hance any thing which could be made secure by wisdom, would
hardly think it a sufficient excuse that his general had not expected
the enemy to make so bold and sudden an attack. The Lord Lieutenant
would, of course, represent what had passed in the most unfavourable
manner; and whatever the Lord Lieutenant said James would echo. A
sharp reprimand, a letter of recall, might be expected. To return
to Versailles a culprit; to approach the great King in an agony of
distress; to see him shrug his shoulders, knit his brow and turn his
back; to be sent, far from courts and camps, to languish at some dull
country seat; this was too much to be borne; and yet this might well
be apprehended. There was one escape; to fight, and to conquer or to
perish.

In such a temper Saint Ruth pitched his camp about thirty miles from
Athlone on the road to Galway, near the ruined castle of Aghrim, and
determined to await the approach of the English army.

His whole deportment was changed. He had hitherto treated the Irish
soldiers with contemptuous severity. But now that he had resolved
to stake life and fame on the valour of the despised race, he became
another man. During the few days which remained to him he exerted
himself to win by indulgence and caresses the hearts of all who were
under his command. [105] He, at the same time, administered to his
troops moral stimulants of the most potent kind. He was a zealous Roman
Catholic; and it is probable that the severity with which he had treated
the Protestants of his own country ought to be partly ascribed to the
hatred which he felt for their doctrines. He now tried to give to the
war the character of a crusade. The clergy were the agents whom he
employed to sustain the courage of his soldiers. The whole camp was in
a ferment with religious excitement. In every regiment priests were
praying, preaching, shriving, holding up the host and the cup. While the
soldiers swore on the sacramental bread not to abandon their colours,
the General addressed to the officers an appeal which might have moved
the most languid and effeminate natures to heroic exertion. They were
fighting, he said, for their religion, their liberty and their honour.
Unhappy events, too widely celebrated, had brought a reproach on the
national character. Irish soldiership was every where mentioned with a
sneer. If they wished to retrieve the fame of their country, this was
the time and this the place. [106]

The spot on which