"360 fearing he came to disturb his master's bones, flew upon the soldier: who, being surprized at the suddenness of the thing, unslung his piece, then upon his back, and killed the poor dog." He expired, with the same fidelity to the remains of his unfortunate master, as that master had shown devotion to the cause of his unhappy country. And, in other countries, such devotion and fidelity would have been adorned and immortalized in the brightest colouring of sentiment and genius.361 But, in Ireland, all virtue was doomed, To fall beneath the arm of evil power, to be crushed in life-and remain "cold and unhonoured" in death. Yet "other men and other times will arise,"—perhaps even now have arisen-" to do justice to its memory;" for, in the history of nations, there are few spectacles more entitled to the admiration of the noble mind, and the sympathy of the generous and feeling heart, than the fate of the gallant men, and the faithful dog of Aughrim. The limits of this essay already extended far beyond what was originally contemplated-compel me to close any observations on this war for the pre 360 Cont. Hist. P. 147. 361 I need scarcely advert to the Odyssey and the dog of Ulysses, and to the beautiful poem on "the dog of the nameless brave," during the 3 days of July, by Casimir Delavigne-of which a spirited English version is to be found in the Reliques of Father Prout. But how could Moore have passed by such an incident for an Irish poet as that in the text? sent with the following facts, from which the statements of those Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-Irish authorities, by whom Voltaire was led to mention the Irish as “fighting badly at home," will appear in a light more discreditable, prhaps, than the assertions of any set of scribblers, that have ever contributed to mislead an historian's judgment, with the misrepresentations of national prejudice, factions rancour, and sectarian intolerance. The population of Ireland at the Revolution was not, at the outside, more than 1,500,000 persons. The Catholic, or genuinely Irish portion of these, who did not consider themselves as mere settlers in, but as natives of, the country, were not, at the most, above 1,000,000. The remaining 500,000 were Protestants, the great majority of whom owed their obnoxious possessions to conduct so contrary to all justice, that they were as hostile to Ireland as they were devoted to England, to whom they were alone indebted for existing as a privileged caste of bigoted and domineering planters, at the expense of the rights of others. The revenue of Ireland, about this period, when in its most flourishing state, or from 1682 to 1685, before the war in the country that reduced it to the lowest pitch, was only £266,209 a year. The war with this little Irish or Catholic population, of no more than 1,000,000 of persons of all descriptions, cost England and her Anglo-Irish planters 3 campaigns. In these the expenditure for her regular forces alone-in 1689 above 25,000, in 1690 above 41,000, and in 1691 above 37,000 men,— was as follows, according to her own official writer, I." The army that landed with Duke Schon- whole pay for that year would come to...... £869,410 7 6 tish and foreign regiments,would amount to £1,287,630 2 0 IV. "Then the General Officers'pay,the train, Total expense of English regular forces in English national debt (funded and unfunded) £1,161,830 12 10 £6,637,742 5 0 £9,956,613 7 4 in Dec. 1697, after the peace of Ryswick, £21,515,742 13 8 Yet, to the immense sum of £9,956,613. 7s. 4d., forces in Ireland, must be added, out of the seemingly-greater cost of the war on the Continent, a sum that would make the Irish war, in reality, the more expensive of the two; the deduction, adverted to, being necessary on the score of arms, &c., supplied to the Irish Williamite faction, which furnished as militia or yeomanry, according to Story, "at least 25,000 men." 962 So that, without saying any thing of what the Williamite chaplain entitles, "the farther destruction of the Protestant interest, by cutting down improvements, burning houses, destroying of sheep and cattle, taking away of horses," &c., the cost of this 3 years' war to England against but 1,000,000 of Irish, would be nearer to £11,000,000 than £10,000,000-or an expenditure not only far above that of the contest against Louis XIV, but much greater than that to which perhaps any population, so small, and so miserably assisted as the Irish were by France, ever yet put any hostile nation, so vastly superior in organization, numbers, wealth, and alliances, as England then was. I may add that, even supposing the Irish revenue of £266,209 a year not to have been so much reduced as it was, by the estimated number of 100,000 young and old destroyed,and 300,000 "ruined and undone" in the course of the struggle, England was put to 362 This assertion respecting the full amount of the Irish Williamite militia is given in the concluding page (328) of Story's work, and tends to justify my previous observations on the subject (page 244 & note 105), though made in ignorance of such an assertion; the last 3 pages of the only copy of Story then in my possession having been torn out. above 40 years' purchase for that revenue; or some millions more than the whole annual rental of her own territory was then worth; its amount being calculated on the very first authority, or that of Sir William Petty, not to have been, at that time, above £8,000,000 a year. 363 Now if, under almost every disadvantage, this one million, not between EIGHT and NINE millions, of Irish, cost William's government such an enormous quantity of time, trouble, bloodshed, and expense to overcome them; and if that resistance which they gave to his immenselysuperior power be called, "fighting badly at home," pray when did any nation ever fight well at home ?— and can we wonder, that, though the Irish were worsted," as Story observes, "yet their officers would confidently affirm, That THEIR men had as MUCH courage as those that beat them !" They HAD, at the very least! And, in spite of the long injustice done to their memory by the prejudice of a foreign, and the bigotry of a domestic usurpation, that country for which they suffered and bled would deserve to be enslaved indeed, if it did not deeply feel, in pride for their gallantry, though in sorrow for their defeat, Forget not the fields where they perish'd— 363 See, for all those facts, Introduction to the Parliamentary Census Report for 1821-Story, Cont. Hist. p. 316, 317, 318, 328, and preface-King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, appendix, p. 51-M'Culloch's edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. IV, p. 25 & 26-Hume, from the Parliamentary Journals, March, 1689-and Sir Wm. Petty, ap. Newenham's View of Ireland, p. 244. |