otnote 691: See his Funeral Sermon preached at the church of Saint
Mary Aldermary on the 24th of June 1690.]

[Footnote 692: Story's Impartial History; History of the Wars in Ireland
by an Officer of the Royal Army; Hop to the States General, June 30/July
10. 1690.]

[Footnote 693: London Gazette, July 7. 1690; Story's Impartial History;
History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Lord Marchmont's Memorandum; Burnet, ii. 50.
and Thanksgiving Sermon; Dumont MS.]

[Footnote 694: La Hoguette to Louvois, July 31/Aug 10 1690.]

[Footnote 695: That I have done no injustice to the Irish infantry will
appear from the accounts which the French officers who were at the
Boyne sent to their government and their families. La Hoguette,
writing hastily to Louvois on the 4/14th of July, says: "je vous diray
seulement, Monseigneur, que nous n'avons pas este battus, mais que
les ennemys ont chasses devant eux les trouppes Irlandoises comme des
moutons, sans avoir essaye un seul coup de mousquet."

Writing some weeks later more fully from Limerick, he says, "J'en meurs
de honte." He admits that it would have been no easy matter to win the
battle, at best. "Mais il est vray aussi," he adds, "que les Irlandois
ne firent pas la moindre resistance, et plierent sans tirer un seul
coup." Zurlauben, Colonel of one of the finest regiments in the French
service, wrote to the same effect, but did justice to the courage of the
Irish horse, whom La Hoguette does not mention.

There is at the French War Office a letter hastily scrawled by
Boisseleau, Lauzun's second in command, to his wife after the battle. He
wrote thus: "Je me porte bien, ma chere feme. Ne t'inquieste pas de moy.
Nos Irlandois n'ont rien fait qui vaille. Ils ont tous lache le pie."

Desgrigny writing on the 10/20th of July, assigns several reasons for
the defeat. "La premiere et la plus forte est la fuite des Irlandois qui
sont en verite des gens sur lesquels il ne faut pas compter du tout." In
the same letter he says: "Il n'est pas naturel de croire qu'une armee de
vingt cinq mille hommes qui paroissoit de la meilleure volonte du
monde, et qui a la veue des ennemis faisoit des cris de joye, dut etre
entierement defaite sans avoir tire l'epee et un seul coup de mousquet.
Il y a en tel regiment tout entier qui a laisse ses habits, ses armes,
et ses drapeaux sur le champ de bataille, et a gagne les montagnes avec
ses officiers."