troops at Belfast on the 28th inst, marched without it, and ordered it to be sent by sea. His route was Lisburn, Hillsborough, Dromore, and Loughbrickland. At the latter place the Enniskillen Horse and Dragoons joined him, and formed his van, till the army came within sight of Newry. This town was observed to be in flames, the Duke of Berwick having set it on fire before retreating from it, as he had done to other places. Schomberg sent a trumpeter to Berwick with the threat that no quarter would be given if this barbarous burning was continued. Berwick consequently, on retiring from Dundalk, left it uninjured. On the 7th September Schomberg halted there to wait for his artillery, which was to be landed at Carlingford. It had not arrived on Saturday, the 14th of September; and in the meantime King James’s generals and his royal Bourbon ally had assembled a force of 28,000, which encamped at Ardee. Schomberg, with greatly inferior numbers, would not risk a battle. He knew the deficiencies of his own army, and had no reason to doubt that his Franco-Hibernian opponents would be better able to do their duty in a field of battle.
“On this (Saturday) evening,” says Story, “it was given out in orders that none that went foraging should pass the Horse out-guards; and that the Horse might cut wood for their stables, and also the Foot, for their conveniency; so that this was the first public appearance of our staying here. . . . In two or three days most of the wood about the town, as also most of the fruit-trees in my Lord Bedloe’s orchard, were cut down.”
In choosing his camp, the Duke of Schomberg may be liable to criticism for not discovering that the situation was unhealthy. It was selected for the purposes of defence, on low ground, having the sea to the south, hills and bogs to the north, mountains to the east, and Dundalk and its river on the west. Part of the unhealthiness arose from the unforeseen circumstance of an unusually rainy autumn. As to the advantages of the situation, a hint is to be found in the Duke’s despatch, dated 20th September, “Having gone this morning to find my son, Count Schomberg, who was pretty near the videttes of the enemy, we saw a body of cavalry advance which did not march in squadron, and which appeared to be King James or several general officers. From thence they could see our camp; but I believe the sight which most displeased them was the arrival of eleven vessels in the road of Dundalk, from which they might judge that they could not starve us here, as they hoped to have done.”[1]
The soldiers were impatient at inaction, in the midst of privation and disease. But the majority were fighting men only in name. In Schomberg’s opinion, his French regiments were the best. “Others can inform your Majesty,” he wrote on the 12th October 1689, “that the three regiments of French infantry, and their regiment of cavalry, do their duty better than the others.” The Enniskilleners had learned to fight though they preferred to plunder. The Dutch knew how to keep their tents dry and clean; and if the English soldiers had condescended to copy them, they need not have sickened and died in such numbers. But the numerous English and Irish recruits had to learn how to fire a gun; to learn to take an aim required more time. Officers, as well as privates, had to be drilled and instructed; and many of them were very unwilling to give regular attendance. So that Schomberg, when such men clamoured to be led into action, good-humouredly said, “We English have stomach enough for fighting. It is a pity that we are not as fond of some other parts of a soldier’s business.” This anecdote is from Macaulay. The same anecdote, or a similar one, is told by Mr. Story thus: “The General said one day when he came to the camp and found that the soldiers had not hutted according to orders, We Englishmen will fight, but we do not love to work (for he used to call himself an Englishman, for all he loved the French so well).”
The defensive warfare of this campaign is well pictured in Story’s book. “Monday, September 16th, six hundred men were ordered to work at the trenches, which the Duke saw then convenient to draw round his camp, since he had an enemy that was too strong for him very near, and therefore he must put it out of their power to force him to fight; for woe be to that army which by an enemy is made to fight against its will ! And this is the advantage of an entrenched camp that none can compel you to give battle but when you please.”
“Saturday, September 21st, about nine in the morning (it being a very fine clear day) our camp was alarmed. The enemy displayed their Standard-Royal (for the late king was at the head of his army, having come to the camp some days before), and all drew out, both horse and foot, bringing along a very handsome field train. . . . The Duke went out to observe them, and sent for Colonel Beaumont’s regi-
- ↑ Despatch, No. 4.
