ts soon reached England of the condition to which
the revolutionary army was reduced. If there were not "own
correspondents" then in camp, it is quite clear there were very sharp
eyes and very nimble pens. Dr. Walker, whose military experience at
Derry appears to have given him a taste for campaigning, was one of the
complainants. William sent over a commission to inquire into the matter,
who, as usual in such cases, arrived too late to do any good. The men
wanted food, the horses wanted provender, the surgeons and apothecaries
wanted medicines for the sick.[540] In fact, if we take a report of
Crimean mismanagement, we shall have all the details, minus the
statement that several of the officers drank themselves to death, and
that some who were in power were charged with going shares in the
embezzlement of the contractor, Mr. John Shales, who, whether guilty or
not, was made the scapegoat on the occasion, and was accused, moreover,
of having caused all this evil from partiality to King James, in whose
service he had been previously. Mr. John Shales was therefore taken
prisoner, and sent under a strong guard to Belfast, and from thence to
London. As nothing more is heard of him, it is probable the matter was
hushed up, or that he had powerful accomplices in his frauds.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF TRIM.]

Abundant supplies arrived from England, which, if they could not restore
the dead, served at least to renovate the living; and Schomberg was
ready to take the field early in the year 1690, notwithstanding the loss
of about 10,000 men. James, with the constitutional fatuity of the
Stuarts, had lost his opportunity. If he had attacked the motley army of
the revolutionary party while the men were suffering from want and
disease, and while his own troops were fresh and courageous, he might
have conquered; the most sanguine now could scarcely see any other
prospect for him than defeat. He was in want of everything; and he had
no Englishmen who hoped for plunder, no French refugees who looked for a
new home, no brave Dutchmen who loved fighting for its own sake, to fall
back upon in the hour of calamity. His French counsellors only agreed to
disagree with him. There was the ordinary amount of jealousy amongst the
Irish officers--the inevitable result of the want of a competent leader
in whom all could confide. The King was urged by one party (the French)
to retire to Connaught, and entrench himself there until he should
rec