Among the published material it is difficult to find detailed accounts of the Jacobite War. Works like Dumont de Bostaquet's Mémoires inédits, Berwick's Mémoires, Schomberg's Diary, the Journal of Mullenaux, and Parker's Memoirs, give on the whole scanty detail. The signal exception to this statement is the remarkably important Journal of John Stevens, which has been published by the Clarendon Press. The few unpublished records resemble the published, in the lack of precise information. Thus Ensign Cramond's Diary (Add. 29878, Brit. Mus.) gives no details of importance. It has no title, but begins ‘The Route of Colonel Wauchope's Regiment beginning the 15th 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, Sloane MSS., Brit. Mus.) 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. Both these diaries were obviously kept in the pockets of their owners. Cramond's diary measures 6 1/4 x 3 inches, and Bonnivert's 5 7/8 x 3 1/2 inches.
Gédéon Bonnivert was the son of Paschall and Judith Bonnivert of Sedan, in Champagne.1 He was probably a Huguenot, and on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 he succeeded in coming to England. Some of his papers, in prose and verse, are preserved in the British Museum. It is evident that he was an enthusiastic scientist. Among the Sloane manuscripts there are a treatise on the elements of geometry and fortification, with
The letters, preserved in MSS. 4036, 4039, and 4058, he wrote show how great was his love of botany. Unlike the people of his day, he cared much for the beauties of nature, though this feeling is seldom to be noticed in English literature till the days of Thomas Gray. Spenser and Shakespeare are not the poets of outward nature in the sense that Wordsworth is. Both Jonson and Fletcher have written much that is beautiful in the way of nature-poetry, and in this connexion Milton cannot be forgotten. William Browne, the Puritan Wither, Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvell, and Sir John Denham sing of ‘brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers.’ Speaking of Thomson, Wordsworth says that ‘it is remarkable that, excepting the Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Winchelsea, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period between the publication of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature, and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be inferred that the eye of the poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination.’
Bonnivert was an eager botanist, as well as a lover of nature. To an unknown correspondent he writes: ‘I must own the plant which did so long puzzle me is Gramen Parnassi; but who the devil is the man that knows no more simples than I, (how) could (he) have looked for that plant amongst the Gramina.’2 This illegibly dated letter gives an interesting account of his botanical rambles in Oxfordshire. As a soldier he marched from place to place; and in the course of his walks about Dorchester he found rare plants.
A letter of June 24, 1703, records his transfer to Cork.7 In it he urges his friend Dr. Sloane to ‘be so kind as to go to my Lord Dorset to whom I write to-night about this matter, and press him to go immediately to the Queen and get that post for me, for fear any other goes before. Nobody hardly knows of it but I and another. Don't mention nothing to my Coll. of it by reason he hath so many hangers about him it would spoil all. I leave to your discretion and often-tried friendship to manage the matter.’ On August 3, 1703, he again writes from Cork to Sloane, but there is no reference to the post he sought.8 He mentions the fact that the Duke of Ormonde was very civil to him. He observes a curious piece of architecture in Limerick, speaks of the silver mines there, and finds a pretty geranium growing on the walls of that city. He also talks of the Giant's Steps about six miles from Cork,9 and alludes to his probable departure for Portugal. From his letter to Sloane on September 29, 1703, his destination was changed to Limerick, and in it he discusses his father-in-law's business affairs.10
One point in the diary calls for comment. According to Bonnivert the bad weather caused the raising of the first siege of Limerick. On the other hand, the Duke of Berwick writes, ‘I can affirm that not a single drop of rain fell for above a month before or for three weeks after.’11 Thus, according to
The Duke of Berwick's statement is flatly contradicted by John Stevens, who was a Jacobite officer serving in the besieged town. On the 29th of August he writes: ‘The night was extreme cold, dark and rainy.’12 The 3rd of September ‘was appointed a general day of review for the garrison in the King's Island, but the weather proving extreme foul, it was put off.’13 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.’ Story records that ‘a storm of rain and other bad weather began to threaten us, which fell out on Friday the 29th in good earnest, upon which his Majesty calling a Council of War, it was concluded the safest way was to quit the siege.’14 Dumont de Bostaquet, an eye-witness Like Story, says that before the siege was raised, because ‘la pluie avoit tombé en telle abondance que je ne doutai pas que j'aurois de la peine a la passer or du moins au retour’15 from one side of the Shannon to the other. Captain Maupas informed Dumont ‘son guide craignoit que la rivière ne grossît et qu'elle ne fût plus guéable. ... La pluie continuant violemment nous fit une peine extrême, le terrain étoit gras, les chevaux ne pouvoient tenir pied, et les cavaliers aimoient mieux être à cheval que pied à terre: la pluie continua toute la journée.’16 In the Clarke correspondence17 occurs the significant statement:
Williamite and Jacobite authorities 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. Moreover, he was jealous of Sarsfield; and had he emphasized the fact that rain had fallen, it would have dimmed the glory of his rival. Berwick married Sarsfield's widow, and his Memoirs attest his devotion to her. Perhaps his love of his wife made him resolve that he would not lower the reputation of her first husband. For there is little doubt that the importance of the capture and destruction of the cannon at Ballyneety has been exaggerated; it is the only outstanding exploit on the Jacobite side.
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 not, however, 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 believed, his early affirmation or his subsequent denial?