ises the English Artillery--Arrival
of Baldearg O'Donnel at Limerick--The Besiegers suffer from the
Rains--Unsuccessful Assault on Limerick; The Siege raised--Tyrconnel and
Lauzun go to France; William returns to England; Reception of William
in England--Expedition to the South of Ireland--Marlborough takes
Cork--Marlborough takes Kinsale--Affairs of Scotland; Intrigues of
Montgomery with the Jacobites--War in the Highlands--Fort William built;
Meeting of the Scottish Parliament--Melville Lord High Commissioner; the
Government obtains a Majority--Ecclesiastical Legislation--The Coalition
between the Club and the Jacobites dissolved--The Chiefs of the Club
betray each other--General Acquiescence in the new Ecclesiastical
Polity--Complaints of the Episcopalians--The Presbyterian
Conjurors--William dissatisfied with the Ecclesiastical Arrangements
in Scotland--Meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland--State of Affairs on the Continent--The Duke of Savoy joins
the Coalition--Supplies voted; Ways and Means--Proceedings against
Torrington--Torrington's Trial and Acquittal--Animosity of the
Whigs against Caermarthen--Jacobite Plot--Meeting of the leading
Conspirators--The Conspirators determine to send Preston to Saint
Germains--Papers entrusted to Preston--Information of the Plot given to
Caermarthen--Arrest of Preston and his Companions

WILLIAM had been, during the whole spring, impatiently expected in
Ulster. The Protestant settlements along the coast of that province had,
in the course of the month of May, been repeatedly agitated by false
reports of his arrival. It was not, however, till the afternoon of the
fourteenth of June that he landed at Carrickfergus. The inhabitants of
the town crowded the main street and greeted him with loud acclamations:
but they caught only a glimpse of him. As soon as he was on dry ground
he mounted and set off for Belfast. On the road he was met by Schomberg.
The meeting took place close to a white house, the only human dwelling
then visible, in the space of many miles, on the dreary strand of the
estuary of the Laggan. A village and a cotton mill now rise where the
white house then stood alone; and all the shore is adorned by a gay
succession of country houses, shrubberies and flower beds. Belfast has
become one of the greatest and most flourishing seats of industry in the
British isles. A busy population of eighty thousand souls is collected
there. Th