is more immediate command. But his
authority over the English and the Danes was less entire; and
unfortunately their pay was, during part of the winter, in arrear. They
indemnified themselves by excesses and exactions for the want of that
which was their due; and it was hardly possible to punish men with
severity for not choosing to starve with arms in their hands. At length
in the spring large supplies of money and stores arrived; arrears
were paid up; rations were plentiful; and a more rigid discipline was
enforced. But too many traces of the bad habits which the soldiers had
contracted were discernible till the close of the war. [74]

In that part of Ireland, meanwhile, which still acknowledged James as
King, there could hardly be said to be any law, any property, or any
government. The Roman Catholics of Ulster and Leinster had fled westward
by tens of thousands, driving before them a large part of the cattle
which had escaped the havoc of two terrible years. The influx of food
into the Celtic region, however, was far from keeping pace with the
influx of consumers. The necessaries of life were scarce. Conveniences
to which every plain farmer and burgess in England was accustomed could
hardly be procured by nobles and generals. No coin was to be seen except
lumps of base metal which were called crowns and shillings. Nominal
prices were enormously high. A quart of ale cost two and sixpence, a
quart of brandy three pounds. The only towns of any note on the western
coast were Limerick and Galway; and the oppression which the shopkeepers
of those towns underwent was such that many of them stole away with the
remains of their stocks to the English territory, where a Papist, though
he had to endure much restraint and much humiliation, was allowed to
put his own price on his goods, and received that price in silver.
Those traders who remained within the unhappy region were ruined.
Every warehouse that contained any valuable property was broken open by
ruffians who pretended that they were commissioned to procure stores for
the public service; and the owner received, in return for bales of cloth
and hogsheads of sugar, some fragments of old kettles and saucepans,
which would not in London or Paris have been taken by a beggar.

As soon as a merchant ship arrived in the bay of Galway or in the
Shannon, she was boarded by these robbers. The cargo was carried away;
and the proprietor was forced to content himself with such a qua