staying for orders, he immediately retired to a mountain a good distance from Limerick, and marched with such precipitation and disorder, that if a hundred of the enemy’s horse had charged him in the rear, they would in all likelihood have defeated his whole party, though he had near upon four thousand men-at-arms and light horse; for the man, if he was faithful, wanted either courage or conduct, and the party were altogether discouraged to be under his command.  But Ginkell did not advance far, and after showing himself on that side of the bridge, returned back into his camp the same day.  Yet Sheldon never rested till he came, about midnight, fifteen miles from the Shannon, and encamped in a fallow field where there was not a bit of grass to be had:  as if he had designed to harass the horses by day and starve them by night....  Ginkell, understanding that the Irish horse was removed to such a distance, passed the river on the twenty-third day with the greatest part of his cavalry, and a considerable body of foot, and encamped half-way between Limerick and the Irish horse camp, whereby he hindered all communication between them and the town.  On the twenty-fourth, the captains within Limerick sent out a trumpet, desiring a parley,” and as a result of this parley, a treaty was ultimately signed between the two parties, Limerick was evacuated, and the war came to an end.  This was early in October, 1691.

The war had, therefore, lasted nearly four years, a sufficient testimony to the military qualities of the Irish, seeing that throughout the whole period they had matched against them greatly superior numbers of the finest troops in Europe, veterans trained in continental wars, and at all points better armed and equipped than their adversaries.

What moves our unbounded admiration, however, is to see the troops displaying these qualities of valor not only without good leadership, but in face of the cowardice of the English king, and of duplicity amounting to treachery on the part of his chief adherents.  Foremost among these time-servers was Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, whose name shows him to have sprung from one of the Norman families, and we see here the recurrence of a principle which had worked much harm in the eight years’ war of the preceding generation.  The Duke of Ormond, sprung from the Norman Butlers, was then the chief representative of the policy of intrigue, and many of the reverses of both these wars are to be attributed to the same race.

It is tragical to find the descendants of the old Norman barons, who at any rate were valiant fighters, descending thus to practices quite unworthy; yet we can easily understand how the fundamental injustice of the feudal principle on which they stood, not less than the boundless abuse of that already bad principle under the first Stuarts, could not fail to undermine their sense of honor and justice, preparing them at length for a policy of mere self-seeking, carried on by methods always doubtful, and often openly treacherous.