Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The journal of John Stevens, containing a brief account of the war in Ireland, 1689–1691 (Author: John Stevens)
PREFACE
This first edition of the Journal of John Stevens has had the advantage of the criticisms of two masters of seventeenth-century history, Mr. R. Bagwell and Professor C. H. Firth, who most kindly read through the manuscript and proof-sheets. To Professor Fitzmaurice-Kelly's special and intimate knowledge of Spanish literature I owe not a little. Mr. A. C. Stewart, of the British Museum, furnished me with valuable suggestions. Messrs. Macmillan & Co. have been good enough to allow me to use the map of Limerick in my Revolutionary Ireland and its Settlement. My thanks are due to Dr. F. Elrington Ball and Mr. T. U. Sadleir, for their readiness to advise me on difficult points, and also to Major and Mrs. Lenox Conyngham, of Spring Hill, for their kindness in lending me their copy of the Negociations ... en Irlande, 1689–90 by Comte d'Avaux. It only remains for me to express my gratitude to my wife for the patience and judgement with which she revised the proof-sheets.
ROBERT H. MURRAY.
11 Harcourt Terrace, Dublin.
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Introduction
The Life of John Stevens
Of the life of John Stevens not many details remain, but from his journal some facts emerge. Thus, he served three years in the army in Portugal, he was in civil employment in England, and at the time of the Revolution he was collecting the excise and was stationed at Welshpool; he spent a year in Wales. He first saw Drogheda in 1685, and Limerick in 1686, and when he lived in Dublin he did so ‘in esteem and with splendour’. Twice in his journal he refers to a book of his travels in Ireland, but this has disappeared. In Singer's edition of the Clarendon correspondence occur some references to him. In the Appendix to the first volume is printed the Earl of Clarendon's list of the gentlemen of his bedchamber, with remarks on their character. There Stevens is described as ‘an honest, sober, young fellow, and a pretty scholar. His father is a page of the back-stairs to the Queen Dowager, and has been so from her first landing: he waited on my father in Spain. He is a Roman Catholic. They are very good, quiet people. I would be glad to get a colours for him.’ The advent of Tyrconnel to power effectually stopped all favour for any friend of Clarendon. On October 23, 1686, the latter wrote to Rochester:
‘We have now fresh reports out of England that there are speedily to be great alterations in the army; and reports of that kind having often proved true, I hope your Lordship will forgive me, if by way of provision I take the liberty upon the encouragement you have formerly given me, to bespeak your Lordship's favour on behalf of some young men who have depended upon me, and came over with me, and to whom I would be very glad to do good. And, if
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beggars may be choosers, your Lordship will give me leave to mention the names of the persons and the employments I could wish for them.
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There are two others for whom I would be very glad to provide: one De la Hyde, and one Stevens. They are both Roman Catholics.
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Stevens is a very honest young man; his father belongs to the Queen Dowager. A colours would make him very happy.’
On November 17, 1686, he again wrote to Rochester:
‘This bearer, Stevens, came over with me, one of my gentlemen at large; he is a very honest young man; his father is a page of the back-stairs to the Queen Dowager, and did formerly wait upon my father at Madrid. I intended to have done something for him, but so little interest has a Lord Lieutenant at present, that he can provide for nobody, which makes men think a little of themselves. His father has sent over for him, in hopes to get him into something there; if he have need of your help, let me beg you to assist him. I am sure he will deliver a letter safe to you, and therefore I will write of such things as are not fit to mention by the post.’
Two days later he writes to the same correspondent: ‘I have written to you by a servant of mine who goes hence to-day for Chester; one Stevens, who will deliver it safe to you within a few days after this.’ Stevens was an ardent Jacobite, and therefore he fled to France on the nth of January, 1689. On the 2nd of May, 1689, he landed at Bantry, and took part in the war. The journal ceases in the middle of an account of the battle of Aughrim. He was not attainted until 1695: his death occurred on October 26, 1726.
Before the Jacobite war he had paid some attention to literature, but after the war he devoted himself to it. There can be no doubt that Stevens knew Spanish well, but this was not a very rare accomplishment in his time. Hence he cannot be regarded as a pioneer. There is a steady production of translations from Spanish dating back to the early sixteenth century, when Lord Berners issued his versions of San Pedro's Cárcel de Amor and Guevara's Libro aureo.
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It may, indeed, be contended that Berners's knowledge of Spanish is questionable, and that his translations—so called—are from a French rendering of the Spanish texts. This is quite possible. But there is no doubt at all that Sir Thomas North knew Spanish, and to him is due a very admirable translation of Guevara, published under the title of The Diall of Princes in 1557. North, then, is a pioneer, and the many men who made translations from the Spanish between North's time and Shelton's are also pioneers. Shelton is the author of the first translation of Don Quixote (1612–20). He had the rare good fortune to translate a masterpiece, and, though his version is full of little mistakes, it is in the grand manner. He had the advantage of being a contemporary of Cervantes, and he renders his author with an Elizabethan amplitude which atones for incidental slips and negligences. His translation has an individual savour that keeps it alive.
It is plain, then, that Stevens was not an explorer in an unknown domain. He had many predecessors, and his work is not on the same level as the work of the best of his predecessors. His translations are not equal to North's Guevara, to David Rowland's Lazarillo de Tormés, to Shelton's Cervantes. And he had an unhappy trick of inviting comparisons. Thus in 1706 he takes Shelton in hand, and issues him revised and corrected, and so on. It is difficult not to resent this. It may be that Stevens corrects some of Shelton's oversights, but in doing this he lowers the tone of the translation, and all the sparkle goes out of it. Again, take the volume published by Stevens in 1707, under the title of The Spanish Libertines. It contains, amongst other things, a version of La Celestina. A man who knows no Spanish might get some idea of the original by reading this version, but it is a wan, pale transcription indeed if one compares it with the vigorous, full-blooded translation of La Celestina, issued by James Mabbe
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in the previous century. The fact that Stevens invites these comparisons is distinctly unfortunate for him. He is not in the same class with North, and Shelton, and Mabbe, nor even on the same level as Rowland, or as Bartholomew Young, the translator of the Diana. He lacks the lustiness of L'Estrange, though he knew far more Spanish; in all respects he ranks below Southey; and as a scholar he is much inferior to Ticknor and Stirling-Maxwell.
From his numerous works nothing personal can be gleaned about the writer: they are uniformly inscribed ‘Captain Stevens.’ Even the dedications yield scanty information. The translation of Sandoval's History of Charles V is dedicated in 1705 to James, Duke of Ormonde, and runs as follows: ‘I should be wholly at a loss how to accost your Grace, did I present you a work of another nature; but the martial spirit that reigns throughout this whole book, emboldens me to approach so noble a person, who has made war his exercise and delight.’ The subscribers to The History of the Ancient Abbeys include peers, prelates, and clergy, but with the exception of Sir John Vanbrugh their names are not very well known. There are a few Irish subscribers, such as Mr. Williamson of Dublin, merchant. From the preface to this book it is evident that Stevens formed a high impression of the value of his work. ‘It is well known,’ he states, ‘that Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World at the first met with a very cold reception; but time made its value known. The Monasticon Anglicanum lay many years before its fame had spread itself abroad. Many now celebrated writers have been for some time as it were buried, and unregarded. I do not mean to rank myself among them; but this I am fully convinced of, that as prejudice shall begin to wear off I shall meet with a more favourable entertainment.’ His first publication was an abridged translation in three octavo volumes of Manoel de Faria e Sousa's Europa Portugueza: it appeared in 1695. Three years afterwards
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he translated the same writer's History of Portugal to 1640, which he continued to 1698: it was dedicated to Catherine, Queen Dowager of England, and daughter of King John of Portugal. He also rendered into English Francisco de Quintana's The most entertaining History of Hippolyto and Aminta, of which a second edition appeared in 1727. His translation of Juan de Mariana's History of Spain appeared in 1699: it must be regarded as meant for the general public. Scholars who did not happen to know Spanish would naturally turn to Mariana's Latin version of his history, of which twenty-five books appeared in 1592, while the whole thirty books appeared in 1605. The Spanish version, also by Mariana, appeared at intervals during the years 1601, 1608, 1617, 1623. It is obvious that the Latin version preceded the Spanish one, but Mariana greatly improved his work in the latter form, and Stevens did well in choosing this as his basis. His translation does not convey the stately archaism of Mariana's style, but no doubt it was useful enough to a generation that was gradually growing less familiar with Spanish. In 1715 he published a translation of The History of Persia, written in Arabic by Mirkond; and an abridgement of the lives of the kings of Harmuz or Ormuz, by Torunxa. Stevens gave a very free translation of Antonio de Herrera's General History of the Vast Continent and Islands of America, commonly called the West Indies; this was issued from 1725 to 1726, and was reprinted in 1740. His plan of publishing in 1711 A New Collection of Voyages and Travels deserves notice.
‘As for the method here intended,’ the advertisement declares, ‘it is to publish every month, as much as will make a book of 12d., or 18d., according as it can be contrived, without breaking off abruptly, to leave the relation maimed and imperfect.
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Now each month being sold stitched, every buyer may afterwards bind them up when he has an author complete.
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All the books shall be adorned with proper maps and useful cuts.’
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The Collection of Voyages and Travels consists of The Description, &c., of the Molucca and Philippine Islands, by L. de Argensola; The Travels of P. de Cieza in Peru; The Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia; The Captivity of the Sieur Mouette in Fez and Morocco; The Travels of P. Teixeira from India to the Low Countries by Land; and A Voyage to Madagascar by the Sieur Cauche. This collection was republished in 1719.
A devout Roman Catholic, Stevens exhibited much interest in ecclesiastical matters. In 1718 he published, without putting the usual ‘Captain Stevens’ on the title-page, a folio translation and abridgement of Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum. Ralph Thoresby, a correspondent of Stevens, attributed it to a Spanish priest. According to him it is ‘an useful book in its kind’, though ‘there are both typographical errors and others, besides some reflections upon the Revolution’.1 In 1722–3 Stevens published The History of the Antient Abbeys, Monasteries, Hospitals, Cathedral and Collegiate Churches,... being two additional volumes to Sir William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum. In 1722 he issued anonymously Monasticon Hibernicum; or the monastical History of Ireland. According to Stevens ‘the same is neither a translation nor his own compiling’. He uses Louis Alemand's Histoire Monastique d'Irlande (Paris, 1690) extensively, and though ‘this Monastical History of Ireland is due to him, he having laid the foundations, and found most of the materials, yet can it not be called a translation, on account of the many additions and alterations that have been made to it.’2 Unlike his adaptation of Herrera, his version of the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of Britain is so literal as to be obscure. Some of the notes were used by W. Hurst in his translation published in 1814, while in 1840 Dr. Giles and the volume in Bohn's Antiquarian Library,
Camden
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1847, made Stevens's translation the basis. From the French he translated in 1712, for Lintot, part of Dupin:3 this is probably Louis Ellie Dupin's Bibliothèque Universelle des Historiens. He rendered into English in 1722 P. J. D'Orleans's Histoire des Révolutions en Angleterre sous la Famille des Stuarts. This indefatigable worker also compiled A Brief History of Spain, 1701; The Ancient and Present State of Portugal, 1701, founded on Faria e Sousa's Asia Portugueza; The Lives and Actions of all the Sovereigns of Bavaria, 1706; A Spanish-English and English-Spanish Dictionary, 1726; and The Royal Treasury of England, or, an historical account of all taxes, from the conquest to this present year, 1725; and a second edition, 1733. There is no date of publication of The rule establish'd in Spain for the trade in the West Indies; being a proper scheme for directing the trade to the South Sea, now by act of parliament to be establish'd in Great Britain. A careful perusal of this volume yields no information on the workings of the mercantile policy, for it is merely a technical trade manual of West Indian commerce. Stevens translated it from a book by Don Joseph de Veitia Linage, Knight of the Order of Santiago, and Treasurer and Comptroller of the India House. Doubtless the manual was useful to merchants, for it gives the laws, ordinances, customs, practices, and, in fine, all that relates to the trade of the West Indies: thus there is an account of the methods of local courts, the table of duties, and the manner of assaying.
All the time these historical, ecclesiastical, and commercial volumes were pouring forth Stevens was not forgetting his literary studies. In 1697 was issued his version of Francisco Manoel de Mello's The Government of a Wife: it was dedicated to Don Sen da Cunha, the Portuguese envoy. In the same year Stevens published a version of Quevedo's Fortune in her Wits, or the Hour of all Men. In 1707 he issued
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a translation of the collected comical works of Quevedo, which was republished in 1709 and in 1742. A rendering by Stevens of Quevedo 's Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper, formed the basis of the Edinburgh version of 1798, and was reprinted in the second volume of ‘The Romancist Novelists' Library’, edited by W. C. Hazlitt in 1841. The Edinburgh issue begins with a version of Quevedo's Sueños (i. e. Visions), and this does not seem to be from the Spanish. It seems that Stevens—or whoever the translator was—had simply taken L'Estrange's translation, and touched it up. L'Estrange himself did not translate from the Spanish, but from a corrupt French version. Under the circumstances, the rendering ascribed to Stevens need not be taken seriously. On page 293, column a, of James Lyman Whitney's Catalogue of the Spanish Library and of the Portuguese Books bequeathed by George Ticknor to the Boston Public Library (Boston, 1879), the following manuscript note is quoted from Ticknor's copy: ‘This translation is said by T. Roscoe ( Spanish Novelists, ii. 8, 1832) to be made by Stevens.
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The Visiones are a rifacimento of Sir Roger L'Estrange's translation of them, rather than a new one.’ Perhaps it is worth remarking that Major Hume in his Spanish Influence on English Literature states4 that ‘Captain Stevens also translated
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The Life of Paul the Spanish Sharper, and evidently some of Swift's most scathing satires are inspired by this and others of Quevedo's works’. There is, however, no evidence to support this view. Swift might, of course, have read Quevedo in one of the poor English versions, but this is a very different matter, and certainly cannot be proved. In spite of his wide knowledge of Spanish, the translations of Stevens from that language are not distinguished, and are often careless. He did honest journeyman's work in a rather humdrum way, which was not wholly bad, and perhaps served its purpose at the time. It is fair to remember that
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his translations of Quevedo are the basis of Pineda's version published in 1743; that shows his influence to some degree, though Pineda and his work are long forgotten. On the whole, then, Stevens is not eminent as a Spanish scholar.
Authorities on the Jacobite War
Thus our author's tale of work is long and not altogether undistinguished. One example, however, remains to be considered, and it belongs to a class entirely different from all the others. This is A Journal of My Travels since the Revolution, and it has not been published till now. This journal begins on January 16, 1689, and abruptly closes on July 1, 1691, while the writer is giving an account of the battle of Aughrim; perhaps his copy fell out of his knapsack. As this volume constitutes an important addition to the literature of the Revolution in Ireland it becomes necessary for us to consider the authorities for that movement. In the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, there are seven folio volumes of much importance. These volumes begin with a proclamation of 1671, and a list of goods sold by Arthur Gore on June 19, 1676, and proceed to give a letter of Tyrconnel, December 18, 1689, which informs us that the Derry people ‘continue obstinate in their rebellion.’ They come down to February, 1692, when they cease. Among them are original letters from James to Hamilton, while the latter was engaged in the siege of the maiden city. In Trinity College, Dublin, is preserved the correspondence of George Clarke, Secretary-at-war (1690–4). Clarke's thirteen volumes are larger than the seven of the R. I. A., and they deal with operations all over Ireland. This secretary preserved all letters sent to him, and from them an intelligible view of the Williamite side of the war can be obtained. From the Jacobite standpoint they can be supplemented by the material in the Archives des Affaires Étrangères, Paris. Much trouble is caused to the student by the fact that these
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supplementary papers are in Dublin and Paris respectively, for they afford the most valuable insight into the minds of the generals. The Bodleian Library contains the Nairne Papers (1689–1701); some of these have been printed by J. Macpherson in his Original Papers. The papers of Sir Robert and Edward Southwell, principal Secretaries of State in Ireland, are now divided between the British Museum, Trinity College, Dublin, and the Public Record Office of the same city. These papers, however, are more valuable for the rest of William's reign than for the early period. Dr. T. K. Abbott's excellent Catalogue of the MSS. of T. C. D. gives particulars of such other sources as I. 6. 9, three volumes, E. 2. 19, F. 4. 3, K. 4. 10. In the Public Record Office, Dublin, the letters written in 1690 to Edward Southwell from Cork, Kinsale, and other towns (125/1), and those written in 1690 and in 1690–3 to. Edward and Robert relating to French prisoners and French privateers and other matters (125/3, 132, 138, 141/5, 142) deserve attention. As yet all these sources are unpublished.
Among the published authorities J. S. Clarke's Life of James II ranks as a primary authority. James, like his cousin Louis XIV, spent time in compiling an account of his life. Before he sent his wife and child with Lauzun to a place of safety in 1688 he secured his Memoirs, which he had kept most carefully. James enclosed them in a box and gave it to Terriesi, the Tuscan envoy. He sent to Terriesi one of his most confidential servants at midnight with papers and writings, requesting him to take charge of them as ‘he knew not where to place them in more honest hands.’
‘So the King having just time to thrust them all confusedly into it, sent it to him, which he, imagining it to be jewels of great value, was exceeding careful of it; tho' that imagination had like to have occasioned its miscarriage
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An Italian servant of the envoy's conveyed it safe to Leghorn, as directed; from whence the Grand Duke sent two galleys on purpose to convoy it into France, through
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which kingdom it was brought likewise guarded up to St. Germains, all persons supposing it to be some great treasure: which tho' it was not of that nature which people imagined it, contained what in itself was much more valuable
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nine tomes, writ in his own hand, and which
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he appointed to be lodged in the Scotch College at Paris, where they will remain, not only an eternal, glorious monument of his actions, but a standing model both to his own Royal Posterity and to all Christian Princes of the most perfect resignation while a subject, and the most generous moderation while a king.’
While James was living at Saint-Germain he added notes upon later events. During the French Revolution the manuscript of the Memoirs was burnt. Tradition relates that it was brought to Saint-Omer with the intention of depositing it safely in England, but as it bore the arms of England and France fear of the revolutionary government caused its destruction. Though the Memoirs thus perished, yet a biography based upon them remained in existence. King James's son gave orders for a Life of his father soon after 1701. Ranke does not think that evidence exists to warrant the assumption that Innes, Principal of the Scots College, had the largest share in the composition, although James confided his Memoirs and papers to Innes a few months before his death. The Chevalier de Saint-George read the Life, underlined passages in it, and bequeathed it to his family. In 1707 he sent for that part of the Memoirs which referred to the year 1678. After the death of the Duchess of Albany, the wife of Charles Edward, the Life passed into the hands of the Benedictines at Rome, and was purchased by the British Government. The Napoleonic wars placed obstacles in the way of its safe transmission. It came to Leghorn, then to Tunis, then to Malta, and at last, in 1810, to England. The Prince Regent, who had a regard for the Stuarts, requested his chaplain and librarian, J. Stanier Clarke, to edit it, and in 1816 two handsome volumes were issued.
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The Life is in four parts. The first, which is unimportant, goes down to the Restoration in 1660; the second, which is most valuable, to the accession of James II; the third to his flight from England at the end of 1688; and the fourth embraces the rest of his life. Ranke 5 analyses the value of the four parts with his usual acuteness. It is clear that the original was written in a fragmentary manner—the most detailed portions by James, others compiled by his secretaries. Ranke did not use the Caryll Papers, which show that John Caryll, secretary to James's wife, Mary Beatrice, was working at the Life. Its originals are preserved at Windsor, with the other Stuart Papers, uncatalogued and inaccessible to the public.6 At Welbeck there is a MS. (folio) which successively belonged to Henri Oswald de la Tour d'Auvergne, Archbishop of Vienna, Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, Sir Thomas Phillipps, who also owned the Journal of Stevens, and the Duke of Portland. The title of this MS. is ‘Memoires de Jacques Second, Roy de la Grande Bretagne, etc. De glorieuse Memoire. Contenant l'histoire des quatre Campagnes que sa Majesté fit, estant Duc de York, sous Henry de la Tour D'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, dans les Années 1652, 1653, 1654 et 1655
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Traduits sur l'Original Anglois écrit de la propre main de sa dite Majesté, conservé par son ordre dans les Archives du Collége des Ecossois á Paris. Le tout certifié et attesté par la Reyne Mère et Regente de la Grande Bretagne, etc., MDCCIV.’ From his careful survey of the Memoirs Ranke concludes that the biography is not the work of James. The extracts, however, of Carte and Macpherson prove that it is based on autobiographical notes and other authentic material. When the biographer does not use these, his work possesses little value: where he agrees with the extracts, there is little doubt that we have
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genuine autobiographic material. The fourth part has much to say on the war in Ireland. James drew up several reports on this war and sent them to Louis; these reports and the biography exhibit substantial agreement. In Macpherson's Original Papers there are passages identical with the words of the biography.
In 1830 the British Foreign Office printed privately the Négociations de M. le Comte D'Avaux en Irlande. These negotiations are concerned with the years 1689 and 1690, and cover over 750 pages. They are of the greatest value in revealing the motives of the inner policy of Louis XIV, the divisions among the Irish, the state of the army, and kindred problems. In the Memoirs of Sir J. Dalrymple there is printed a useful selection of letters. Mr. W. J. Hardy has edited the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series; volumes i, ii, and iii cover the years 1689 to 1691. In the Record Office, London, the State Papers, Ireland, volumes 352 and 353, the State Papers, Ireland, Signet Office, volume xii, and the State Papers, Ireland, Entry Books, volume i, are of the utmost importance.
The author of A Light to the Blind is probably Nicholas Plunket, an able lawyer, member of a branch of the house of Fingall. Under the pseudonym of John Rogers he acted in 1713–14 as a secret agent in England and on the Continent, working zealously in the interests of James Francis Edward Stuart. Together with the secretary of James, David Nairne, he planned a Jacobite descent to make their master James III of England. The exact title of Plunket's volume is A Light to the Blind; whereby they may see the dethronement of James the second, king of England: with a brief narrative of his war in Ireland: and of the war between the emperor and the king of France for the crown of Spain. Anno 1711. It begins with an account of James II before and after his accession to the crown, and furnishes details of the last
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days and death of that monarch in September 1701. There are three books, and the third discusses Continental affairs during the war of the Spanish Succession. A Light to the Blind is written from the standpoint of a firm believer in the Stuart cause. To Plunket, as to Stevens, James is the lawful king and William merely the Prince of Orange. The war is regarded as a revolt from the rule of the sovereign who ruled by right divine. Plunket, moreover, is persuaded that the Duke of Tyrconnel was a statesman of the first order. His death ‘pulled down a mighty edifice—a considerable Catholic nation—for there was no other subject left able to support the national cause.’ Towards Sarsfield the writer assumes an attitude of hostility, though he praises the ‘noble feat’ of the destruction of the Williamite Artillery at Ballyneety. A Light to the Blind bestows much attention upon the schemes of Louis XIV, and indicates why the French monarch should support the Irish. Take the following passages:
‘Here (i.e. at Waterford) the Prince of Orange may say, as Julius Caesar did in his expedition of Zela, veni, vidi, vici; so many towns hath the Prince taken without resistance. Which if each of them had given. Orange had been undone. For the wars of Ireland would have been prolonged; and consequently the Confederacy abroad would have been forced within two years at the farthest to make a peace with France for want of the assistance of England; which was all employed against the Irish. By which peace all the power of France would fall upon poor England, to her chastisement for her frequent rebellion; and to the dethroning of that unnatural usurper
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’ (p. 618).
‘The most Christian king (i.e. Louis) was altogether for preserving Limerick; and that he doubted not of its baffling the enemy, as it did in the year antecedent. This sending of such considerable stores doth also indicate, that his Majesty was for continuing the war of Ireland; and that for this end he would send a reinforcement to the Irish army in spring following.
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The monarch of France had powerful motives for keeping on foot the Irish war. For thereby he would sooner dissolve the
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hostile Confederacy abroad, as retaining the power of England (on which the League much depended) here in Ireland employed; and in the sequel thereof that Prince would be able to restore sooner the banished King of England.
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'Tis for these reasons, that the King of France conceived afterwards great indignation at the surrender of Limerick; because it frustrated his mighty expectations (pp. 775–6).
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'Tis therefore that Limerick must make provisos for the nation in general. She is encouraged thereunto by the knowledge of her own strength: which is so great, that she can force the enemy to raise his siege. By which the war is prolonged, at least to the end of the next campaign. At the beginning thereof, the Confederate Princes will be compelled, without dispute, to strike a peace with France, as not being able to hold out any longer thro' the want of England's army and money, which must be employed in the Irish war. Hence immediately follows the dethronement of Orange, and the restoration of the King. General Ginkell understood very well this affair by his granting better conditions to the garrison of Limerick than are given to any besieged town whatsoever: tho' he gave not so good, as might have been extorted from him, which was occasioned by the too easy compliance of the Irish Commissioners, who were appointed to treat with him (pp. 789–90).
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The King of France made a false step in the politics, by letting the Irish war to fall: because that war was the best medium in the world for destroying soon the Confederacy abroad, by reason that the Confederate Princes could not prolong the foreign war without the army and money of England, which were employed in the war of Ireland’ (p. 828).
It ought to be added that Sir John Gilbert issued a poor edition of A Light to the Blind, published under the title of A Jacobite Narrative of the War in Ireland (1689–91); it can also be read in the Tenth Report, Appendix, part v, of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (pp. 107–204).
Colonel Charles O'Kelly (1621–95) in his Macariae Excidium, or The Destruction of Cyprus, writes from the point of view of one who fought on the side of King James. He had fought for the Stuarts from the days of Cromwell, and he finally sheathed his sword in 1691. He was an old
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man when he served under Sarsfield, but he was defeated by Captain Thomas Lloyd. After the conclusion of the war he retired to his residence at Aughrane, now Castle Kelly, where he spent his remaining days in writing his history of the Irish wars. It affects to be a history of the destruction of Cyprus (Ireland), written originally in Syriac by Philotas Phylocypres (O'Kelly). The author consistently substitutes appellations for the men and places of the time, as, for example: Cyprus for Ireland, Cilicia for England, Pamphilia for Scotland, Syria for France, and Egypt for Spain. Thus William becomes Theodore, Louis is Antiochus, James is Amasis, Avaux is Demetrius, Tyrconnel is Coridon, Sarsfield is Lysander, Lauzun, significantly enough, is Asimo. The fifty-fourth paragraph will give a fair idea of Colonel O'Kelly's book.
Non alia,' it runs, 'unquam urbs, licet omnium aetatum annales, populorumque omnium res gestas evolveris, aut acriori impetu oppugnata, aut pertinacioribus animis defensa, quam Paphus ea tempestate fuit. Nihil inausum, nihil intentatum reliquit Theodorus quod aut bellicarum artium peritia, aut experientia magni Ducis, aut veteranarum cohortium robur exequi posset, ut oppidum in suam potestatem redigeret: nec segniori conatu Cyprii quidquid spectata in adversis virtus et infracta malis constantia, aut agere poterat, aut pati, fortiter et impigre efficiebant, tolerabantque, quo locum tanto tamque acri nisu petitum non minori pervicacia defensarent: continui hinc vallo assultantium, inde portis erumpentium congressus, tam ex obsidentium quam ex praesidiariorum numero, ingentem fortissimorum virorum multitudinem absumebant: illos spes et partae ante victoriae in ipsa pericula praecipites agebant: hos imminens patriae excidium, religionis ardor, et in regem inconcussa fides ad ultima audendum succendebant. Undevicesima die Theodorus (qui ne pedem latum sine sanguine et vulneribus progredi poterat) strata muri parte per patentes ruinas impetum fecit: ubi ad tres integras horas dubio utrimque marte pugnatum est: et quanquam hostium alii ipsam urbem perrupissent, obstinatis tamen propugnatorum viribus exturbabantur, et in castra non
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sine magna militum jactura redigebantur. Postridie Theodorus cum aleam universae rei in medium conjicere, et omnibus copiis oppidum denuo aggredi statuisset, quanquam Ducem se perterritis offerret, et discriminum societatem non respueret, haud tamen evicit aut persuadere valuit, ut aut caeptis insisterent, aut expertam virtutem novis conatibus irritarent. Unde accensus ira, dolore furens, et ignominiae impatiens degenerem suorum pavorem detestatus castra deserit, et cursu, quam potuit contentissimo Paleam pergit, ibique conscensa navi in Ciliciam revertitur. Interea exercitus, desperato rerum eventu, tumultuaria profectione, relicta Papho, in interiora regreditur.’’
Never was a Town better attacked,' runs the old translation of this passage, 'and better defended, than the city of Paphos (Limerick). Theodore (William) left nothing unattempted that the Art of War, the Skill of a great Captain, and the Valor of veteran Soldiers, could put in Execution to gain the place; and the Cyprians (Irish) omitted Nothing that Courage and Constancy could practise to defend it. The continual Assaults of the One, and frequent Sallys of the Other, consuming a great many brave Men, both of the Army and Garrison. On the 19th Day, Theodore (after fighting for every Inch of Ground he gained), having made a large Breach in the Wall, gave a general Assault, which lasted for three Hours; and tho' his Men mounted the Breach, and some entered the Town, they were gallantly repulsed, and forced to retire, with considerable Loss. Theodore, resolving to renew the Assault next Day, could not persuade his Men to advance, tho' he offered to lead them in Person; whereupon, all in a Rage, he left the Camp, and never stopt till he came to Palaea (Waterford), where he took Shipping for Cilicia; his Army in the mean Time retiring, by Night, from Paphos.’’Macariae Excidium
The internal evidence points to the conclusion that the Latin text is the original of O'Kelly's narrative. Unlike Plunket, he is not at all friendly to Tyrconnel, and is a warm partisan of St. Ruth. Making allowance for these prejudices, Macariae Excidium is a very able record.
William King, the greatest archbishop of Dublin; wrote The State of the Protestants of Ireland under the late
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King James's Government: in which their Carriage towards him is justified, and the absolute Necessity of their endeavouring to be freed from his Government, and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated. The title of this book indicates precisely its object: it is an apologia for the Revolution. With it may be compared Charles Leslie's Answer to a Book intituled The State of the Protestants in Ireland. It is no injustice, however, to Leslie to say that King's book is incomparably superior. Moreover, the facts that King gives are correct, though now and then he uses rhetoric. His references to contemporary events are faithful, though his inferences are occasionally open to comment. One case may be given. King is contrasting the state of Ireland before and after the Revolution, and here one might expect that his eloquence and indignation might overcome his regard for the truth. As a matter of fact they do not. Such manuscripts as Add. 21138, Add. 17406 and 2902 (British Museum) provide chapter and verse for every statement King makes. His correspondence in seventeen volumes is preserved in Trinity College, Dublin, and it covers the period from 1696 to 1727. This correspondence the present editor has read and re-read, and every fresh reading confirms his respect for the accuracy and insight of King. Its evidential value stands high, for the letters he wrote to his numerous correspondents, gentle and simple, were written while the events were fresh. A man who has had good opportunities of learning the truth about public affairs, and has been in the habit of recording things as they happen, as King did, is an invaluable witness. It is interesting to observe the change in his attitude to public affairs. He was of Scots descent, and at first regarded events in Ireland from an external point of view, but as he grew older he became warmly interested in the stirring events of his day. The majority of his critics have judged
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King by his State of the Protestants of Ireland: they have not judged him by his singularly able and statesmanlike letters. The perusal of a letter such as that of January 6, 1697 (197, f. 151, British Museum) is enough to convince the student that he is dealing with an authority of the highest value and impartiality.
Among the published material it is difficult to find detailed accounts of the Jacobite War. Works like Dumont de Bostaquet's Mémoires inédits, Berwick Mémoires, Schomberg's Diary, the Journal of Mullenaux, and Parker's Memoirs, give on the whole scanty detail. The few unpublished records resemble the published in this matter. Thus Ensign Cramond's diary (Add. 29878) gives no information of importance. It has no title, but begins ‘The Route of Colonel Wauchope's Regiment beginning the 15 of October, 1688.’ Cramond served in the Low Countries and in Ireland from 1688 to 1691, but was clearly a man of action and nothing else. His diary follows immediately after the details of the number of miles marched each day; and at the end of the slim volume there are money accounts. There are thirty-seven written leaves in it, besides almost the same number that are blank. Bonnivert's Journal (1033, British Museum) is somewhat more satisfactory, though it is also deficient in detail. It occupies only twelve written leaves, besides one leaf of drawings and two of medical receipts. It has no title, but begins ‘I came out of London the 6 of June, 1690.’ On f. 5, according to Bonnivert, the Enniskilleners ‘are but middle sized men, but they are nevertheless brave fellows. I have seen 'em like masty dogs run against bullets.’ F. 8 points out that at the battle of the Boyne the enemy ‘drew up upon a line only, and our army was upon three.’ The account of the battle is wretched: there are no particulars of the movements of the troops. Nevertheless Bonnivert finds space to record the fact that his
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side wore green in their hats. F. 10 describes Sarsfield's exploit at Ballyneety and places the success of the surprise upon the ‘ill management of Captain Poultney, who having had the conduct of eight pieces of artillery and several other provisions unadvisedly ordered his detachment to unbridle and turn the horses to grass.’ Both these diaries were obviously kept in the pockets of their owners. Cramond's diary measures 6 1/3 x 3 inches, and Bonnivert's 5 7/8 x 3 1/2 inches.
The Journal of John Stevens
It is a satisfaction to turn from the meagre information of these two diaries to the comparatively ample account of John Stevens. His journal measures 8 x 4 3/4; inches and covers no less than 163 pages. The copy now edited lies in the British Museum (Add. 36296). It was bought at the sale of the library of Sir F. A. F. Constable, of Tixall, in 1899. It belonged previously to John Warburton, Somerset Herald, being lot 326 in the sale-catalogue of his library in 1759. The Biographies of English Catholics in the Eighteenth Century, by the Rev. John Kirk, D.D., edited by J. H. Pollen, S.J., and E. Burton, D.D., affords some additional information on the history of the manuscript from 1759 to 1899. Dr. Kirk was born in 1760 and died in 1851. He finished his work, which was a part of his projected continuation of Dodd's Church History, in 1841, but it was not printed till 1909. The editors conjecture that the majority of the Lives were written before 1820. In a short notice of Stevens on p. 219, the writer refers to the Journal:
‘In the library of Burton Constable, I remember to have seen a MS. (M. 266) with this title: A Journal of my Travels since the Revolution. Containing a brief account of all the War in Ireland impartially related, and what
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I was an eye-witness to and deliver upon my own knowledge distinguished from what I received from others.’
He also mentions the printed slip which is pasted on the title-page of the British Museum copy. This newspaper cutting states that:
‘The Author of the above was Mr. John Stevens, a Roman Catholic, and before and at the Revolution, a Collector of the Excise in Wales: after which he followed the Fortunes of his Master, and became a Captain in the Army. He is well known to the learned World by his valuable Continuation of Dugdale's Monasticon, and numerous translations chiefly from the Spanish and Portuguese.—S. P.’
At the end of the notice of Cuthbert Constable, formerly Tunstall, in Dr. Kirk's volume, there is a short list of manuscripts at Burton Constable, in which the Journal is included (p. 54). But as Cuthbert Constable died in 1746, and as the Journal was in the Warburton sale in 1759, it must have been after his time that the Journal was acquired. The purchase at the Tixall sale in 1899 is intelligible, for Sir Thomas Hugh Clifford Constable, originally Clifford, succeeded both to Tixall and Burton Constable. It is interesting to note that the printed slip, pasted on the title page of Add. 36296 has evidently been taken from a sale-catalogue; lots 1050 to 1054 are catalogued on the other side. The initials S. P. are those of Samuel Parker, bookseller and auctioneer. Though he sold the Warburton Library, this extract has not been taken from that catalogue, 1759. In the Warburton Catalogue, lots 318 to 327 are all Stevens's manuscripts. Lot 325 is A Diary or Account of my Life (Capt. Stevens's) and Actions, written by himself, 8vo. Lot 326 is A Journal of my Travels since the Revolution —it is Add. 36296; while lot 327 is A Journal of all my Travels since I left London, to follow our most merciful, most pious and
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most gracious Sovereign James II by the Grace of God, etc— A Journal of my Voyage from London to Lisbon, etc., 4to. In the Phillipps sale, April 28, 1911, under lot 959 (three volumes folio) several of the sub-titles, e. g. The Miser Jilted, a novel, agree with those mentioned in lot 319 of the Warburton catalogue.
A version of an introduction to the Journal will be found in Lansdowne MSS. 828, ff. 10, 10b, 11, beginning, ‘I had been above a year in Wales, upon business, at the time when the never to be forgotten catastrophe, commonly called the Revolution, happened
[...]
’ and ending, ‘Perceiving I could expect no further security, I resolved to withdraw, sent for my horses over night, and left Poole the next morning early, being Monday.’ On f. 10b the writer, in stating the scope of his work, refers to himself as ‘having in order to this constantly kept a journal, and often broke my rest, after much fatigue, rather than interrupt the series of my observations.’ Though in general these three pages differ from Add. 36296 there are still obvious points of similarity. There is another version not merely of the introduction but of a large part of the Journal, and this was used by Ranke ( History of England principally in the Seventeenth Century, vi, pp. 128–43). Ranke married an Irishwoman, a daughter of John Cosby Graves of Dublin, and in 1865 he went to Cheltenham in order to pay a visit to his brother-in-law, John Graves. Bishop Graves of Limerick was another brother-in-law. The well-known antiquary. Sir Thomas Phillipps, lived in the neighbourhood and permitted Ranke to use his famous collection (cf. ‘Reminiscences of Leopold von Ranke’, by his son, General Friduhelm von Ranke, in Temple Bar, March 1906). Sir Thomas evidently on this visit gave the historian access to his copy of the Journal of Stevens. This copy and the British Museum one differ in some particulars, and the differences can be clearly
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seen by comparing two sections dealing with the same matter:
The Phillipps Copy. (Column 1)
The most sacred Majesty having, through the infinite goodness and providence of Almighty God, made his escape from Rochester, out of the hands of his ever rebellious subjects, and most inhuman son-in-law, nephew, and enemy, William, Prince of Orange, and the most happy news of his safe arrival and kingly reception in France, being spread all over England, the small remainder of his loyal subjects, those few thousands, who had not bowed their knees to Baal, either in their person, or at least in their wishes, hastened to follow him. Some, through the great incumbrance of their families, others through want, having been plundered of all their substance, others for fear of being burdensome to him in his exile, and lastly, some in hopes of being more serviceable to him when providence should ordain his return, remained in their more than egyptian slavery, yet a very great number gathering together the small remainder of their shipwreck, and laying aside all worldly considerations, having only before their eyes their duty and love to their sovereign, resolved to follow him through all hazards, in hopes of being
Add. 36296. (Column 2)
His most sacred Majesty having, through the infinite goodness and providence of Almighty God, made his escape from Rochester, [gap: extent: four lines]and the most happy news of his safe arrival, and kingly reception in France, being spread all over England, the small remainder of his loyal subjects, (those few thousands, who had not bowed their knees to Baal) either in their persons, or at least in their wishes hasted to follow him. Some through the great incumbrance of their families, others through want, having been plundered of all their substance, others for fear of being burdensome to him in his exile, and lastly some in hopes of being more serviceable to him, when Providence should ordain his return, remained in their more than Egyptian slavery. Yet a very considerable number gathering together the small remainder of their shipwreck, and laying aside all worldly considerations, having only before their eyes their duty and love to their sovereign, resolved to follow him through all hazards, in hopes of being
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(Column 1)
instrumental in regaining his just right. I shall ever esteem it the most glorious action of all my life, that I made myself one of this number, and cannot but be proud, that in all the hardships and misfortunes which attended this my tedious exile, I have never been dismayed, or given way to despair, but relied always on the justice of our cause, and all our miseries have been easy to me, in consideration of the happiness of my return home.
But to come to the intended matter, to wit, my transactions after his Majesty's departure, it is first to be observed, that though immediately resolved to follow, yet through the difficulty of getting passes, and many other impediments, I could not set out till Friday, January of 1688. Yet, before I proceed, I cannot but look back as far as the original of all my country's and my own misfortunes, to wit, the time of the invasion, and, by way of introduction, make some remarks of what happened to me from that time till I left England, in short, as things have since occurred to me upon penning this part in haste. When the spirit of witchcraft or rebellion, which the scripture tells us are alike, had well possessed itself, and as it were fixed its abode in the hearts
(Column 2)
instrumental in regaining his just rights. I shall ever esteem it the most glorious action of my life that I made myself one of this number, and cannot but be proud that in all the hardships and misfortunes, which have attended this my tedious exile, I have never been dismayed, or given way to despair: but relied always on the justice of our cause, and all miseries have been easy to me in consideration of the happiness of my return home. To come closer to the matter, to wit my transactions after his Majesty's departure, it is to be observed, that though I immediately resolved to follow, yet through the difficulty of getting passes, and many other impediments, I could not set forward till Friday, January the 11th, 1688/9. Yet before I proceed, I cannot but look back as far as the original of all this country's and my own misfortunes, to wit, the time of the invasion. And by way of introduction make some remarks of what happened to me from that time, till I left England, in short as things have occurred to me upon penning this paper in haste. When the spirit of witchcraft, or rebellion (which the Scripture tells us are alike) had well possessed itself, and as it were fixed its abode in the hearts of most of his Majesty's dissembling
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(Column 1)
of most of his Majesty's dissembling enthusiastic subjects, through the mediation of their pharisaical teachers at the time when men began to lament the danger of losing their religion, who were never known to be possessed of or pretend to any, all this time was I employed in Wales, receiving of some of his Majesty's revenue there, being in a public employment, and keeping much company, I could not but easily discern how prone all were to mutter about breach of laws, and invading of religion, and it was plainly to discern, that many who said well thought very evil. This I found by long experience, yet the fear of punishment kept their tongues as well as hands within the limits of the law.
(Column 2)
enthusiastic subjects, through the mediation of their Pharisaical teachers, at the time when men began to lament the danger of losing their religion, who were never known to be possessed of or pretend to any, at this time was I employed in Wales in receiving his Majesty's revenue of excise there. Being in a public employment and keeping much company, I could not but easily discern how prone all were to mutter about breach of laws and invading of religion, and it was plainly to be discerned, that many who said Well Well, thought very evil. This I found by long experience, yet the fear of punishment kept their tongues as well as hands within the limits of the law.
It would not appear that the two versions end at the same place. Ranke (vi. 143) seems to indicate that his version stops at July 30, 1690, whereas Add. 36296 continues to July 12, 1691. The British Museum manuscript appears to be an earlier version than that quoted by Ranke. The evidence, such as it is, seems to point to this conclusion. Reference, however, should be made to the erasures in Add. 36296. On f. 80b, nine lines, which are not in Ranke, have been crossed out, and these lines are clearly utilized on ff. 81b, 82 of the manuscript. This, though by no means conclusive, would, considering the similarity of the two versions, argue in favour of the priority of Add. 36296. It is true that there has been an alteration in the title of Add. 36296, which would go against the view suggested. In this case, on the other hand, it is evident that the alteration
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has not been made at the first time of writing, but at a later date, and it may therefore have been subsequent to the making of the second version. Ranke (vi. 143) appears to be summing up the rest of his manuscript when he writes that ‘The author goes on to describe the disorders during the retreat up to the 30th of July, and inserts a few more details as to the battle itself. The manuscript ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence.’ As he gives the beginning of it on p. 128 there is no reason otherwise for his mentioning the 30th of July. Though his head-lines on page 128 run ‘Extracts from the Diary of a Jacobite relating to the War in Ireland, 1689 and 1690’, not much importance is to be attached to them, though they might perhaps be taken as a kind of negative evidence.
The Journal (Add. 36296) cannot have been kept from day to day, but has been written up from notes that have been so kept. Clearly Stevens kept such a day-to-day journal, and he must have based the present work very closely upon it. But this work, viz. Add. 36296, cannot be that day-to-day journal, for it has certainly been written up afterwards. In the first place the appearance and the form of the work both afford proof of that. The Journal is divided into an introduction and two parts, a system of division which suggests that the writer had the end in sight. Apart, however, from questions of appearance and form, there are various passages where Stevens obviously generalizes and anticipates in a way which he could not have done had he been writing from day to day. A short list of such passages places this beyond doubt: the italics, of course, are the editor's:
f. 14b. ‘I understood not this word then, but having afterwards found the benefit of it, think it not amiss in this place, to give an account of it, which is this.’
f. 23. ‘the following part of my exile will show I have not wanted my part in most sort of sufferings.’
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f. 40a. ‘Mr. Lazenby, afterwards a Captain.’
f. 48b. ‘Of these several gave us at least as good a proof of their loyalty
[...]
when to punish theirs and our sins it pleased God to suffer his Majesty's forces to be defeated, and us to be reduced to the miseries I shall hereafter mention.’
f. 65b. Note his general remarks on the stay in Dublin.
f. 81b. Note the reference to the first siege of Limerick, with its implication that there had been a second.
f. 84a. ‘I wonder I outlived the miseries of this dismal day, but that I have since found I was reserved to suffer many more and if possible greater.’
f. 89a. See the entry under July 16, 1690, and particularly f. 90b, ‘wherewith we afterwards held out so long, and at purchased so good conditions.’ Note on the same folio his reasons for giving a general description of Limerick. ‘Limerick being the principal city at this time and long after that held out for the king, and consequently there being often occasion and that on account of many memorable occurrences to speak of it, I will endeavour to give a true and exact description of it.’
f. 97a. ‘This day also the French forces departed for Galway to the great satisfaction not only of the inhabitants, but of all the garrison that remained in town. They remained some time at Galway till ships came to carry them into France, thinking it impossible Limerick should hold out a siege, offering to lay wagers it would be taken in three days.’
f. 114b. ‘These extremities endured as they were with courage and resolution are sufficient with any reasonable persons to clear the reputation of the Irish from the malicious imputations of their enemies; and yet this is not all that can be said for them. We have already seen them defend an almost defenceless town against
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a victorious disciplined army, and we shall see them the following summer under all these hardships fight a battle with the utmost bravery.’
f. 115b. ‘But I must not here anticipate upon what happened so long after. The battle of Aughrim which is that I have made the last observation upon will be mentioned in its own place and with more particulars. Let us now return to our hard winter in Limerick.’
F. 50b illustrates the character of the work. ‘As I do not pretend to write a history or give an account’, Stevens points out, ‘of the particular transactions of the times, but only as far as I was concerned, or where I was present myself, so having spent much time in speaking of my private affairs, it will not be amiss to set down some few observations of the general state of affairs, during this my vacation from business though not from sufferings.’ The reference on f. 118b to f. 92 is also illustrative: ‘This town and the road to it I shall not need to give any account of in this place, having said as much of it as is requisite before, when we passed the same way the first time towards Athlone, as is to be seen in this book, i. 92.’
The Journal, then, of Stevens was not kept from day to day. It thus lacks order; dates are dropped into it or are left out of it as the purpose of the writer is best served. On the whole, though the Journal is barren of some personal details one wants to know, it is a very human document indeed. It is plain that a scholar like the author did not relish his life as a soldier. He is conscious of the mistakes of his generals, of the loss of promotion, of the lack of pay, of the blisters on his feet, and of the hunger in his stomach. Stevens sees and he makes the reader see. For the truth, the sincerity, and the reality of his account of the Jacobite war much grumbling may be forgiven him. In interest his Journal is comparable to Mercer's Journal of the Waterloo
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Campaign. Both Mercer and Stevens were scholars and lovers of books. No doubt Mercer is an optimist, but he was on the winning side. Stevens is a pessimist, but was he not on the losing side? He does not take mud, rain, toil, hunger, the peril of death, all as part of the day's work. There are curious omissions in the Journal. For example, there is no reference to Sarsfield's destruction of William's siege-train at Ballyneety, a feat that must have raised the spirits of the besieged to no common degree. The battles of the Boyne and of Aughrim, and the sieges of Limerick, arrest the attention of all readers, and their tale has been told over and over again. But what may be called the unrecorded marches and skirmishes of the campaign possess genuine interest; and Stevens describes them with great vividness. He makes us see the rough material out of which the Irish army was formed; for the men he has a hearty admiration, while for the officers, like most observers, he has nothing but contempt. An extract taken straight from his day-to-day Journal is simple, but he forgets this simplicity when he moralizes over the battle-field the next day. Then he makes deliberate—and, it may be added, unhappy—attempts at fine writing. He indulges in apostrophes to the reader, to posterity, and to his native country. He is, however, simple and direct when he has a line of conduct to describe or an actual tale of fighting to tell. Part of the value of the Journal lies in the insight it gives into the fortunes and sufferings of the Jacobites. Like the Macariae Excidium of Colonel O'Kelly, it makes the men who fought for the land of Ireland appear more human than they had been to the reader of other records. For Stevens renders it abundantly clear that the Irishmen of 1688—and it may be added, the Irishmen of 1912—cared for two things, and two things only, and they are land and religion. The entries of the writer are most damaging to James, for he points out the incapacity of his generals, the immorality of
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the officers, and the prevalent thieving and drunkenness. When King made these charges he was considered partial, but a fervent Jacobite also makes them. He amply confirms King's view of the general corruption of the country. The Journal is interesting, because it brings back living pictures, as seen through living human eyes, of the battles of two centuries ago—battles, insignificant in themselves, which changed the current of the world's history. Thus the effects of the battle of the Boyne are deeply graven on the history of the world. For first it decided the fate of the lesser kingdom, then that of the greater, and finally that of Europe. On Irish soil William was fighting not merely for the of England, but also for his fatherland as well as for his allies. Above all, he was fighting for the principle of liberty in the life of nations, the principle that the Grand Alliance had called into vigorous existence. On Irish soil James was in reality fighting, not for his own cause, but for that of his master, the King of France. William and James did not, as men have often said, represent the principles of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism; they rather represented the eternal struggle between liberty and tyranny. The Boyne proved to the despotic power of Louis what Salamis was to Xerxes and Leipzig to Napoleon. It would have been well for the French monarch if the results of that skirmish had not been half hidden from his view by the victories of Beachy Head, Fleurus, and Staffarda. The Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope both rejoiced to hear the good news from Ireland, for Gallicanism had at last received a severe blow. While state religion had thus been checked, liberty had been allowed to develop more freely than before, and both these priceless blessings are the results of that memorable July day.
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The Condition of the Army
Upon the commissariat of the army Stevens has somewhat to say, and the method of supplying clothing deserves attention. The pay of the soldier consisted of (i) subsistence money, the regulated rates being, for a trooper, two shillings out of his total of two and sixpence; for a dragoon, one and twopence out of one and sixpence; for a foot-soldier, sixpence out of eightpence, (ii) the gross off-reckonings, which were the difference between the whole pay and the subsistence, and (iii) the net off-reckonings, which were the balance of the gross off-reckonings after all lawful deductions. These net off-reckonings formed the clothing fund, and belonged to the colonel for that purpose. Out of the off-reckonings was deducted one shilling in the pound on the whole pay, besides one day's pay per annum, for Chelsea Hospital and other purposes. Take the case of a private foot-soldier:—
£ s. d.
Total pay at 8d. per day . . .12 3 4
Deduct subsistence at 6d. . . .9 2 6
Gross off-reckonings. . .3 0 10
s. d.
Deduct 1s per £ on annual pay. . .1 2 2
One day's pay for Chelsea. . .0 8
0 12 10
Net off-reckonings. . .2 8 0
These net off-reckonings belonged to the colonel, and out of them he was obliged to clothe his regiment. This amount was not excessive for each private, for in 1678 two pounds thirteen shillings was reckoned the proper cost of the annual clothing of an infantry soldier. Of course, allowance must be made for the saving effected by regimental contracts. Moreover, some clothing was not required because of casualties and non-effective men. When the regiment was on active service the colonel could not employ a contractor,
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and in this case the Commissariat procured the clothing and deducted the price from the pay of the troops.
It is clear that the margin of profit to a just colonel was reduced to a vanishing point, yet it is common to find that the colonel received from £200 to £600 a year from the net off-reckonings. This money was of course stolen from the private soldier.7 Not only was he thus defrauded, but he also suffered in other ways. Even the subsistence money of sixpence a day was tampered with. In April 1686 Clarendon wrote to Rochester: ‘And some (Irish) colonels told me they were offered £600 by tradesmen to have the clothing of their regiments, which they thought a very unconscionable thing, to get so much money into their own pockets out of the poor soldiers' bellies. I confess I thought it very hard that the King should allow 6d. a day, and the poor soldier have but 2d. of it.’ It was easy to swindle the soldier, for the colonel appointed the regimental agents, through whose hands all the money passed. These agents bribed the commanding officer, sometimes offering him so much as £600 for the year. Sometimes instead of a lump sum the colonel received a percentage on the contract. Sometimes the amount of the contract was increased and the colonel received the increase. These abuses were checked by the plan adopted by the colonel of the Irish Foot-Guards. He allowed each captain to arrange for his company, but this excellent method was not carried out by his successor. On the 10th of April, 1686, Clarendon wrote to Rochester:
‘Speaking of the clothing of the army puts me in mind to tell you of a particular. My lord Arran (who loved to get money) left the clothing of the regiment of Guards to each particular captain to take care of his own company, which got him the perfect love of the officers. My Lord of Ossory has ordered it otherwise, and sent orders to the Receiver-General (at least it is come in his name) to pay the deductions no more to the captains, but that he will appoint
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one to take care of the clothing of the regiment. This makes a loud noise among the officers, and I doubt it will not be represented in England to his advantage.’
Schomberg complained repeatedly in his dispatches of the neglect and cheating of the men by their officers, of the bad state of the men's clothing, and of the astonishing avarice of the colonels who thought of nothing beyond making an income out of their regiments. He characterized the officers of the artillery as ignorant, lazy, and timid.8 On the officers in general he made remarks in his letters to William on August 27 and September 20, 1689. The latter of these pointed out that ‘il y a bien encore d'autres officiers que je voudrais qu'ils fussent en Angleterre. Je n'ai jamais vu de plus méchants et de plus interessés; tout le soin des colonels n'est que de vivre de leurs regiments, sans aucune autre application.’ ‘If the Irish colonels’, he writes, ‘were as capable and as eager for war as they are for sending forage parties to plunder the country
[...]
our affairs would stand better. The incapacity of the officers is indeed great, but their carelessness and laziness are still greater.’ The ignorant and indolent officers delayed the erection of huts till it was too late to procure dry timber for the walls or dry straw for the roofs.9 On December 26, Schomberg wrote: ‘I never was in an army where are so many new and lazy officers. If all were broke who deserved it on this account, there would be few left.’ 10 If Schomberg had grounds for complaining of the character of his officers, Rosen and Lauzun had equally good grounds for complaining of the character of theirs. Mr. Osborne's paper of March 9 and 10, 1689, states ‘that for the Irish army, though their horses were good, yet their riders were but contemptible fellows, many of
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them having been lately cowherds, &c.’ Ireland's Lamentation (p. 31) points out that ‘those of their present army, both officers and soldiers, are mostly the very scum of the country, cow-boys, and such trash, as tremble at the firing of a musket, much more will at many.’ Stevens speaks in cordial terms of the usefulness of the private, ‘but the officers were only those from the plough, from the following of cows, from digging potatoes, and such like exercises. Because they had a few men to follow them, or bore the name of a good family, they were put into commissions, without experience, without conduct, without authority, and without even the sense of honour.’ The estimate of Avaux coincides with that of Stevens. The Irish ‘sont très bien faits: mais il ne sont ny disciplinez ny armez, et de surplus sont de grands voleurs.’ Upon the cavalry Avaux bestows some praise, but none upon the infantry. In a letter of September 20, 1689, to Louvois, he wrote: ‘La moitié des troupes n'est point habillée, et n'a ny ceinturons ny bandoulieres; la pluspart de mousquets des regimens qui viennent du nord et des autres provinces, sont hors d'estat de servir.
[...]
On a beaucoup plus de confience en la cavalerie, dont la plus grande partie est assez bonne; on ne peut voir de meilleur regiment que celuy de Tirconnel et celuy de Galmoy; celuy de Parker, quoyque nouvellement levé, est bon aussi. Le Colonel Salsfield a amené d'assez bonne cavalerie, et il y a quelques regimens de dragons en fort bon estat.’
In another letter of April 16/6, 1689, to Louvois he declared that ‘la pluspart de ces regimens sont levez par des gentils-hommes, qui n'ont jamais esté à l'armée, que ce sont des tailleurs, des bouchers, des cordonniers, qui ont formé les compagnies qui les entretiennent à leurs despens, et en les capitaines.’ Macaulay doubtless had this letter before him when he wrote that ‘Their colonels were generally men of good family, but men who had never seen service. Their captains were butchers, tailors, shoemakers.’ It is therefore necessary
p.xliii
to point out that the statement of Avaux cannot be generalized in the easy way that Macaulay generalizes. Five of the captains were peers, and many of the other officers, especially in the cavalry regiments, were the sons of peers. Many, too, were the sons of baronets, or heirs of the oldest families. Names like Butler, Burke, Dillon, Fitzgerald, French, Macarthy, Macmahon, Magennis, Nagle, Nugent, O'Brien, O'Byrne, O'Donovan, O'Ferrall, O'More or Moore, O'Neill, O'Rourke, and Plunket, demonstrate the truth of this fact. Regarding the type of officer there are many references in Avaux, e.g. Avaux to Louvois, May 12, June 26, July 10; Avaux to Louis, August 30; Avaux to Louvois, September 20; Avaux to Louis, October 21. The letter of September 20 pointed out that ‘nous avons peu d'officiers generaux sur qui l'on puisse compter; les officiers subalternes sont bien plus mauvais, et à la reserve d'un tres petit nombre, il n'y en a point qui ayt soin des soldats, des armes, de la discipline; et j'aprehende beaucoup que les soldats ne se decouragent lorsqu'ils ne verront pas des officiers à leur teste qui les menent hardiment.’ The letter of October 21 discloses an appalling lack of discipline:
‘II seroit bon aussy que le Roy voulust bien prendre soin de faire executer ce qu'il a resolu, et qu'il fist chatier les officiers qui manquent à leur devoir. II n'y a ny ordre, ny discipline dans l'armée: les soldats mettent l'espée à la main contre leurs superieurs; les officiers et les cavaliers qui ont esté à la garde avancée, lorsque nous etions à une lieüe et demy du camp de M. de Schomberg, ont esté trouvez presque toutes les nuits couchez sur de la paille et endormis, leurs chevaux dessellez et debridez; on ne manquoit pas d'en faire des plaintes au Roy d'Angleterre qui disoit que cela estoit fort mal, et il n'en a jamais esté autre chose. Les capitaines sont d'une tres grande negligence, et souffrent que leurs soldats gastent et brisent leurs mousquets; de sorte que si on n'y apporte pas plus d'ordre, nostre Maiesté auroit beau envoyer cinquante mille mousquets de France, qu'il n'y en auroit pas dix mille en estat de servir dans ces troupes cy, au bout de six mois.’
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When Macaulay therefore censures the bad clothing of the troops as due to the defective commissariat he is in error: it was really due mainly to the avarice of the colonels and slightly to the neglect of the captains.
It is worthy of notice that the colonel and lieutenant-colonel had troops in the cavalry and companies in the infantry, and they drew pay as captains of these in addition to their pay as colonels and lieutenant-colonels. In foot regiments the major had always a company, but not in horse or dragoon regiments. The colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and major with the adjutant, quarter-master, and surgeon constituted the regimental staff. The other officers were divided into three grades, captain, lieutenant, and ensign in the infantry or cornet in the cavalry. Promotion as a rule went by selection on the colonel's recommendation, not by seniority or merit. From the autobiography of James II it appears that he bought the Earl of Macclesfield's first troop of Guards for the Duke of Monmouth in 1674.11 On June 22, 1686, Clarendon wrote to Sunderland:
‘My lord Tyrconnel told me, tho' I had nothing of it from your Lordship (which I should have been very glad to have known the King's mind in), that the King gave Col. Salkeld the command of the Horse Grenadiers as a recompense of his former services, in lieu of his employment of lieutenant-colonel, and in order to his disposing of it to his advantage. Though I know it is against his Majesty's resolution of not suffering commands in the army to be sold, yet, considering what has been told me, and that there can be no harm in making the proposition, I am desired by my Lord Ikerrin, that the King may be acquainted, that his Lordship and Col. Salkeld are agreed for that command of the Grenadiers; but then my Lord Ikerrin hopes that the King will give him leave to surrender the company, which he now has, to a friend of his; and he desires it may be to one Lieutenant John Roth. If his Majesty approve hereof, your Lordship will be pleased to let me know it, and to send over the commissions.’
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On July 22, 1686, Clarendon wrote another letter to Sunderland, ‘And now I must put your Lordship in mind of Captain Toby Caulfield, who was to have had Ridley's command; the company which he formerly had, having been given to my Lord Ikerrin, which he has sold by the King's permission lately to one Rooth.’ On December 18, 1686, he wrote to Rochester, ‘I sell no offices, I wish the officers of the army did not; then there would not be so much sharking from the poor soldier, as there is.’ The journal of John Stevens bears ample testimony that such conduct as Clarendon's was the exception, not the rule. The colonel regarded the places of the quarter-master, adjutant, and agent, as a source of pecuniary gain, for all three were appointed by him. The officers followed the corrupt example set by the colonel. They secured to him the fresh sale or gift of their places; they kept these vacant and drew the income of their holders. When a vacancy occurred the colonel concealed the fact as long as he could, and the salary of the officer still borne upon the muster-rolls went into his pocket. According to the declared accounts, Chelsea Hospital, 1680–5, the following are examples of prices paid for commissions:
| Commission | £ |
|---|
| Lieutenancy in the Irish Foot-Guards, prior to 1685 | 1,100 |
| Lieutenant-Colonel's commission | 3,440 |
| Captain's commission | 1,720 to 6,000 |
| Lieutenant's commission | 600 to 1,075 |
| Cornet's commission | 2,100 |
| Ensign's commission | 400 to 610 |
| Quarter-master's commission | 1,000 |
Stevens has a detailed description of the first siege of Limerick, and in it one matter calls for comment. ‘I can affirm’, writes the Duke of Berwick, ‘that not a single drop of rain fell for above a month before or for three weeks after’12 the siege. This statement is flatly contradicted by Stevens. On the 29th of August he writes: ‘The night was extreme cold, dark, and rainy’ and the 3rd of September ‘was
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appointed a general day of review for the garrison in the King's Island, but the weather proving extreme foul it was put off.’ The entry of the 29th shows in what sense he uses the word foul, for there he writes that ‘the weather began to grow foul with extreme rain’. Dumont de Bostaquet13 and Story14 confirm the accuracy of Stevens. Moreover, in the Clarke Correspondence (vol. ii, f. 116) occurs the significant statement: ‘I wish that the inclemency of the weather does not incommode the progress of the siege of Limerick.’ Though Corporal Trim was not an exact historian, there is no reason for disbelieving his recollection of the state of the weather, and he asserts, as all his readers remember, with emphasis, ‘besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the whole country was like a puddle.’ Williamite and Jacobite authorities, then, agree that rain fell. The question that now awaits an answer is, Why did Berwick state the contrary? He was so young that he gained no honour at the siege, and he was jealous of Sarsfield. The perplexing problem then occurs that a person who from the nature of the case must have known the truth does not tell it, even though it favours him. It is, however, not without parallel. When Napoleon occupied Moscow it was burnt. The Governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin, at the time boasted that he had fired the town. Many years afterwards, when an exile from Russia, he denied that he had ordered the conflagration. Which is to be behaved, his early affirmation or his subsequent denial?
The Brass Money
Stevens had troubles due to the foul weather, but he had other troubles due to bad money. On ff. 39b, 55b, 62b, 71a, 72a, 95a, 97a, 113b, and 117a, he refers to the many difficulties caused by the new coinage of James. It
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is obvious from his remarks that at first the nominal and the real value of the brass money coincided, but when French silver began to circulate, depreciation ensued. To the political economist the cause is clear, for by Gresham's law bad currency tends to drive out good currency. The working of this law was recognized by Aristophanes,15 by Nicolas Oresme in a report to Charles V of France about 1366, by Copernicus in a report or treatise written for Sigismund I, King of Poland, about 1526, and by Sir Thomas Gresham in the middle of the sixteenth century. It proved a most unfortunate law for James, for the depreciation of the brass currency brought untold misery upon the country. On the 25th of March, 1689, James issued a proclamation which raised the value of English gold twenty per cent., and English silver a little over eight per cent., and foreign gold and silver money in proportion. On the 18th of June by another proclamation he made two sorts of money, of brass and copper metal. Though an enormous quantity of these coins was placed in circulation, it proved insufficient for the wants of the king. At first this money was not legal tender for mortgages, bills, bonds, or obligations, debts due by record, and money left in trust, but by the proclamation of the 4th of February these exceptions were swept away. In order to supply the mint with metal Lord Melfort sent an order to Lord Mountcashel, master-general of the ordnance, to deliver to the commissioners of the mint some old brass guns, which were in the castle-yard. All collectors of revenue—in this order Stevens would take deep interest—were required to send up all the brass and copper in their respective districts. In order to encourage men to bring their plate to the mint to exchange it for this copper money, the commissioners gave sixpence in the pound in copper for all the silver and gold they received, and this silver and gold were to be taken at the current value and full weight allowed.
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On the 28th of February the interest given on loans was six per cent., and on the 9th of June, 1690, it had advanced to ten per cent. On the 28th of March, 1690, penny pieces, half-penny pieces, and crown pieces were struck. In order to remedy the scarcity of money, to pay the army, and to enable the subject to contribute to the heavy expenses, a certain quantity of white mixed metal was ordered, by proclamation of the 21st of April, 1690, to be coined into crown pieces, to pass for five shillings each. The refusal of these pieces was to be ‘punished according to the utmost rigour of the law’, and counterfeiters of them were adjudged guilty of high treason. Moreover, all persons who should discover ‘such offender or offenders, so as he or they be brought to condign punishment’ were to be recompensed either by a reward of twenty pounds, or ‘one moiety of the estate, real and personal’ of the offender. Heavy penalties were to be imposed on any persons who presumed ‘either to import, into any part of this realm, or export into any other country whatsoever, any of the said coin or money of white mixed metal’, and rewards were offered for their discovery. As in the case of the pewter pence and halfpence, these crowns were not intended to ‘continue for any long time’, and when they were ‘decried and made null’ full value was to be given for them in gold and silver, and they were to be received in payment of all debts due to the Crown. From an abstract (Madden MSS., T.C.D., F. 4. 4) it seems the whole sum coined amounted to £1,596,799 0s. 6d. The account stands thus:
| Weight of Metal. Pound. Ounces. | coined into | type of coin | Value £ s. d. |
|---|
| 62,422 2 1/3 | | large shillings | 245,879 17 0 |
| 110,308 15 | | large half-crowns | 443,498 10 0 |
| 172,731 1 1/2 | | large shillings and half-crowns | 689,378 7 0 |
| 14,080 3 | | small sixpences | 49,042 6 6 |
| 8,914 11 3/4; | | small shillings | 41,800 0 0 |
| 21,267 0 3/4; | | small half-crowns | 127,200 0 0 |
| 389,724 2 1/3 | | | 1,596,799 0 6 |
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The records of Stevens are the best proof that such proclamations as James issued invariably fail in the end. On f. 62b he remarks, ‘The army was punctually paid, and the brass money passed as current, and was of equal value with silver.’ When the French arrived they ‘were paid in silver, which was no small damage and discouragement to the rest of the army who received none but brass money’ (f. 71a) . Less than three months had sufficed to bring about this change in value. F. 95 a shows marked depreciation:
‘The brass money which our misfortunes had much lessened in the common esteem, the French made so contemptible it was scarce of any value, for they being always paid in silver, had no regard for the brass, but would give half-a-crown of that coin for a silver three-halfpenny piece, and forty shillings for a silver crown whereupon all things were sold accordingly as a pair of shoes for forty shillings, stockings that used to be sold for ninepence or tenpence were now worth five shillings, ale ninepence or twelvepence the quart, wine four shillings brass or sevenpence silver, brandy ten shillings brass, or tenpence silver. In short all things were at this time according to this rate (for it grew worse and worse daily), and we who were paid in brass had a miserable existence.’
On f. 62b Stevens gives prices before depreciation. Then ale was threepence a quart, whereas now it was ninepence or twelvepence, a rise of two hundred to three hundred per cent. In Dublin, too, ale was twelvepence a quart.16
The Irish Divisions
The confusion caused by the base money was a grave trouble, but far graver was that brought about by the divisions among the Irish themselves. On this point Clarke is clear:
‘Besides all these contradictions his Majesty had another to struggle with, which was discord and disunion amongst his own people, which are never failing concomitants of difficult and dangerous conjunctures.
[...]
But the King was
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forced to work with such tools as he had, or such as were put into his hands, which required so much dexterity to hinder their hurting one another, and by consequence himself, as to draw any use from such ill-suited and jarring instruments.’17
James found that two distinct, even contradictory, lines of policy were pressed upon him by his English and Irish supporters respectively. The features of the English Jacobite—Stevens was one—are well known, for they have been drawn by a succession of skilled artists, and in him is to be discerned the characteristic weakness of the House of Stuart—a greater regard for dynastic than for national interests. Stevens was so devoted to James that he could not condemn his conduct at the battle of the Boyne, but it is worthy of note he never mentions his king again. To him the sovereign meant everything, the state very little indeed. The Lord's anointed might commit iniquity, and still be able to rely upon the personal devotion of his liegeman. On the other hand, the features of the Irish Jacobite cannot be drawn in clear outline, for they are sometimes veiled in the shifting mists of variety, sometimes hidden in the dim shadows of uncertainty. His ancestors cared for the first James because they believed that he was descended from their own Milesian kings, but this attachment was not reciprocated, and the feeling passed away. The Celt wants to see a sovereign regularly in order to adore him. James I was never in Ireland, and the ministers he sent failed to develop the feeling of devotedness to his dynasty. Moreover, all the traditions of an Irish Jacobite were those of a man with ancestors in persistent opposition to the line of Stuart. His grandfather perhaps shared the flight of the earls to Spain. His father, it may be, had borne his part in the rebellion of 1641. He had been despoiled of some, if not all, of his family estate by Charles II. The romantic devotion of the Highlander to the name of
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Stuart meant absolutely nothing to him. The Jacobite poetry of Scotland and the Jacobite poetry of Ireland offer a strange contrast—the former is dynastic and personal, the latter is neither; it speaks almost exclusively of Ireland and exhibits a passionate devotion to it. The Highland loyal fervour was inconceivable to the Irish Celt, for to him the words sovereign and oppressor were convertible terms. He cared for James almost as little as a Williamite cared for James. In fact the attitude of Louis of France and of the Jacobite of Ireland to the fallen monarch was not widely different. They both used him for a definite purpose, and when this use was fulfilled they intended to pay but scant attention to the instrument they had employed. It was the intention of Louis that James should keep William busily engaged in order that he might have no leisure to thwart his Continental schemes. The Irish Jacobite aimed at recovering the land of his forefathers as the reward of his support of James. His grievances were mainly economic, and the year 1688 seemed to present a suitable opportunity for their redress. By supporting James he might secure the co-operation of France and thus pave the way to a restoration of his own ancient possessions, for the defeat of England would inevitably mean the disappearance of the colonist. He cared but little that James should recover his throne in England. In fact his interests and those of James were in direct opposition. If James were again King of England, he must pay heed to his subjects there, and this meant that he could not yield sufficient deference to the wishes of the Irish Jacobite, who wanted only the independence of his native island, with perhaps James reigning over him.
To the English Jacobite these aspirations were largely incomprehensible. Stevens, for example, regarded Dublin as but one stage in the return journey to London. The English Jacobite was as much an exile in Dublin Castle as he had been at Saint-Germain. In fact, of the two courts
p.lii
he much preferred the latter, for there he met men whom he understood, and whose feelings he could divine. Moreover, he perceived that, if his master yielded to the pressure of the Irish Jacobites, his hopes of crossing the Irish Sea to England were never destined to be realized. Whatever measures were proposed the thought could never be long absent from his mind. What will be the opinion of England about them? He knew that if the Irish party despoiled the Protestants in Ireland, all his chances, as Stevens perceived, were doomed. If, on the other hand, the policy of James showed a broad-minded toleration to them, then his prospects of recall vastly improved. It is to the credit of James that he tried—for a time, at least—to hold the balance true. He drew up a proclamation assuring the colonists of their restoration to their estates and of their admission to office, but the Irish and French successfully opposed its publication. The dispatches of Tyrconnel and the Journal of John Stevens reveal the existence of the chasm that yawned between the two types of thought. The want of sympathy and the lack of understanding are plainly visible in every line they write. The prevailing Irish sentiment can be seen in Bishop Molowny's letter to Bishop Tyrrel, March 8, 1689, wherein he warns his correspondent that a grave fallacy lurks in the theory that affairs in England must be arranged as an indispensable preliminary to their own restoration:
‘which is the same as to say at Doomsday: For never a Catholic or other Englishman will ever think or make a step for your restoration, but leave you as you were hitherto and leave your enemies over your heads to crush you at any time they please, and cut you off root and branch as they now publicly declare; and blame themselves they have not taken away your lives along with your estates long ago!
[...]
I dare aver, if Ireland were put upon such a foot by the King, he shall never fear any rebellion in England, especially if Scotland be faithful to him and France a friend; all which can now be well contrived and concerted.’18
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The last sentence gives an important clue to the policy pursued by the Irish Jacobites, for they followed Bishop Molowny's advice and placed implicit trust in France. Of course Avaux sympathized with the bishop, for though their aims were different, the measures they advocated were identical. Tyrconnel and the French were desirous of leading James in one path, while Melfort and the English wanted to conduct him along a road diametrically opposite. James saw, on the one hand, that he must continue to raise, in the Irish, the hopes raised by his own Lord Deputy; on the other, that if he expected to be restored to England he must protect the colonists. The two lines of policy were absolutely incompatible, but, standing hesitatingly at the parting of the ways, he tried to achieve the impossible, and effect a conciliation of divergent interests by a policy of mere oscillation. Thus at one time he urged the Protestant bishops to oppose the repeal of the Act of Settlement, at another he insisted on its speedy revocation. An extract from the journals of the proceedings in the Irish Parliament reveals the vacillating character of his policy. On the 28th of May, 1689, a motion of adjournment for a holiday was brought forward. The king asked, ‘What holiday?’ Answer, ‘The restoration of his brother and himself.’ He replied, ‘The fitter to restore those loyal Catholic gentlemen who had suffered with him and been kept unjustly out of their estates. The motion rejected.’ James saw at the time and saw more clearly long afterwards, that his land policy must set the English faction against the Irish. Two passages in his Memoirs are highly significant. ‘Nothing but his unwillingness’, he maintains, ‘to disgust those who were otherwise affectionate subjects could have extorted his consent to the Irish policy from him. It had, without doubt, been more generous in the Irish not to have pressed so hard upon their prince when he lay so much at their mercy, and more prudent not to have grasped at regaining all before they were sure of keeping what they
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already possessed.’ ‘But the Irish, by reckoning themselves sure of their game, when in reality they had the worst of it, thought of nothing but settling themselves in riches and plenty by breaking the Act of Settlement, and by that means raise new enemies before they were secure of mastering those they had already on their hands.’ He yielded to pressure, and, unfortunately for him, it became known that he would yield to pressure. Louis and Avaux at last triumphed, and James became as clay in the hands of the potter. The two Frenchmen discerned that the prospects of an English counter revolution were small indeed, while those of an Irish revolution were tolerably great. Ireland might possibly secure a nominal independence, but France would be the power behind the throne. The colonists could be expelled, the Roman Catholics restored, and their Church be made the established Church of the nation. Ireland would be linked to France by the strong tie of a common hostility to England. Louis might count on the Irish to fight his battles and their land to provision his troops. The harbours of the country, especially in the south, would afford support to his navy, whence his ships might issue forth to harass the trade of England. Little wonder that with these aims in view Avaux supported the Irish party so heartily. Louvois was delighted to receive from his political agent such welcome news. The best thing, Louvois replied, that King James could do would be to forget that he had ever reigned in Great Britain, and to think only of putting Ireland into a good condition, and of establishing himself firmly there. Divide et impera is a sound maxim under certain conditions, but in Ireland it proved fatal to the prospects of James in England. The differences between the two types of Jacobite became so acute that the Irish actually proposed to exclude from their party all Roman Catholics of English descent. The quarrel between the Irish Jacobites and the English in the parliament of 1689 became the feud between the Tyrconnelites
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and the Sarsfieldites, as Stevens found to his cost, at the siege of Limerick. The difference of the principles of the English Jacobites from those of the Irish meant to an ordinary Irishman that Tyrconnel held one view of a given policy while Sarsfield maintained another. Inevitably the strife between principles became one between parties. Of course these divisions ruined the king's cause in Ireland. That James was a humane man on the whole few would deny, still there is in the archives of D'Este the terrible letter of the 24th of February, 1689, to the Cardinal D'Este. ‘J'espère,’ he wrote, ‘que Sa Sainteté croira que l'occasion qui se présente de détruire l'Erésie (i.e. in Ireland) avec une armée Catholique n'est pas de celles qu'on doit perdre.’ His stay in Ireland, however, convinced him that such a plan would utterly defeat his projects. He shrank from such a cruel policy, but Avaux did not. The letter of Avaux of August the 14th, 1689, to Louis, and the king's reply of September the 6th, prove that the former urged James to put his policy into practice. The first letter runs thus:
‘Le Roy d'Angleterre m'avoit escouté assez paisiblement la premiere fois que je luy avois proposé ce qu'il y auroit à faire contre les Protestans, lorsque quelques uns d'eux se seroient soulevez, et auroient attaqué les Catholiques, mais comme il n'avoit rien determiné, et que je luy ay demandé depuis cela ce qu'il luy plaisoit d'ordonner, il m'a respondu d'un ton fort aigre, qu'il ne vouloit pas egorger ses sujets, que c'estoit son peuple, et qu'on ne l'obligeroit jamais à le traitter de la sorte. Je luy repartis que je ne luy proposois rien de fort inhumain, que je ne pretendois pas qu'on fist aucun mal aux Protestans qu'apres qu'on les verroit se soulever et que s'il en usoit autrement, la pitié qu'il auroit pour eux seroit une cruauté pour les Catholiques. Je le suppliay ensuitte de me dire quelle estoit son intention, et ce qu'il vouloit que les Catholiques de Kork fissent, s'ils voyoient que les Protestans de Bandon eussent massacré tous les Catholiques, et ainsi des autres villes: il me dit qu'ils attendoient à se deffendre quand les Protestans les attaqueroient. Je representay que les Protestans ne leur donneroient pas avis de ce qu'ils auraient dessein de faire, et
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qu'ils massacreroient tous les Catholiques les uns apres les autres; il ne m'a respondu autre chose que ‘Tant-pis, Monsieur’.’
The second letter shows that even Louis would not consent to such a proposal.
‘Je n'approuve pas cependant la proposition que vous faites de faire main basse sur tous les Protestans du royaume, du moment qu'en quelque endroit que ce soit, ils se seront soulevez; et outre que la punition d'une infinité d'innocens pour peu de coupables, ne seroit pas juste, d'ailleurs les represailles contre les Catholiques seroit d'autant plus dangereuse, que les premiers se trouveront mieux armez et soutenus de toutes les forces d'Angleterre.’
The divisions of the Irish and English Jacobites hindered the return of James to England, but the advice of Avaux must irrevocably have destroyed any such prospect. Undoubtedly Avaux intended by this universal annihilation of the Protestants to separate England and Ireland for ever, to place the two nations in a permanently hostile position in order that French interests might be advanced.
The Social Condition of the Country
From f. 87b to f. 88b Stevens writes a tantalizingly short sketch of the social condition of the country, though here and there throughout the Journal he also affords interesting information. He notes that the people are ‘the greatest lovers of milk I ever saw, which they eat and drink above twenty several sorts of ways, and what is strangest for the most part love it best when sourest’. Fynes Moryson (1600–3) agrees that ‘they feed most on white meats, and esteem for a great dainty sour curds, vulgarly called by them Bonaclabbe (i.e. Bonnyclabber). And for this cause they watchfully keep their cows, and fight for them as for their religion and life; and when they are almost starved, yet they will not kill a cow, except it be old and yield no milk. Yet will they upon hunger in time of war open a vein of
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the cow and drink the blood, but in no case kill or much weaken it. A man would think these men to be Scythians, who let their horses' blood under their ears, and for nourishment drink their blood, and, indeed (as I have formerly said), some of the Irish are of the race of Scythians.’19 Dean Swift, in one of his ironical articles, entitled The Answer to the Craftsman, wrote ‘to which employment they (i.e. the Irish graziers) are turned by nature as descended from the Scythians, whose diet they are still so fond of. So Virgil describeth it:—
Et lac concretum cum sanguine bibit equino. ‘And he drinks curdled milk with horse's blood—’’’misquoted from Georgica 3, 463.
Which in English is Bonnyclabber.’ According to Luke Gernon, in the baser cabins, in 1620, ‘you shall have no drink but Bonnyclabber, milk that is soured to the condition of buttermilk, nor no meat, but mullagham (mallabanne), a kind of chokedaw cheese, and blue butter, and no bread at your first coming in, but if you stay half an hour you shall have a cake of meal unboulted, and mingled with butter baken on an iron called a griddle, like a pudding cake.’ According to M. de la Boullaye le Gouz, who visited Ireland in 1644, ‘The Irish gentlemen eat a great deal of meat and butter, but little bread. They drink milk, and beer into which they put laurel leaves, and eat bread baked in the English manner. The poor grind barley and peas between two stones and make it into bread, which they cook upon a small iron table heated on a tripod; they put into it some oats, and this bread, which in the form of cakes they call Haraan, they eat with great draughts of buttermilk.’ Fynes Moryson says ‘their ordinary food for the common sort is of white meats, and they eat cakes of oats for bread, and drink not English beer made of malt and hops, but ale.
[...]
And for the cheese or butter commonly made by the English-Irish an Englishman would not touch it with his lips though he
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were half-starved; yet many English inhabitants make very good of both kinds. In cities they have such bread as ours, but of a sharp savour, and some mingled with anice-seeds and baked like cakes, and that only in the houses of the better sort.’ On the other hand, Le Gouz thought the butter, the beef, and the mutton better than in England, and he pronounced the beer good and the brandy excellent. Boisseleau was as unfavourable as Fynes Moryson, and to him Ireland was ‘a country where there is no corn, no bread, no medicine, and where a wounded man is as good as dead.’ During the Jacobite war there was marked deficiency in the supply of salt and saltpetre. Of course, meat could not be cured and gunpowder could not be manufactured on a proper scale. Fynes Moryson admits that ‘the Irish aqua vitae, commonly called usquebaugh, is held the best in the world of that kind, which is made also in England, but nothing so good as that which is brought out of Ireland.
[...]
Neither have they any beer made of malt and hops, nor yet any ale—no, not the chief lords, except it be very rarely; but they drink milk like nectar, warmed with a stone first cast into the fire, or else beef-broth mingled with milk.’ Rosen complained that the beer was brewed so badly that it could not be drunk without producing dysentery, from which one man died out of ten. Perhaps Captain Gafney's cure for ague may be noticed. It is ‘One ounce of cortex new, one dram of powder of snake weed, one dram of powder of nutmegs made up into an electuary, with a sufficient quantity of syrup of lemons, you are to take the bigness of a chestnut of it three or four times in the four and twenty hours, whilst it (i.e. the ague) lasts shaking, after it a glass of claret warmed mixed with brandy and sugar.’ Fynes Moryson records the fact that ‘they who are sick thereof, upon a received custom, do not use the help of the physician, but give themselves to the keeping of Irish women, who starve the ague, giving the sick man no meat, who takes nothing
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but milk and some vulgarly known remedies at their hand.’ Sir William Brereton gives (in 1635) another medical recipe: ‘At my coming to Carrickfergus, and being troubled with an extreme flux, not as yet come to so great a height as a bloody flux, my hostess, Miss Wharton, directed me the use of cinnamon in burnt claret wine, as also the syrup and conserve of sloes well boiled, after they have been strained and mingled according to discretion with sugar, they are to be boiled with sugar until they be cleared, having been first boiled in water until they be softened and then strained.’
Stevens points out that ‘all smoke, women as well as men, and a pipe an inch long serves the whole family several years, and though never so black or foul is never suffered to be burnt. Seven or eight will gather to the smoking of a pipe, and each taking two or three whiffs gives it to his neighbours, commonly holding his mouth full of smoke till the pipe comes about to him again.’ Le Gouz and Stevens agree in their description of Irish shoes. The former remarks, ‘Their shoes, which are pointed, they call brogues, with a single sole. They often told me of a proverb in English, ‘Airische brogues for English dogues’ (Irish brogues for English dogs), ‘the shoes of Ireland for the dogs of England,’ meaning that their shoes are worth more than the English.’ They also agree in their account of the cabins. They are, according to Le Gouz, ‘four walls the height of a man, supporting rafters over which they thatch with straw and leaves. They are without chimneys and make the fire in the middle of the hut, which greatly incommodes those who are not fond of smoke.
[...]
They have little furniture, and cover their rooms with rushes, of which they make their beds in summer, and of straw in winter. They put the rushes a foot deep on their floors, and on their windows, and many of them ornament the ceilings with branches.’
Other inmates of the cabin were more unpleasant than
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the smoke, as Stevens testifies. Fynes Moryson asserts that ‘in cities passengers may have feather beds, soft and good, but most commonly lousy, especially in the highways, whether that came by their being forced to lodge common soldiers, or from the nasty filthiness of the nation in general.’ Even Le Gouz admits that ‘the generality of them have no shirts, and about as many lice as hairs on their heads, which they kill before each other without any ceremony.’ M. Bouridal describes the Irish soldiers, who landed in France in 1691, as ‘shirtless, shoeless, hatless, and afflicted with vermin.’ Travellers like Stanihurst, an Irishman, Spenser, Fynes Moryson, Cuellar, Rinuccini, Eachard, Hartlib, and Le Gouz, all take as unfavourable a view of Irish civilization as John Stevens. Moreover, Stevens speaks of remote western parts beyond the control of England. In the course of his marches Stevens encountered the ‘creaghts’. Fynes Moryson shows that ‘plenty of grass makes the Irish have infinite multitudes of cattle, and in the heat of the last rebellion the very vagabond rebels had great multitudes of cows which they still (like the nomads) drove with them whithersoever themselves were driven, and fought for them as for their altars and families.’ These nomads were the creaghts. When James I endeavoured to give a system of administration to Ireland he met with the greatest difficulty from this pastoral population, accustomed to wander about without any fixed habitation after their herds of cattle, living largely on white meats, as the produce of their cows was called. At this period there was not, according to Sir John Davies, one fixed village in county Fermanagh.20 In a letter to the Earl of Salisbury, written during the first circuit ever held in Fermanagh, Davies mentions that the fixing a site for a jail and sessions house had been delayed ‘until my Lord Deputy had resolved on a fit place for a market and corporate town; for the habitations of this people are
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so wild and transitory, as there is not one fixed village in all this country.’ Fynes Moryson describes their dwellings as made of wattles or boughs, covered with long turves or sods of grass, which they could easily remove and put up as they wandered from place to place in search of pasture, following their vast herds of cattle with their wives and children, and removing still to fresh lands as they had depastured the former, and living chiefly on the milk of their cows.21 The aggregate of families that in one body followed a herd was called a ‘Creaght’. In Ulster, north and west of Lough Neagh, it seems that the whole population was formed of creaghts, living this wild and nomadic life. In other parts of Ireland there was the kindred custom of Boolying, in which the owners of cattle and their families spent much of the year in the wilds and mountains with their cows, but they seem to have returned to fixed habitations. Edmund Spenser sets forth the evils of boolying, that it was difficult to enforce law, for such wandering peoples could scarcely be made responsible for offences. The government grappled with the matter, and in the Commission issued for the survey of Ulster, on the suppression of Tyrone's rebellion, dated July 16, 1605, the commissioners are directed to take order for building several towns and villages for settling such subjects as have no certain habitation, ‘by reason whereof, the inhabitants of the same do for the most part wander up and down loosely, following their herds of cattle without any certain habitation.’22 In a letter to the king, October 31, 1610, complaining of some of the difficulties of the plantation, the Earl of Chichester says that, though the Irish of this territory had plentifully tasted of his Majesty's clemency and happy government to their great profit and comfort, yet, to alter their rude and uncivil customs, and to bring them to live by their labours on small portions of land by manuring and stocking it with goods of their own, was as grievous
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unto them as to be made bond-slaves. With the Ulster Plantation appeared the definite appropriation of the lands among the new settlers, and with it disappeared the custom of creaght.
The disappearance took time, but ultimately it came. The letter of January 26, 1653, states that
‘Upon serious consideration had of the inconveniency of permitting the Irish to live in creaghts after a loose and disorderly manner, whereby the enemy comes to be relieved and sustained, and the contribution (i. e. the monthly assessment) oft damaged; we issued our order dated the 11th of October last for the fixing such persons upon lands proportionable to their respective stock and enjoining them to betake themselves to tillage and husbandry, and in case of refusal to seize upon the cattle and stock of such persons, and appraising them upon oath to expose them to sale for the best advantage of the Commonwealth.’
‘We’ are the commissioners for the government of Ireland. They go on to complain of want of intelligence, and require their officers to report how far they have gone in the execution of the order, and lay down that in fixing all such creaghts they take care that they be disposed at most distance from their friends and relations, to the end all relief may be the better debarred from the enemy. An army, whether Williamite or Cromwellian, was obliged to depend for support on supply raised by the assessment of a gross sum on each county, and then apportioned on the inhabitants according to their several stocks and crops. The difficulty of assessing such wanderers as the creaghts can easily be imagined, and was set forth in another order, by which fresh measures were directed for extinguishing them by ‘unheading the creaghts’, that is, imprisoning the chief man of the creaght until the rest of it were certified to have transplanted themselves and taken up a fixed abode in Connaught. This order states:
‘29 August, 1656.—Whereas the Lord Deputy has been informed by his Council that at this present there are some
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creaghts that have removed out of Ulster who, according to an ancient but barbarous manner of life, have no fixt place of habitation, but wander up and down with their families and substance to the prejudice and just offence of divers people, and to the defrauding of the public of the cess and duty which is legally due: His Excellency Lord Henry Cromwell thereby appoints persons to enquire what creaghts are in Meath or thereabouts, how long they have continued there, how called, from whence and by whose encouragement they came thither, and by what authority they practise that vagrant and savage life so contrary to Christian usage: And to the end such a lewd custom may be duly discountenanced and made exemplary, His Excellency thereby orders that the heads or chief persons of those creaghts be secured in some safe place, and the persons of the rest of the said wanderers kept likewise in restrain, until they shall give security for their speedy transplanting into Connaught. The heads of the said creaghts to remain in custody until the return of a certificate from the commissioners at Loughrea that the said creaghts are actually removed with their stock and substance, and settled there. The persons who are to execute this order to take the names of the said creaghts and an inventory of such of their stock and goods as shall be judged fit to be reserved for the maintenance of such chief person secured as aforesaid.’
Story saw some of the wild Irish near Newry in 1690, and writes: ‘Some call them creaghts, from the little huts they live in, which they build so conveniently with hurdles and long turf, that they can remove them in summer towards the mountains, and bring them down to the valleys in winter.’23 It is clear, however, that the historian confounds the Irish term creaghts with the English word crate, hurdle or wicker-work. His error is intelligible, for the word was applied to an Irish village or collection of those frail habitations, even though they were not intended to be moved. Stevens met creaghts, and Story may well have met them. In spite of law and in spite of orders traces of the creaghts persisted till the middle of the eighteenth century.
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The Dates of the Journal
- January 11 . . . . . . f. 2b
- September 6 . . . . . . f. 4b
- January 11 . . . . . . f. 10b
- February 1 . . . . . . f. 18a
- March 4 . . . . . . f. 26a
- April 3 . . . . . . f. 33b
- May 5 . . . . . . f. 36b
- Dates cease . . . . . . f. 44b
- August 20 . . . . . . f. 60a
- September 5 . . . . . . f. 60b
- October 4 . . . . . . f. 62a
- Dates cease . . . . . . f. 66a
- May 19 . . . . . . f. 73b
- June 1 . . . . . . f. 76b
- July 1 . . . . . . f. 79b
- August 1 . . . . . . f. 97a
- September 1 . . . . . . f. 108b
- Dates cease . . . . . . f. 113a
- April 20 . . . . . . f. 116a
- May 4 . . . . . . f. 117b
- June 2 . . . . . . f. 118a
- July 1 . . . . . . f. 125a
The Notes
In compliance with a suggestion of Professor Firth, the notes have been re-arranged to avoid having too many on one page: the index of events and persons will facilitate reference. (The indices have been omitted from the CELT edition. They may be consulted in the PDF version of Stevens Journal available on www.archive.org on the Internet.)Notes on well-known people, e.g. Schomberg, are short, while those on obscure people are necessarily longer.
The spelling of the Journal has been modernized. Names of places have also been modernized, e.g. when Stevens writes Ierney the editor writes Ernée. Where there seems a doubt the spelling of Stevens has been given.