The Speaker (Mr. Henry Powell, Member for Windsor) replied, “My lord, the services that have been done by your Grace to their Majesties and this kingdom are so great, that they can never be forgotten. I am therefore commanded by this House to acquaint you that they are extremely satisfied that their Majesties’ army has been committed to Your Grace’s conduct. This House doth likewise assure Your Grace that, at what distance soever you are, they will have a particular regard (as much as in them lies) of whatever may concern Your Grace or the army under your command.”
The Duke, from the first, found his greatest enemy in the English Commissariat. The Stewart dynasty had left all the public offices in a state of demoralisation, the officials plundering to enrich themselves, and sacrificing the power and honour of their country. He arrived at Chester on the 20th of July. “He was very uneasy,” says Oldmixon, a contemporary chronicler, “at the dilatory proceedings of the managers of both shipping and provisions, and proposed that the forces should march overland to Scotland, and embark at Port-Patrick, from whence it was a short passage over to Ireland, and it would have saved two or three months' time. This was opposed, as was every other measure that tended to the suppression of King James’s party, by those who had deserted him in his distress, and pretended a great zeal for King William’s interest and honour.” At length the Duke sailed from Highlake near Chester, accompanied by transports conveying 10,000 troops. Luttrell notes the day and the hour, the 12th of August at four in the morning. And with this the memoranda of a member of the expedition agree, the Rev. George Story, chaplain to Sir Thomas Gower’s Regiment. Mr. Story published his papers under the title, “An Impartial History of the Wars of Ireland from the time that Duke Schonberg landed an army in that kingdom to the 23d of March 1691-2, when their Majesties’ Proclamation was published declaring the war to be ended.” What remains to be recorded concerning the great Captain-General I shall compile from that publication, borrowing also some of Lord Macaulay’s observations, and not refusing contributions from other sources.
The expedition anchored in Belfast Lough, and the troops landed at Groomsport near Bangor, in the County of Down. “They lay upon their arms,” says Story, “all night, having frequent alarms of the enemy’s approach, but nothing extraordinary happened. Next day, being Wednesday the 14th, the Duke continued still encamped, and the garrison of Carrickfergus, apprehending a siege, burnt their suburbs.” On Thursday the Duke sent a party of about 250 men, commanded by Sir Charles Fielding, to see what posture the enemy was in about Belfast; they returned with information that Belfast was abandoned, and Colonel Wharton’s Regiment was sent to take possession of it. On Friday, Lieut-Colonel Caulfield and 300 men of the Earl of Drogheda’s Regiment were despatched to Antrim, and found that town also deserted by the enemy. On Saturday Schomberg took the army to Belfast. On Tuesday and Wednesday following twelve regiments of foot were sent to begin the siege of Carrickfergus, where the Irish garrison was commanded by Major-General Mackarty Moore.
The garrison held out gallantly till Tuesday, the 27th August, at six in the morning, when they capitulated, the terms being “to march out with their arms and some baggage, and to be conducted with a guard to the next Irish garrison,” namely, the Duke of Berwick’s headquarters at Newry. At the very time that the parley terminated, Colonel Wharton finding the breach in the wall immensely increased, was preparing to enter the town. “The Duke,” says Story, “sent to command his men to forbear firing, which with some difficulty they agreed to, for they had a great mind to enter by force. When firing ceased on both sides several of our officers went into the town and were treated by the Irish with wine and other things in the castle. The articles were scarce agreed to, till Mackarty Moore was in the Duke’s kitchen in the camp, which the Duke smiled at and did not invite him to dinner, saying, If he had staid like a soldier with his men, he would have sent to him; but if he would go and eat with servants in a kitchen, let him be doing.”
The French and Irish Jacobite garrisons had been so cruel to the Ulster Protestants, that Schomberg had great difficulty in carrying out the terms of the capitulation. Ulster men, who had themselves been sufferers, and who feared for their families at home if such ruffians were to be at large with arms in their hands, assaulted some of the outed garrison, but were restrained from committing murder. So infuriated were the peasants of the Presbyterian persecuted religion, that the Duke of Schomberg “was forced to ride in among them with his pistol in his hand” to prevent the Carrickfergus garrison from being murdered.
Being without horses to draw his artillery, Schomberg, who had rendezvoused his
