Erne (a beautiful sheet of water, said to rival Lake Leman itself), with three regiments of infantry, two of dragoons, and some troops of horse. The Duke of Berwick was to advance from the North with a body of cavalry, while a considerable force that lay encamped near the mouth of the river Drowes was to march from the West.

The men of Enniskillen were ignorant of the entire plan for their subjection; but they knew that Mountcashel was marching towards them with a force far exceeding any that they could bring into the field, and they sent a deputation to General Kirk for assistance. He could not spare them a single soldier; but he sent them some muskets, some ammunition, and certain officers of experience, the chief of whom were Colonel Wolseley, a native of Staffordshire, and Colonel Berry. By sea these officers had come round the coast of Donegal; and on Sunday, the 29th of July, their boat, after running up the Erne, drew near the Isle of Enniskillen, which is situated above the debouch of the river into the Lower Erne, and has the appearance of a flattened, edificed, and stupendous earthwork, or huge oblong mound, surmounted by a fosse, and connected with the land by bridges.

The whole population rushed to the shore to greet them, and we are told that "it was with difficulty they made their way to the castle, through the crowds that hung on them, blessing God that dear old England had not quite forgotten the Englishmen who were upholding her cause against great odds in the heart of Ireland."

Colonel Wolesley was a staunch Protestant, who had recently distinguished himself among the Yorkshiremen and Staffordshiremen who had risen for the Prince of Orange; even before the landing of whom, in the exuberance of his zeal, he had caused the Mayor of Scarborough to be tossed in a blanket in the market-place for issuing an address in favour of the monarch then reigning. Though a regularlytrained officer, he seemed to have a peculiar aptitude for the leading of irregular troops, and he had scarcely assumed the command of the men of Enniskillen when he received tidings that Mountcashel had laid siege to Crum Castle, the frontier garrison of the Protestant colonists of Fermanagh, and the ruins of which may still be seen on a finelywooded promontory that overlooks Lough Erne.

Resolving to raise the siege without delay, Wolseley sent forward Lieutenant-Colonel Berry with all the new-levied troops that were in readiness, intending to follow with the rest.

After marching some miles, Berry came suddenly ipon thirteen troops of Mountcashel's dragoons, ɔmmanded by Anthony Hamilton, the most bril

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liant and accomplished of all who bore that ancient Scottish name, "but much less successful as a soldier than as a courtier, a lover, and a writer;" for though not a Frenchman, he wrote a book which is of all books, says our great historian, the most exquisitely French, both in spirit and manner.

On the approach of Berry, his Irish dragoons fled at the first volley of musketry; he was severely wounded, and his second in command was shot dead. Quitting Castle Crum, Mountcashel came up with all speed to support Hamilton, while at the same time Colonel Wolseley hurried on to aid Berry.

The viscount was at the head of 5,000 men, with a train of light guns; Wolseley was without this arm; his men were under 3,000 strong, and had marched in such haste that they had but one day's provisions per man in their haversacks. Face to face now, there was nothing for it but to fight or retreat. Colonel Wolseley, before doing either, resolved to consult the wishes and ascertain the temper of his slender force, which was made up of gentlemen and yeomen, fighting not for pay, but for their wives and children, and the heritages they had won in Ireland by their swords.

Halting them in line, he put the simple question, "Shall we advance or retreat?"

"Advance! advance !" was the eager response. "No Popery!” cried Wolseley; and accepting this as a cri de guerre, they uttered a hearty shout.

As they approached, the Irish, to their great surprise, began to fall back, which made the Enniskilleners increase their pace; but, suspecting a snare or ambush, Wolseley forbade them to break their ranks or attempt any wild pursuit. Thus one force continued to retreat, and the other to advance in good order, till they both passed through the little town of Newton Butler, in the county of Fermanagh, and thirteen and a half miles from Enniskillen. There the Irish faced about, and made a stand at last, about a mile beyond it.

Mountcashel's position was well chosen, on the face of a green hill, at the bottom of which lay a brown and muddy bog. Across this a narrow rough causeway was the only path by which the few Enniskillen cavalry could pass to the front, for on both flanks were pools, quagmires, and turf-pits full of slimy water; and the viscount placed his cannon in such a way as to enable him to sweep this only approach to his post.

Wolseley, however, ordered an attack. Through the perilous bog the Enniskillen infantry rushed on the guns, and short, but desperate was the fight around them, till the Irish cannoneers were all destroyed by bayonet or sword. Then, no longer afraid of being slaughtered helplessly on

the causeway, the mounted Enniskilleners dashed across it; but ere they could form up to the front, the Irish dragoons fled without striking a blow or firing a shot. Their horse followed this disgraceful example, and so intense was the panic of the fugitives, that many of them spurred their horses till the animals

sank under them, after which they continued the flight on foot, throwing away carbines, swords, even their buff coats, and all that might impede their flight.

On seeing their cannon captured, and themselves deserted thus at the same moment, the infantry fired an irregular volley, and then throwing aside their muskets and pikes, fled for their lives in all directions. One author reports that this panic was caused by the blunder of an officer, who called out, "Right about face," instead of "Right face;" but this is extremely improbable, as no such order could be required at such a crisis, with an enemy rushing on. Macaulay says that "the dragoons, who gave the example of flight, were not in the habit of waiting for

orders to turn their

backs on the enemy;

they had run away once before on that very day."

hand. He was unhorsed, wounded in several places, struck down, and was on the point of being brained by the butt-end of a clubbed musket, when he was recognised, and had quarter granted him.

The colonists took 400 prisoners, seven pieces of cannon, fourteen barrels of powder, and all the colours and drums of the vanquished; while their own loss was only twenty killed and fifty wounded.

But now ensued one of the scenes of butcherly ferocity which are so often read of in Irish civil war. Terrible was the remorseless slaughter! Fully 1,500 of the vanquished fugitives were cut down by the sword, while 500 more, who, in their ignorance of the country, took a road that led to Lough Erne, plunged into its waters to escape their pursuers, and nearly all perished.

Abandoned thus by his recreant troops, Viscount Mountcashel rushed amid the pursuers sword in

The raising of the siege of Londonderry and this defeat at Newton Butler, together with the evil tidings that came from Scotland, caused consternation among the adherents of James in Ireland. Flinging their stores into the Mourne, the Irish troops fled from Strabane to Omagh, and thence to Charlemont. Sarsfield abandoned Sligo, which was immediately occupied by the troops of Kirk; and King James thought of again retiring to France. "It is curious," says Macaulay, "that the two most remarkable battles that perhaps were ever gained by irregular over regular troops, should have been fought in the same week Killycrankie and Newton Butler. In both the

panic of the regular troops, in spite of the

conspicuous example of courage set by their generals, was singularly disgraceful. It ought also to be noted that of these extraordinary victories, one was gained by Celts over Saxons, the other by Saxons over Celts.

. . The Anglo-Saxon and the Celt have been reconciled in Scotland, and have never been reconciled in Ireland. In Scotland all the great actions of both races have been thrown into a common stock, and are considered as making up the glory which belongs to the whole country."

BEFORE quitting Scotland to detail those battles which King William had to fight ere he completely prostrated the power of his unfortunate father-in-law, we shall take the opportunity of relating one of the most singular events of the age the defiant resistance of the new Government, and the resolute defence of a Scotch islandfortress by land and sea, by only thirteen men, for the space of four years.

The Prince of Orange and his wife had been duly proclaimed at Edinburgh, as William II. and Mary II., according to the enumeration of the sovereigns of Scotland, three months after their proclamation in England, where they took the coronation oath of the former kingdom in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, before certain Scottish commissioners.

In the spring of 1689 there were sent as prisoners to the castle on the Bass Rock, four young officers who adhered to King James, when the mass of his Scottish forces deserted in England to King William. Their names were Lieutenants Haliburton and Michael Middleton, and Ensigns Ray and Dunbar, who had been taken in the north by General Sir Thomas Livingstone, when on their way to join Viscount Dundee. Inspired by hatred of their captors, at a time when civil, religious, and political opinions were peculiarly rancorous and bitter, these adventurous Cavaliers commenced at once to scheme for freedom; and in that most hopeless prison, surrounded by the waves, they soon found an opportunity of outwit ting their warders-a party of the Scots Foot Guards under Lieutenant Wood.

This Scottish Bastille stands in the Firth of Forth, three miles and a half distant from North Berwick, and is about seven acres in extent. It resembles in form the base of a sugar-loaf cut across at an angle of forty-five degrees. On its apex, a sheer cliff, 420 feet above the water, were a flagstaff and a piece of cannon as a signal-gun. Precipitous and sheer on all sides, the only landing-place it possesses is a little shelf of rock overlooked by its castle, the chief feature of which is a long crenelated rampart, where in those days twenty-one pieces of heavy cannon faced and defended the strait between it and Tantallan. Beneath this platform, tier above tier, are the grated windows of the small arched dungeons in which

the State prisoners were confined. However calm the weather, a heavy surf for ever boils around the Bass, of which there is as much below water as above; and boatmen have to cling hard to iron rings in the rock when parties land there, to save their craft from being dashed to pieces. The actual point of landing is a steep and slippery chasm that leads to the plateau of rock before the gate, and this is always covered by dead gannets and Norwegian rabbits; these together with the guano, which is the soil of the isle, taint most unpleasantly even the keen sea-breeze. To the left of this landing-place, guarded by a loopholed tower, are still the remains of the iron crane used by the gar rison for raising their boat to the outer wall.

A portcullis of iron, three strong gates, and a lofty spur projecting southward, and having within it a covered gallery, loopholed on both sides for musketry, are its chief securities. Prisoners have frequently escaped from the Château d'If, from the Tower of London, and even from the loftier Castle of Edinburgh; but none ever escaped from the Bass, which has never been taken by storm, and which, as we are about to narrate, defied a blockade by land and sea for four years after the battle of Killycrankie.

The Scots Foot Guards furnished the garrison of this place in those days, and till nearly the middle of the last century, at least certainly for some time after the removal of the regiment permanently to London, though the fortifications were dismantled in 1701.

The four prisoners in this castle were young and daring; and the idea of a hopeless captivity in a place so secluded as that island castle washed by the sea became so intolerable that they conceived the idea of capturing it for King James. A scheme for the same purpose is said to have been concocted about the same time by certain Jacobites on the opposite shore. These held their meetings in the manor-house of Garleton, the seat of Sir George Seton, near Drem, who was afterwards arrested by the State in consequence; it is also said to have been first suggested by Captain Charles Maitland-brother of General Maitland, a Scottish Guards officer-the superseded deputy-governor for King James. At all events, he had several meetings concerning the project with two young Jacobites, David Blair, son of the

and