rs were always repulsed with considerable
loss. The townsmen gained divers advantages in repeated sallies, and
would have held their enemies in the utmost contempt, had they not been
afflicted with a contagious distemper, as well as reduced to extremity
by want of provisions. They were even tantalized in their distress;
for they had the mortification to see some ships which had arrived
with supplies from England, prevented from sailing up the river by the
batteries the enemy had raised on both sides, and a boom with which they
had blocked up the channel. At length a reinforcement arrived in the
Lough, under the command of general Kirke, who had deserted his master
and been employed in the service of king William. He found means to
convey intelligence to Walker, that he had troops and provisions on
board for their relief, but found it impracticable to sail up the river:
he promised, however, that he would land a body of forces at the Inch,
and endeavour to make a diversion in their favour-, when joined by the
troops at Inniskilling, which amounted to five thousand men, including
two thousand cavalry. He said he expected six thousand men from England,
where they were embarked before he set sail. He exhorted them to
persevere in their courage and loyalty, and assured them he would come
to their relief at all hazards. These assurances enabled them to bear
their miseries a little longer, though their numbers daily diminished.
Major Baker dying, his place was filled with colonel Michel-burn, who
now acted as colleague to Mr. Walker.

CRUELTY OF ROSENE.

King James having returned to Dublin to be present at the parliament,
the command of his army devolved to the French general Rosene, who was
exasperated at such an obstinate opposition by a handful of half-starved
militia. He threatened to raze the town to its foundations, and destroy
the inhabitants without distinction of age or sex, unless they would
immediately submit themselves to their lawful sovereign. The governors
treated his menaces with contempt, and published an order that no
person, on pain of death, should talk of surrendering. They had now
consumed the last remains of their provisions, and supported life by
eating the flesh of horses, dogs, cats, rats, mice, tallow, starch,
and salted hides, and even this loathsome food began to fail. Rosene,
finding him deaf to all his proposals, threatened to wreak his vengeance
on all the protestants of that country, an