The Relief Of Londonderry
Frightful was the state of Londonderry. "No surrender" was the ultimatum
of its inhabitants, "blockade and starvation" the threat of the
besiegers; the town was surrounded, the river closed, relief seemed
hopeless, life, should the furious besiegers break in, equally hopeless.
Far off, in the harbor of Lough Foyle, could be seen the English ships.
Thirty vessels lay there, laden with men and provisions, but they were
a
le to come no nearer. The inhabitants could see them, but the sight
only aggravated their misery. Plenty so near at hand! Death and
destitution in their midst! Frightful, indeed, was their extremity.
The Foyle, the river leading to the town, was fringed with hostile forts
and batteries, and its channel barricaded. Several boats laden with
stone had been sunk in the channel. A row of stakes was driven into the
bottom of the stream. A boom was formed of trunks of fir-trees, strongly
bound together, and fastened by great cables to the shore. Relief from
the fleet, with the river thus closed against it, seemed impossible. Yet
scarcely two days' supplies were left in the town, and without hasty
relief starvation or massacre seemed the only alternatives.
Let us relate the occasion of this siege. James II. had been driven from
England, and William of Orange was on the throne. In his effort to
recover his kingdom, James sought Ireland, where the Catholic peasantry
were on his side. His appearance was the signal for fifty thousand
peasants to rise in arms, and for the Protestants to fly from peril of
massacre. They knew their fate should they fall into the hands of the
half-savage peasants, mad with years of misrule.
In the north, seven thousand English fugitives fled to Londonderry, and
took shelter behind the weak wall, manned by a few old guns, and without
even a ditch for defence, which formed the only barrier between them and
their foes. Around this town gathered twenty-five thousand besiegers,
confident of quick success. But the weakness of the battlements was
compensated for by the stoutness of the hearts within. So fierce were
the sallies of the desperate seven thousand, so severe the loss of the
besiegers in their assaults, that the attempt to carry the place by
storm was given up, and a blockade substituted. From April till the end
of July this continued, the condition of the besieged daily growing
worse, the food-supply daily growing less. Such was the state of affairs
at the date with which we are specially concerned.
Inside the town, at that date, the destitution had grown heart-rending.
The fire of the enemy was kept up more briskly than ever, but famine and
disease killed more than cannon-balls. The soldiers of the garrison
were so weak from privation that they could scarcely stand; yet they
repelled every attack, and repaired every breach in the walls as fast as
made. The damage done by day was made good at night. For the garrison
there remained a small supply of grain, which was given out by
mouthfuls, and there was besides a considerable store of salted hides,
which they gnawed for lack of better food. The stock of animals had been
reduced to nine horses, and these so lean and gaunt that it seemed
useless to kill them for food.
The townsmen were obliged to feed on dogs and rats, an occasional small
fish caught in the river, and similar sparse supplies. They died by
hundreds. Disease aided starvation in carrying them off. The living were
too few and too weak to bury the dead. Bodies were left unburied, and a
deadly and revolting stench filled the air. That there was secret
discontent and plottings for surrender may well be believed. But no such
feeling dared display itself openly. Stubborn resolution and vigorous
defiance continued the public tone. "No surrender" was the general cry,
even in that extremity of distress. And to this voices added, in tones
of deep significance, "First the horses and hides; then the prisoners;
and then each other."
Such was the state of affairs on July 28, 1689. Two days' very sparse
rations alone remained for the garrison. At the end of that time all
must end. Yet still in the distance could be seen the masts of the
ships, holding out an unfulfilled promise of relief; still hope was not
quite dead in the hearts of the besieged. Efforts had been made to send
word to the town from the fleet. One swimmer who attempted to pass the
boom was drowned. Another was caught and hanged. On the 13th of July a
letter from the fleet, sewed up in a cloth button, reached the commander
of the garrison. It was from Kirke, the general in command of the party
of relief, and promised speedy aid. But a fortnight and more had passed
since then, and still the fleet lay inactive in Lough Foyle, nine miles
away, visible from the summit of the Cathedral, yet now tending rather
to aggravate the despair than to sustain the hopes of the besieged.
The sunset hour of July 28 was reached. Services had been held that
afternoon in the Cathedral,--services in which doubtless the help of God
was despairingly invoked, since that of man seemed in vain. The
heart-sick people left the doors, and were about to disperse to their
foodless homes, when a loud cry of hope and gladness came from the
lookout in the tower above their heads.
"They are coming!" was the stirring cry. "The ships are coming up the
river! I can see their sails plainly! Relief is coming!"
How bounded the hearts of those that heard this gladsome cry! The
listeners dispersed, carrying the glad news to every corner of the town.
Others came in hot haste, eager to hear further reports from the lookout
tower. The town, lately so quiet and depressed, was suddenly filled with
activity. Hope swelled every heart, new life ran in every vein; the
news was like a draught of wine that gave fresh spirit to the most
despairing soul.
And now other tidings came. There was a busy stir in the camp of the
besiegers. They were crowding to the river-banks. As far as the eye
could see, the stream was lined. The daring ships had a gauntlet of fire
to run. Their attempt seemed hopeless, indeed. The river was low. The
channel which they would have to follow ran near the left bank, where
numerous batteries had been planted. They surely would never succeed.
Yet still they came, and still the lookout heralded their movements to
the excited multitude below.
The leading ship was the Mountjoy, a merchant-vessel laden heavily with
provisions. Its captain was Micaiah Browning, a native of Londonderry.
He had long advised such an attempt, but the general in command had
delayed until positive orders came from England that something must be
done.
On hearing of this, Browning immediately volunteered. He was eager to
succor his fellow-townsmen. Andrew Douglas, captain of the Phoenix, a
vessel laden with meal from Scotland, was willing and anxious to join in
the enterprise. As an escort to these two merchantmen came the
Dartmouth, a thirty-six-gun frigate, its commander John Leake,
afterwards an admiral of renown.
Up the stream they came, the Dartmouth in the lead, returning the fire
of the forts with effect, pushing steadily onward, with the merchantmen
closely in the rear. At length the point of peril was reached. The boom
extended across the stream, seemingly closing all further passage. But
that remained to be seen. The Mountjoy took the lead, all its sails
spread, a fresh breeze distending the canvas, and rushed head on at the
boom.
A few minutes of exciting suspense followed, then the great barricade
was struck, strained to its utmost, and, with a rending sound, gave way.
So great was the shock that the Mountjoy rebounded and stuck in the mud.
A yell of triumph came from the Irish who crowded the banks. They rushed
to their boats, eager to board the disabled vessel; but a broadside from
the Dartmouth sent them back in disordered flight.
In a minute more the Phoenix, which had followed close, sailed through
the breach which the Mountjoy had made, and was past the boom.
Immediately afterwards the Mountjoy began to move in her bed of mud. The
tide was rising. In a few minutes she was afloat and under way again,
safely passing through the barrier of broken stakes and spars. But her
brave commander was no more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck
and killed him, when on the very verge of gaining the highest honor that
man could attain,--that of saving his native town from the horrors of
starvation or massacre.
While this was going on, the state of feeling of the lean and hungry
multitude within the town was indescribable. Night had fallen before the
ships reached the boom. The lookout could no longer see and report
their movements. Intense was the suspense. Minutes that seemed hours
passed by. Then, in the distance, the flash of guns could be seen. The
sound of artillery came from afar to the ears of the expectant citizens.
But the hope which this excited went down when the shout of triumph rose
from the besiegers as the Mountjoy grounded. It was taken up and
repeated from rank to rank to the very walls of the city, and the hearts
of the besieged sank dismally. This cry surely meant failure. The
miserable people grew livid with fear. There was unutterable anguish in
their eyes, as they gazed with despair into one another's pallid faces.
A half-hour more passed. The suspense continued. Yet the shouts of
triumph had ceased. Did it mean repulse or victory? "Victory! victory!"
for now a spectral vision of sails could be seen, drawing near the town.
They grew nearer and plainer; dark hulls showed below them; the vessels
were coming! the town was saved!
Wild was the cry of glad greeting that went up from thousands of
throats, soul-inspiring the cheers that came, softened by distance, back
from the ships. It was ten o'clock at night. The whole population had
gathered at the quay. In came the ships. Loud and fervent were the
cheers and welcoming cries. In a few minutes more the vessels had
touched the wharves, well-fed sailors and starved townsmen were
fraternizing, and the long months of misery and woe were forgotten in
the intense joy of that supreme moment of relief.
Many hands now made short work. Wasted and weak as were the townsmen,
hope gave them strength. A screen of casks filled with earth was rapidly
built up to protect the landing-place from the hostile batteries on the
other side of the river. Then the unloading began. The eyes of the
starving inhabitants distended with joy as they saw barrel after barrel
rolled ashore, until six thousand bushels of meal lay on the wharf.
Great cheeses came next, beef-casks, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter,
sacks of peas and biscuit, until the quay was piled deep with
provisions.
One may imagine with what tears of joy the soldiers and people ate their
midnight repast that night. Not many hours before the ration to each man
of the garrison had been half a pound of tallow and three-quarters of a
pound of salted hide. Now to each was served out three pounds of flour,
two pounds of beef, and a pint of peas. There was no sleep for the
remainder of the night, either within or without the walls. The bonfires
that blazed along the whole circuit of the walls told the joy within the
town. The incessant roar of guns told the rage without it. Peals of
bells from the church-towers answered the Irish cannon; shouts of
triumph from the walls silenced the cries of anger from the batteries.
It was a conflict of joy and rage.
Three days more the batteries continued to roar. But on the night of
July 31 flames were seen to issue from the Irish camp; on the morning of
August 1 a line of scorched and smoking ruins replaced the
lately-occupied huts, and along the Foyle went a long column of pikes
and standards, marking the retreat of the besieging army.
The retreat became a rout. The men of Enniskillen charged the retreating
army of Newtown Butler, struggling through a bog to fall on double their
number, whom they drove in a panic before them. The panic spread through
the whole army. Horse and foot, they fled. Not until they had reached
Dublin, then occupied by King James, did the retreat stop, and
confidence return to the baffled besiegers of Londonderry.
Thus ended the most memorable siege in the history of the British
islands. It had lasted one hundred and five days. Of the seven thousand
men of the garrison but about three thousand were left. Of the besiegers
probably more had fallen than the whole number of the garrison.
To-day Londonderry is in large measure a monument to its great siege.
The wall has been carefully preserved, the summit of the ramparts
forming a pleasant walk, the bastions being turned into pretty little
gardens. Many of the old culverins, which threw lead-covered bricks
among the Irish ranks, have been preserved, and may still be seen among
the leaves and flowers. The cathedral is filled with relics and
trophies, and over its altar may be observed the French flag-staffs,
taken by the garrison in a desperate sally, the flags they once bore
long since reduced to dust. Two anniversaries are still kept,--that of
the day on which the gates were closed, that of the day on which the
siege was raised,--salutes, processions, banquets, addresses, sermons
signalizing these two great events in the history of a city which passed
through so frightful a baptism of war, but has ever since been the abode
of peace.