ht, without violating the allegiance due to
the Crown, make temporary provision for its own safety. A deputation was
sent to inform Berwick that he had assumed a power to which he had
no right, but that nevertheless the army and people of Ireland would
willingly acknowledge him as their head if he would consent to govern by
the advice of a council truly Irish. Berwick indignantly expressed his
wonder that military men should presume to meet and deliberate without
the permission of their general. They answered that there was no
general, and that, if His Grace did not choose to undertake the
administration on the terms proposed, another leader would easily be
found. Berwick very reluctantly yielded, and continued to be a puppet in
a new set of hands. [79]

Those who had effected this revolution thought it prudent to send a
deputation to France for the purpose of vindicating their proceedings.
Of the deputation the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and the two
Luttrells were members. In the ship which conveyed them from Limerick
to Brest they found a fellow passenger whose presence was by no means
agreeable to them, their enemy, Maxwell. They suspected, and not without
reason, that he was going, like them, to Saint Germains, but on a very
different errand. The truth was that Berwick had sent Maxwell to watch
their motions and to traverse their designs. Henry Luttrell, the least
scrupulous of men, proposed to settle the matter at once by tossing the
Scotchman into the sea. But the Bishop, who was a man of conscience,
and Simon Luttrell, who was a man of honour, objected to this expedient.
[80]

Meanwhile at Limerick the supreme power was in abeyance. Berwick,
finding that he had no real authority, altogether neglected business,
and gave himself up to such pleasures as that dreary place of banishment
afforded. There was among the Irish chiefs no man of sufficient weight
and ability to control the rest. Sarsfield for a time took the lead. But
Sarsfield, though eminently brave and active in the field, was little
skilled in the administration of war, and still less skilled in civil
business. Those who were most desirous to support his authority were
forced to own that his nature was too unsuspicious and indulgent for
a post in which it was hardly possible to be too distrustful or too
severe. He believed whatever was told him. He signed whatever was set
before him. The commissaries, encouraged by his lenity, robbed and
embezzled m