nglish army and nation. "We raised the regiment,"
he said, "at our own charges to defend His Majesty's crown in a time
of danger. We had then no difficulty in procuring hundreds of English
recruits. We can easily keep every company up to its full complement
without admitting Irishmen. We therefore do not think it consistent with
our honour to have these strangers forced on us; and we beg that we may
either be permitted to command men of our own nation or to lay down our
commissions." Berwick sent to Windsor for directions. The King, greatly
exasperated, instantly despatched a troop of horse to Portsmouth with
orders to bring the six refractory officers before him. A council of
war sate on them. They refused to make any submission; and they were
sentenced to be cashiered, the highest punishment which a court martial
was then competent to inflict. The whole nation applauded the disgraced
officers; and the prevailing sentiment was stimulated by an unfounded
rumour that, while under arrest, they had been treated with cruelty.
[448]

Public feeling did not then manifest itself by those signs with which we
are familiar, by large meetings, and by vehement harangues. Nevertheless
it found a vent. Thomas Wharton, who, in the last Parliament, had
represented Buckinghamshire, and who was already conspicuous both as
a libertine and as a Whig, had written a satirical ballad on
the administration of Tyrconnel. In this little poem an Irishman
congratulates a brother Irishman, in a barbarous jargon, on the
approaching triumph of Popery and of the Milesian race. The Protestant
heir will be excluded. The Protestant officers will be broken. The Great
Charter and the praters who appeal to it will be hanged in one rope. The
good Talbot will shower commissions on his countrymen, and will cut the
throats of the English. These verses, which were in no respect above the
ordinary standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which
was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in
1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one
end of England to the other all classes were constantly singing this
idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More
than seventy years after the Revolution, a great writer delineated, with
exquisite skill, a veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at Namur. One
of the characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of whistling
Lillibullero.