that I was in some danger, but being a strong man, and used to
perils of all kinds, it was not easy to disconcert me.

I looked then steadily at the fellow, and, in a voice of much
confidence, I said:

'I am neither a Papist, a Royalist, nor a Fitzgerald, but an honester
Protestant, mayhap, than many who make louder professions.'

'Then drink the honest man's toast,' said he. 'Damnation to the pope,
and confusion to skulking Jimmy and his runaway crew.'

'Yourself shall hear me,' said I, taking the largest pewter pot that
lay within my reach. 'Tapster, fill this with ale; I grieve to say I can
afford nothing better.'

I took the vessel of liquor in my hand, and walking up to him, I first
made a bow to the troopers who sat laughing at the sprightliness of
their facetious friend, and then another to himself, when saying, 'G----
damn yourself and your cause!' I flung the ale straight into his face;
and before he had time to recover himself, I struck him with my whole
force and weight with the pewter pot upon the head, so strong a blow,
that he fell, for aught I know, dead upon the floor, and nothing but the
handle of the vessel remained in my hand.

I opened the door, but one of the dragoons drew his sabre, and ran at
me to avenge his companion. With my hand I put aside the blade of the
sword, narrowly escaping what he had intended for me, the point actually
tearing open my vest. Without allowing him time to repeat his thrust,
I struck him in the face with my clenched fist so sound a blow that he
rolled back into the room with the force of a tennis ball.

It was well for me that the rest were half drunk, and the evening dark;
for otherwise my folly would infallibly have cost me my life. As it was,
I reached my garret in safety, with a resolution to frequent taverns no
more until better times.

My little patience and money were wellnigh exhausted, when, after much
doubt and uncertainty, and many conflicting reports, I was assured that
the flower of the Royalist army, under the Duke of Berwick and General
Boisleau, occupied the city of Limerick, with a determination to hold
that fortress against the prince's forces; and that a French fleet of
great power, and well freighted with arms, ammunition, and men, was
riding in the Shannon, under the walls of the town. But this last report
was, like many others then circulated, untrue; there being, indeed, a
promise and expectation of such assistance, but no arrival of it ti