thick, [211] A huge stone, to
which the cable on the left bank was attached, was removed many years
later, for the purpose of being polished and shaped into a column. But
the intention was abandoned, and the rugged mass still lies, not
many yards from its original site, amidst the shades which surround a
pleasant country house named Boom Hall. Hard by is the well from which
the besiegers drank. A little further off is the burial ground where
they laid their slain, and where even in our own time the spade of the
gardener has struck upon many sculls and thighbones at a short distance
beneath the turf and flowers.

While these things were passing in the North, James was holding his
court at Dublin. On his return thither from Londonderry he received
intelligence that the French fleet, commanded by the Count of Chateau
Renaud, had anchored in Bantry Bay, and had put on shore a large
quantity of military stores and a supply of money. Herbert, who had
just been sent to those seas with an English squadron for the purpose
of intercepting the communications between Britanny and Ireland, learned
where the enemy lay, and sailed into the bay with the intention of
giving battle. But the wind was unfavourable to him: his force was
greatly inferior to that which was opposed to him; and after some
firing, which caused no serious loss to either side, he thought it
prudent to stand out to sea, while the French retired into the recesses
of the harbour. He steered for Scilly, where he expected to find
reinforcements; and Chateau Renaud, content with the credit which he had
acquired, and afraid of losing it if he staid, hastened back to Brest,
though earnestly intreated by James to come round to Dublin.

Both sides claimed the victory. The Commons at Westminster absurdly
passed a vote of thanks to Herbert. James, not less absurdly, ordered
bonfires to be lighted, and a Te Deum to be sung. But these marks of joy
by no means satisfied Avaux, whose national vanity was too strong even
for his characteristic prudence and politeness. He complained that James
was so unjust and ungrateful as to attribute the result of the late
action to the reluctance with which the English seamen fought against
their rightful King and their old commander, and that his Majesty did
not seem to be well pleased by being told that they were flying over the
ocean pursued by the triumphant French. Dover, too, was a bad Frenchman.
He seemed to take no pleasure in the defe