ive men to about three
thousand. The loss of the besiegers cannot be precisely ascertained.
Walker estimated it at eight thousand men. It is certain from the
despatches of Avaux that the regiments which returned from the blockade
had been so much thinned that many of them were not more than two
hundred strong. Of thirty-six French gunners who had superintended the
cannonading, thirty-one had been killed or disabled, [255] The means
both of attack and of defence had undoubtedly been such as would have
moved the great warriors of the Continent to laughter; and this is the
very circumstance which gives so peculiar an interest to the history
of the contest. It was a contest, not between engineers, but between
nations; and the victory remained with the nation which, though inferior
in number, was superior in civilisation, in capacity for selfgovernment,
and in stubbornness of resolution, [256]

As soon as it was known that the Irish army had retired, a deputation
from the city hastened to Lough Foyle, and invited Kirk to take the
command. He came accompanied by a long train of officers, and was
received in state by the two Governors, who delivered up to him the
authority which, under the pressure of necessity, they had assumed.
He remained only a few days; but he had time to show enough of the
incurable vices of his character to disgust a population distinguished
by austere morals and ardent public spirit. There was, however, no
outbreak. The city was in the highest good humour. Such quantities of
provisions had been landed from the fleet, that there was in every house
a plenty never before known. A few days earlier a man had been glad to
obtain for twenty pence a mouthful of carrion scraped from the bones of
a starved horse. A pound of good beef was now sold for three halfpence.
Meanwhile all hands were busied in removing corpses which had been
thinly covered with earth, in filling up the holes which the shells
had ploughed in the ground, and in repairing the battered roofs of
the houses. The recollection of past dangers and privations, and the
consciousness of having deserved well of the English nation and of all
Protestant Churches, swelled the hearts of the townspeople with honest
pride. That pride grew stronger when they received from William a letter
acknowledging, in the most affectionate language, the debt which he owed
to the brave and trusty citizens of his good city. The whole population
crowded to the Diamond to