ofessions of humanity were hypocritical, and that, if the
orders for the butchery were not given, they were not given only because
His Majesty was confident that the Catholics all over the country would
fall on the Protestants without waiting for orders, [431] But Avaux
was entirely mistaken. That he should have supposed James to be as
profoundly immoral as himself is not strange. But it is strange that
so able a man should have forgotten that James and himself had quite
different objects in view. The object of the Ambassador's politics was
to make the separation between England and Ireland eternal. The object
of the King's politics was to unite England and Ireland under his
own sceptre; and he could not but be aware that, if there should be a
general massacre of the Protestants of three provinces, and he should
be suspected of having authorised it or of having connived at it, there
would in a fortnight be not a Jacobite left even at Oxford, [432]

Just at this time the prospects of James, which had seemed hopelessly
dark, began to brighten. The danger which had unnerved him had roused
the Irish people. They had, six months before, risen up as one man
against the Saxons. The army which Tyrconnel had formed was, in
proportion to the population from which it was taken, the largest that
Europe had ever seen. But that army had sustained a long succession of
defeats and disgraces, unredeemed by a single brilliant achievement. It
was the fashion, both in England and on the Continent, to ascribe those
defeats and disgraces to the pusillanimity of the Irish race, [433] That
this was a great error is sufficiently proved by the history of every
war which has been carried on in any part of Christendom during five
generations. The raw material out of which a good army may be formed
existed in great abundance among the Irish. Avaux informed his
government that they were a remarkably handsome, tall, and well made
race; that they were personally brave; that they were sincerely attached
to the cause for which they were in arms; that they were violently
exasperated against the colonists. After extolling their strength and
spirit, he proceeded to explain why it was that, with all their strength
and spirit, they were constantly beaten. It was vain, he said, to
imagine that bodily prowess, animal courage, or patriotic enthusiasm
would, in the day of battle, supply the place of discipline. The
infantry were ill armed and ill trained. They we