the shame of the Boyne--supported him like one man. William was
known, to be moving south to the attack, and accordingly Lauzan and
Tyrconnel, with the rest of the French troops moved hastily away to
Galway, leaving Sarsfield to defend Limerick as he could.

They had hardly left before William's army appeared in sight with the
king himself at their head, and drew up before the walls. A formidable
siege train, sent after him from Dublin, was to follow in a day or two.
Had it arrived it would have finished the siege at once. Sarsfield
accordingly slipped out of the town under cover of night, fell upon it
while it was on its way through the Silvermine Hills in Tipperary,
killed some sixty of the men who were in charge, and filling the cannons
with powder, burst them with an explosion which startled the country
round for miles, and the roar of which is said to have reached William
in his camp before Limerick.

This brilliant little feat delayed the siege. Nevertheless it was
pressed on with great vigour. Two more guns were obtained, several of
the outworks carried, and a breach began to show in the ramparts. It was
now autumn, the rainy season was setting in, and William's presence was
urgently wanted in England. After another violent attempt, therefore, to
take the town, which was resisted with the most desperate valour, the
very women joining in the fight, and remaining under the hottest fire,
the besiegers drew off, and William shortly afterwards sailed for
England, leaving the command in the hands of Ginkel, the ablest of his
Dutch generals.

This first siege of Limerick is in many respects a very remarkable one,
and bears a close analogy to the yet more famous siege of Londonderry.
To give the parallel in Lord Macaulay's words--"The southern city," he
says "was, like the northern city, the last asylum of a Church and of a
nation. Both places were crowded by fugitives from all parts of Ireland.
Both places appeared to men who had made a regular study of the art of
war incapable of resisting an enemy.... In both cases, religious and
patriotic enthusiasm struggled unassisted against great odds; in both
cases, religious and patriotic enthusiasm did what veteran warriors had
pronounced it absurd to attempt."

In Galway, meanwhile, violent quarrels had broken out. The French troops
were sick, naturally enough, of the campaign, and not long afterwards
sailed for France. Their places were taken later on by another body of