In the meantime, a regiment of Brandenburghers had attacked the wall of the battery known as the Black Battery, whose fire was doing great execution upon the assailants.  They had brought scaling ladders with them, and with these they succeeded, fighting with great bravery and determination, in gaining the walls.  The whole regiment poured in; but, just as they did so, the Irish fired the powder magazine that supplied the battery, and the whole battalion was destroyed.

William, from his position on a fort known as Cromwell’s Fort, watched the struggle.  Had he acted as Cromwell did, at the siege of Drogheda, when, after his troops had been twice repulsed at the breach, he placed himself at their head and led them to the assault, the result might not have been the same; for the regiments, which refused to follow their officers up the counter-scarp, might have followed the king; but William, although he had often proved the possession of no ordinary courage, and coolness in danger, had not that species of courage which prompts a man to throw himself forward to lead a forlorn hope.  Moreover, both as a general-in-chief and king, his place was not at the head of an assault.

The assailants lost more than two thousand men, and these the flower of William’s army.  The surprise of the troops, at their defeat by an enemy they had been taught to despise, was extreme, and so ashamed were they of their failure, that the following day they were ready to renew the assault.  The king, however, would not risk another such defeat.  The bravest of his force had perished, his stores of ammunition were nearly exhausted, and the rains had set in with great violence.

On the day following the assault, the king called a council of war, and it was resolved to raise the siege.  There was a great scarcity of waggons and horses, in consequence of the loss sustained by Sarsfield’s attack on the train.  The few waggons which remained were not enough to convey the wounded men, many of whom were obliged to walk.  The stores had, therefore, to be abandoned for want of transport.  Some were thrown into the river, others blown up and destroyed, and, on Saturday the 30th of August, the army commenced its retreat.

It was accompanied by a great host of fugitives, for with the army went the whole of the Protestant inhabitants of the county of Limerick and the surrounding country, with their wives, children, servants, and such household goods as they could bring with them.  In addition to these were the Protestant fugitives from the neighbourhood of Athlone, who had come down with the division of General Douglas, after he had raised the siege of that city.