f them attempted to make a stand at Dromore, but were broken and
scattered. Then the flight became wild and tumultuous. The fugitives
broke down the bridges and burned the ferryboats. Whole towns, the seats
of the Protestant population, were left in ruins without one inhabitant.
The people of Omagh destroyed their own dwellings so utterly that no
roof was left to shelter the enemy from the rain and wind. The people of
Cavan migrated in one body to Enniskillen. The day was wet and stormy.
The road was deep in mire. It was a piteous sight to see, mingled with
the armed men, the women and children weeping, famished, and toiling
through the mud up to their knees. All Lisburn fled to Antrim; and, as
the foes drew nearer, all Lisburn and Antrim together came pouring into
Londonderry. Thirty thousand Protestants, of both sexes and of every
age, were crowded behind the bulwarks of the City of Refuge. There, at
length, on the verge of the ocean, hunted to the last asylum, and
baited into a mood in which men may be destroyed, but will not easily be
subjugated, the imperial race turned desperately to bay, [163]

Meanwhile Mountjoy and Rice had arrived in France. Mountjoy was
instantly put under arrest and thrown into the Bastile. James determined
to comply with the invitation which Rice had brought, and applied to
Lewis for the help of a French army. But Lewis, though he showed, as to
all things which concerned the personal dignity and comfort of his
royal guests, a delicacy even romantic, and a liberality approaching to
profusion, was unwilling to send a large body of troops to Ireland.
He saw that France would have to maintain a long war on the Continent
against a formidable coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and,
great as were her resources, he felt it to be important that nothing
should be wasted. He doubtless regarded with sincere commiseration and
good will the unfortunate exiles to whom he had given so princely a
welcome. Yet neither commiseration nor good will could prevent him from
speedily discovering that his brother of England was the dullest and
most perverse of human beings. The folly of James, his incapacity to
read the characters of men and the signs of the times, his obstinacy,
always most offensively displayed when wisdom enjoined concession,
his vacillation, always exhibited most pitiably in emergencies which
required firmness, had made him an outcast from England, and might, if
his counsels were blindly