how to load their pieces: his dragoons
had still to learn how to manage their horses; and these inexperienced
recruits were for the most part commanded by officers as inexperienced
as themselves. His troops were therefore not generally superior in
discipline to the Irish, and were in number far inferior. Nay, he found
that his men were almost as ill armed, as ill lodged, as ill clad, as
the Celts to whom they were opposed. The wealth of the English nation
and the liberal votes of the English parliament had entitled him to
expect that he should be abundantly supplied with all the munitions of
war. But he was cruelly disappointed. The administration had, ever since
the death of Oliver, been constantly becoming more and more imbecile,
more and more corrupt; and now the Revolution reaped what the
Restoration had sown. A crowd of negligent or ravenous functionaries,
formed under Charles and James, plundered, starved, and poisoned the
armies and fleets of William. Of these men the most important was Henry
Shales, who, in the late reign, had been Commissary General to the camp
at Hounslow. It is difficult to blame the new government for continuing
to employ him: for, in his own department, his experience far surpassed
that of any other Englishman. Unfortunately, in the same school in
which he had acquired his experience, he had learned the whole art of
peculation. The beef and brandy which he furnished were so bad that
the soldiers turned from them with loathing: the tents were rotten: the
clothing was scanty: the muskets broke in the handling. Great numbers
of shoes were set down to the account of the government: but, two months
after the Treasury had paid the bill, the shoes had not arrived in
Ireland. The means of transporting baggage and artillery were almost
entirely wanting. An ample number of horses had been purchased in
England with the public money, and had been sent to the banks of the
Dee. But Shales had let them out for harvest work to the farmers of
Cheshire, had pocketed the hire, and had left the troops in Ulster to
get on as they best might, [442] Schomberg thought that, if he should,
with an ill trained and ill appointed army, risk a battle against a
superior force, he might not improbably be defeated; and he knew that a
defeat might be followed by the loss of one kingdom, perhaps by the
loss of three kingdoms. He therefore made up his mind to stand on the
defensive till his men had been disciplined, and till re