r and Connaught. No
expression used by Baldearg indicated that he considered himself as
a subject. His notion evidently was that the House of O'Donnel was as
truly and as indefeasibly royal as the House of Stuart; and not a few
of his countrymen were of the same mind. He made a pompous entrance into
Limerick; and his appearance there raised the hopes of the garrison to
a strange pitch. Numerous prophecies were recollected or invented. An
O'Donnel with a red mark was to be the deliverer of his country; and
Baldearg meant a red mark. An O'Donnel was to gain a great battle over
the English near Limerick; and at Limerick the O'Donnel and the English
were now brought face to face, [752]

While these predictions were eagerly repeated by the defenders of the
city, evil presages, grounded not on barbarous oracles, but on grave
military reasons, began to disturb William and his most experienced
officers. The blow struck by Sarsfield had told; the artillery had been
long in doing its work; that work was even now very imperfectly done;
the stock of powder had begun to run low; the autumnal rain had begun
to fall. The soldiers in the trenches were up to their knees in mire. No
precaution was neglected; but, though drains were dug to carry off the
water, and though pewter basins of usquebaugh and brandy blazed all
night in the tents, cases of fever had already occurred, and it might
well be apprehended that, if the army remained but a few days longer on
that swampy soil, there would be a pestilence more terrible than that
which had raged twelve months before under the walls of Dundalk, [753]
A council of war was held. It was determined to make one great effort,
and, if that effort failed, to raise the seige.

On the twenty-seventh of August, at three in the afternoon, the signal
was given. Five hundred grenadiers rushed from the English trenches
to the counterscarp, fired their pieces, and threw their grenades. The
Irish fled into the town, and were followed by the assailants, who,
in the excitement of victory, did not wait for orders. Then began a
terrible street fight. The Irish, as soon as they had recovered
from their surprise, stood resolutely to their arms; and the English
grenadiers, overwhelmed by numbers, were, with great loss, driven back
to the counterscarp. There the struggle was long and desperate. When
indeed was the Roman Catholic Celt to fight if he did not fight on that
day? The very women of Limerick mingled, in t