uthorities to the fact of Captain Davenant and his son being engaged in
the hostile army. He felt sure that the ladies need fear no molestation,
save from the soldiers or Northerners, as his own influence with the
Protestants of his neighbourhood would suffice to prevent these from
interfering with the household at the castle.

The Irish army marched towards the Shannon, and were concentrated part in
the neighbourhood of Athlone, and part at Limerick. William shortly
prepared to follow them. He, too, divided his army into two columns. The
main body, under his own command, took the road to Limerick; while the
other division, consisting of five regiments of cavalry and twelve of
infantry, was despatched, under the command of General Douglas, for the
purpose of investing the fortress of Athlone.

As the armies marched west, their path was marked by wholesale outrage
and destruction. Although protections were granted to the peasants and
inhabitants of the towns and villages through which the armies marched,
they were entirely disregarded by the soldiers, who plundered, ill used,
and sometimes murdered the defenceless people, carrying away without
payment all provisions on which they could lay their hands.

The king sometimes hanged those who were caught in these acts of plunder
and slaughter, but this had but little effect. The Dutch soldiers, alone,
maintained their order and discipline. The foreign mercenaries, composed
for the most part of the sweepings of the great cities, behaved with a
brutality and cruelty almost without example, and which was acknowledged
by all the historians of the time, Protestant as well as Catholic.
Indeed, the Protestant inhabitants suffered even more than the Catholics,
for many of the latter fled at the approach of the army, while the
Protestants, regarding them as friends and deliverers, remained quietly
at home, and suffered every insult and outrage at the hands of this horde
of savages, who were perfectly indifferent as to the religion of those
they plundered.

Captain Davenant's troop was with the force which had retired to Athlone,
and there awaited the approach of the column of General Douglas. The
reports of the conduct of the enemy, that were brought in by the flying
peasants, filled the Irish troops with indignation and rage, and when, on
arriving before the town, General Douglas sent a messenger to demand its
surrender, Colonel Grace, who commanded, only replied by firing a pisto