eclaration of mercy, confirming the former, and even extending
it to persons of superior rank and station, whether natives or
foreigners, provided they would, by the twenty-fifth day of the month,
lay down their arms and submit to certain conditions. This offer of
indemnity produced very little effect, for the Irish were generally
governed by their priests, and the news of the victory which the French
fleet had obtained over the English and Dutch, was circulated with such
exaggerations as elevated their spirits, and effaced all thoughts of
submission. The king had returned to Dublin with a view to embark for
England, but receiving notice that the designs of his domestic enemies
were discovered and frustrated, that the fleet was repaired, and the
French navy retired to Brest, he postponed his voyage and resolved to
reduce Limerick; in which Monsieur Boisseleau commanded as governor, and
the duke of Berwick and colonel Sarsfield acted as inferior officers.
On the ninth day of August, the king having called in his detachment and
advanced into the neighbourhood of the place, summoned the commander to
deliver the town; and Boisseleau answered, that he imagined the best way
to gain the good opinion of the prince of Orange, would be a vigorous
defence of the town which his majesty had committed to his charge.
Before the place was fully invested, colonel Sarsfield, with a body of
horse and dragoons, passed the Shannon in the night, intercepted the
king's train of artillery on its way to the camp, routed the troops that
guarded it, disabled the cannon, destroyed the carriages, waggons, and
ammunition, and returned in safety to Limerick. Notwithstanding this
disaster, the trenches were opened on the seventeenth day of the month,
and a battery was raised with some cannon brought from Waterford. The
siege was carried on with vigour, and the place defended with great
resolution. At length the king ordered his troops to make a lodgment in
the covered way or counterscarp, which was accordingly assaulted with
great fury; but the assailants met with such a warm reception from the
besieged, that they were repulsed with the loss of twelve hundred men
either killed on the spot or mortally wounded. This disappointment,
concurring with the badness of the weather, which became rainy and
unwholesome, induced the king to renounce his undertaking. The heavy
baggage and cannon being sent away, the army decamped and marched
towards Clonmel. William