hamilton now succeeded to the command. He was a brave but unskilful soldier, and a fortnight later he had to deplore the loss of the gallant Persignan, who fell in repulsing another sortie, in which the garrison captured many standards. The batteries soon opened; the city was fired in several places; roofs and upper stories were beaten to ruins that fell upon the inmates or passers-by, and the streets became encumbered by mangled corpses; but so high was the spirit of the people, that on the 21st of April a sally was actually made, under the command of Adam Murray, and a furious contest took place. But it should be borne | mill Hill, near the southern gate. May passed into June, and still Londonderry held out, amid many bloody sallies and skirmishes. In these two French standards were taken, and hung in the cathedral; and, before turning the siege into a close blockade, it was resolved to try the effect of an assault on an outwork called Wind Religious stimulants were not wanting to inspire the forlorn hope with courage; and the volunteers for it bound themselves by a solemn oath to cut a passage in, or perish in the attempt. Led by Captain Butler, son of Lord Mountgarret, they rushed to the attack, but found the colonists on the walls, drawn up three ranks deep to receive them, the office of those in rear being simply to pass loaded muskets to those who were in front. With shrieks, and yells, and frightful clamour, the Irish came on, but only to be repulsed, with the loss of 400 men. In one place, where the wall was only seven feet high, Butler and some of his "sworn men" succeeded in reaching the summit, but only to be all shot down or bayoneted. Where the fire was hottest, the wives of the colonists were seen handing ammunition to their husbands and brothers. It was now resolved to try the slow effects of starvation, in a place where the supplies were totally cut off and the stock of provisions was known to be slender; so every avenue was guarded. "On the south," says Macaulay, "were encamped along the left bank of the Foyle the horsemen who had followed Lord Galway from the valley of the Barrow. Their chief was, of all the Irish captains, the most dreaded and abhorred by the Protestants, for he had disciplined his men with rare skill and care, and many frightful stories were told of his barbarity and perfidy. Long lines of tents occupied by the infantry of Butler and O'Neil, of Lord Sloane and Lord Gormanstown, by Nugent's Westmeath men, by Eustace's Kildare men, and by Cavanagh's Kerry men, extended northward till they again reached the water-side. The river was fringed with forts and batteries, which no vessel could pass without great peril." To barricade the stream, "several boats full of stones were sunk; a row of stakes was driven into the bottom of the river. Large pieces of firwood strongly bound together formed a boom, which was more than a quarter of a mile in length, and was firmly fastened to both shores by cables a foot thick. A huge stone to which the cable on the left bank was attached, was removed many years later for the purpose of being shaped into a column, but the intention was abandoned, and the rugged mass still lies not many yards from its original site, amid the shades which surround a pleasant country house, named Boom Hall. Hard by is a well from which the besiegers drank. A little farther off is a burial ground, where they laid their slain, and where, even in our own time, the spade of the gardener has struck upon many skulls and thigh bones, at a short distance beneath the turf and flowers." Meanwhile the blockade of Londonderry, and the bravery and sufferings of its people, were exciting sympathy in England and Scotland. Lundy, to whose treachery its calamities were perhaps unjustly ascribed, was committed to the Tower, and Colonel Cunningham, who had failed to land his soldiers, was sent to the Gate House. Troops for the relief of the city sailed from Liverpool under the command of Colonel Piercy Kirk, an officer who won an unenviable notoriety in other times, and who had served at Tangiers. They sailed on the 16th of May, but were long detained by contrary winds under the lee of the Isle of Man; and it was not until the 15th of June that the look-out on the summit of the cathedral saw their sails gleaming on the blue bosom of Lough Foyle. By this time the distress of the colonists was intense. The line of posts around them remained unbroken as ever. By the 8th of June horseflesh was the only meat that could be purchased, and it became necessary to make up the deficiency with tallow, and even that was doled out parsimoniously. But now a gallant messenger from the fleet dived beneath the boom, and swimming towards the city, announced that Kirk had arrived from England with troops, arms, and ammunition--more than all, with provisions. Kirk had with him the Dartmouth, 36 guns, the Bonaventure, the Swallow, and a fleet of transports; and to these were added three ships of Sir George Rooke's squadron, which had been searching for some French ships who had captured two Scottish frigates off Carrickfergus, after a sharp engagement. The first feverish joy of the isolated colonists was followed by weeks of misery, for Kirk, deeming it unsafe to land or attempt to break the boom, lay for some time irresolute and inactive off Lough Foyle. In this time the pressure of famine grew maddening, and the stock of cannon-balls was becoming exhausted, so their place was supplied by brickbats cased in lead. And now pestilence followed in the train of hunger. Governor Baker and fifteen other officers died, and the place of the former was taken by Colonel John Mitchelburne. The arrival of Kirk caused great excitement in Dublin, whence King James sent down Conrad de Rosen to take the command of the blockade. He attempted a mine in vain, with the loss of 100 of his men. "Then," says Macaulay, on the authority of Hamilton, Walker, Leslie, &c., "his Londonderry.] "NO SURRENDER!" 399 fury rose to a strong pitch. He, an old soldier, a | Again and again their walls were breached; but Marshal of France in expectancy, accustomed again and again they were repaired by fightingduring many years to scientific war, to be baffled men so reduced and emaciated that they could by a mob of country gentlemen, farmers, and shop-scarcely keep their legs, for many fell down when keepers, who were protected only by a wall which any good engineer would at once have pronounced untenable! He raved, he blasphemed in a language of his own, made up of all the dialects spoken from the Baltic to the Atlantic. He would raze the city to the ground; he would spare no living being-not the young girls; no, not the babies at the breast. As to the leaders, death was too light a punishment for them; he would rack them, he would roast them alive. In his rage he ordered a shell to be thrown into the town, with a letter containing a horrible menace. He would, he said, gather into one body all the Protestants who remained in their houses between Charlemont and the sea-old men, women, and children-under the walls of Londonderry, there to be starved to death in sight of their countrymen, their friends, and their kinsmen. This was no idle threat!" Accordingly, cavalry were sent out in all directions to collect these innocent victims; and by dawn on the 2nd of July hundreds of Protestants who were guiltless of crime, and who were incapable of bearing arms, and many of whom bore King James's protection, were driven towards the gates of the city. This piteous sight only roused the colonists to greater fury. A gallows was erected on one of the bastions, and a message sent to Rosen, to announce that thereon should be hanged every prisoner they possessed, and requesting him to send a confessor to prepare his comrades for death. For forty-eight hours he persisted; at length he gave way, or feigned to relent, and after many poor creatures had perished, permitted the survivors to withdraw. When tidings of these things reached Dublin, Macaulay tells us, though by no means favourable to the king, that "he was startled by an atrocity of which the Civil Wars of England had furnished no such example, and was displeased by learning that protection given by his authority, and guaranteed by his honour, had been publicly declared to be nullities; and said with warmth, which the occasion fully justified, that Rosen was a bar barous Muscovite." Rosen was recalled to Dublin, and the command of the siege was again deputed to Richard Hamilton, who tried various but gentler plans to lure the garrison into submission, but in vain; and by the time that July was far advanced the state of the starving citizens was frightful. Famine, fire, and disease were thinning their numbers fast. working on the bastions or handling their muskets. "Dogs, fattened on the blood of the slain, who lay unburied about the town, were luxuries which few could afford to purchase. The price of a whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses were alive, but barely alive; they were so lean that little meat was likely to be found on them. It was, however, determined to slaughter them for food. The people perished so fast that it was impossible for the survivors to perform the rites of sepulture. There was scarcely a cellar in which some corpse was not decaying; and such was the extremity of distress, that the rats who came to feast in these hideous dens were eagerly hunted and greedily devoured." Yet "No surrender !" was still the cry, and some there were who muttered grimly"First the horses and their hides, then the prisoners, and then each other!" And now Kirk received imperative orders to break the boom at all hazards and relieve the city. Among the ships in his convoy were two merchantmen : one laden with provisions, the Mountjoy, the master of which was a native of Londonderry; the other a Scottish ship-called by Daniel a ship of Coleraine the master of which, Andrew Douglas, had brought a cargo of oatmeal. These two gallant skippers volunteered to make the attempt, provided that they were escorted by the Dartmouth frigate, commanded by Captain (afterwards Admiral) Leake, who in after years relieved Gibraltar, and destroyed a great part of the squadron of Pointis. The evening sun had set on the 28th of July, when the sentinels on the tower of the cathedral saw the three vessels before the wind and tide, says Burnet, under a press of canvas, running boldly up the Foyle. All were soon astir in the city, and also in the Irish camp for miles along the river. The frigate acted nobly, and with her guns covered the merchantmen from the fire of the batteries; and forward they went with all their weight and force at the boom. took the lead, and before her bows the great barrier gave way with a crash. Yells rose from the banks, and the Irish rushed to their boats, but one broadside settled them for ever. The Mountjoy passed on, but stuck in the mud; while the Phonix dashed through the breach her stem had made, and bore speedily on. The Mountjoy Ere long the rising tide floated off her companion, Andrew Douglas sent on shore instantly 6,000 bushels of oatmeal. Then from the Mountjoy came flitches of bacon, cheeses, kegs of butter, of biscuits, of brandy, and sacks of peas. All night the ships were being unloaded and the food was being distributed; and all night was heard the boom of the cannon along the banks of the Foyle, as the king's batteries and Kirk's squadron fought each other, and high in the air rang the bells of the rescued city. When morning dawned, the camp of the besiegers had become heaps of smouldering ashes, and a long line of glittering bayonets and fluttering standards, lessening up the left bank of the river towards Strabane, was all that remained of the retreating army of Hamilton. whose captain had been slain; and amid the flash-rible emergency, his eloquence roused the fainting ing of guns, yells, and shouts, and many hideous courage of his brethen. In one hand he grasps a noises, by ten at night both ships were moored Bible; the other, pointing down the river, seems alongside the quay, where they were welcomed to direct the eyes of his famished audience to the with tears of joy by a ghastly and emaciated British topmasts in the distant bay. Such a monumultitude. ment was well deserved; yet it was scarcely needed, for in truth the whole city is a monument of the great deliverance. The wall is carefully preserved; nor would any plea of health or convenience be held by the inhabitants sufficient to justify the demolition of that sacred enclosure which in the evil time gave shelter to their race and religion. The summit of the ramparts forms a pleasant walk. The bastions have been turned into little gardens, and here and there, among the shrubs and leaves, may be seen the old culverins which scattered bricks cased with lead among the Irish ranks. One antique gun, the gift of the fishmongers of London, was distinguished during the 105 days by the loudness of its report, and still bears the name of "Roaring Meg." The cathedral is filled with relics and trophies. In the vestibule is a huge shell, one of many hundreds thrown into the city. Over the altar are still seen the French flagstaves, taken by the garrison in a desperate sally. The white ensigns of the House of Bourbon have long been dust; but their place has been supplied by new banners, the work of the fairest hands in Ulster. The anniversary of the day on which the gates were closed, and the anniversary of the day on which the siege was raised, have been down to our own times celebrated by salutes, processions, banquets, and sermons; and the sword said by tradition to be that of Maumont has on great occasions been carried in triumph.” Thus ended, on the 1st of August, 1689, after 105 days, the most memorable and desperate siege recorded in the annals of the British Isles. The loss of the garrison was 3,000, and of the blockading force is supposed to have been fully 8,000. The history of William's reign (1744) makes it 10,000; and states that Walker came over to wait on the king at London, when he received a gift of £5,000, but was afterwards killed by a musketshot at the battle of the Boyne. "Five generations have passed away," says Macaulay, "and still the walls of Londonderry are to the Protestants of Ulster what the trophy of Marathon was to the Athenians. A lofty pillar, rising from a bastion which bore during many weeks the heaviest fire of the enemy, is seen far up and down the Foyle. On the summit is the statue of Walker, such as when, in the last and most ter From the days of the rebellion of Shane O'Neil, Londonderry had ever been deemed the rallyingpoint and city of refuge for the English and Scottish colonists. THE Irish troops who had retreated from London- | upon the Enniskilleners, who were marked by their derry to the market-town of Strabane halted there but a very short time; and if the spirit of these hastily-levied forces was depressed by their recent failure, it was soon to be almost crushed by another disaster. In Dublin, it was determined by the king and his Irish ministry that an attack should be made antagonism to James, and conspicuous for the decided part they took in the cause of the Revolution. They were to be assailed from several points at once, and to be reduced by the sword to submission. With this view, General Macarthy, whom the king, for his services in Munster, had created Viscount Mountcashel, marched towards Lough |