ired into two forts called the Old and the New. The
English horse arrived just in time to extinguish the flames. Marlborough
speedily followed with his infantry. The Old Fort was scaled; and four
hundred and fifty men who defended it were all killed or taken. The New
Fort it was necessary to attack in a more methodical way. Batteries
were planted; trenches were opened; mines were sprung; in a few days
the besiegers were masters of the counterscarp; and all was ready for
storming, when the governor offered to capitulate. The garrison, twelve
hundred strong, was suffered to retire to Limerick; but the conquerors
took possession of the stores, which were of considerable value. Of
all the Irish ports Kinsale was the best situated for intercourse with
France. Here, therefore, was a plenty unknown in any other part of
Munster. At Limerick bread and wine were luxuries which generals and
privy councillors were not always able to procure. But in the New Fort
of Kinsale Marlborough found a thousand barrels of wheat and eighty
pipes of claret.

His success had been complete and rapid; and indeed, had it not been
rapid, it would not have been complete. His campaign, short as it was,
had been long enough to allow time for the deadly work which, in that
age, the moist earth and air of Ireland seldom failed, in the autumnal
season, to perform on English soldiers. The malady which had thinned the
ranks of Schomberg's army at Dundalk, and which had compelled William
to make a hasty retreat from the estuary of the Shannon, had begun to
appear at Kinsale. Quick and vigorous as Marlborough's operations were,
he lost a much greater number of men by disease than by the fire of the
enemy. He presented himself at Kensington only five weeks after he had
sailed from Portsmouth, and was most graciously received. "No officer
living," said William, "who has seen so little service as my Lord
Marlborough, is so fit for great commands." [757]

In Scotland, as in Ireland, the aspect of things had, during this
memorable summer, changed greatly for the better. That club of
discontented Whigs which had, in the preceding year, ruled the
Parliament, browbeaten the ministers, refused the supplies and stopped
the signet, had sunk under general contempt, and had at length ceased to
exist. There was harmony between the Sovereign and the Estates; and the
long contest between two forms of ecclesiastical government had been
terminated in the only way compatible w