lution
of raising an open rebellion, and of relying no longer on the lenity or
inexperience of the English government. He entered into a correspondence
with Spain; he procured thence a supply of arms and ammunition; and
having united all the Irish chieftains in a dependence upon himself, he
began to be regarded as a formidable enemy.

The native Irish were so poor, that their country afforded few other
commodities than cattle and oatmeal, which were easily concealed or
driven away on the approach of the enemy; and as Elizabeth was averse to
the expense requisite for supporting her armies, the English found much
difficulty in pushing their advantages, and in pursuing the rebels into
the bogs, woods, and other fastnesses to which they retreated. These
motives rendered Sir John Norris, who commanded the English army, the
more willing to hearken to any proposals of truce or accommodation made
him by Tyrone; and after the war was spun out by these artifices for
some years, that gallant Englishman, finding that he had been deceived
by treacherous promises, and that he had performed nothing worthy of his
ancient reputation, was seized with a languishing distemper, and died
of vexation and discontent. Sir Henry Bagnal, who succeeded him in the
command, was still more unfortunate. As he advanced to relieve the
fort of Black Water, besieged by the rebels, he was surrounded in
disadvantageous ground: his soldiers, discouraged by part of their
powders accidentally taking fire, were put to flight; and, though the
pursuit was stopped by Montacute, who commanded the English horse,
fifteen hundred men, together with the general himself, were left dead
upon the spot. This victory, so unusual to the Irish, roused their
courage, supplied them with arms and ammunition, and raised the
reputation of Tyrone, who assumed the character of the deliverer of his
country, and patron of Irish liberty.[*]

The English council were now sensible, that the rebellion of Ireland
was come to a dangerous head, and that the former temporizing arts, of
granting truces and pacifications to the rebels, and of allowing them to
purchase pardons by resigning part of the plunder acquired during their
insurrection, served only to encourage the spirit of mutiny and disorder
among them. It was therefore resolved to push the war by more vigorous
measures; and the queen cast her eye on Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy,
as a man, who, though hitherto less accustomed to arm