Grafton, ever foremost in danger, while struggling through the quagmire, was struck by a shot from the ramparts, and was carried back dying. The place where he fell, then about a hundred yards without the city, but now situated in the very centre of business and population, is still called Grafton Street. The assailants had made their way through the swamp, and the close fighting was just about to begin, when a parley was beaten. Articles of capitulation were speedily adjusted. The garrison, between four and five thousand fighting men, became prisoners. Marlborough promised to intercede with the King both for them and for the inhabitants, and to prevent outrage and spoliation. His troops he succeeded in restraining; but crowds of sailors and camp followers came into the city through the breach; and the houses of many Roman Catholics were sacked before order was restored.
No commander has ever understood better than Marlborough how to improve a victory. A few hours after Cork had fallen, his cavalry were on the road to Kinsale. A trumpeter was sent to summon the place. The Irish threatened to hang him for bringing such a message, set fire to the town, and retired into two forts called the Old and the New. The English horse arrived just in time to extinguish the flames. Marlborough speedily followed with his infantry. The Old Fort was scaled; and four hundred and fifty men who defended it were all killed or taken. The New Fort it was necessary to attack in a more methodical way. Batteries were planted; trenches were opened; mines were sprung; in a few days the besiegers were masters of the counterscarp; and all was ready for storming, when the governor offered to capitulate. The garrison, twelve hundred strong, was suffered to retire to Limerick; but the conquerors took possession of the stores, which were of considerable value. Of all the Irish ports Kinsale was the best situated for intercourse with France. Here, therefore, was a plenty unknown in any other part of Munster. At Limerick bread and wine were luxuries which generals and privy councillors were not always able to procure. But in the New Fort of Kinsale Marlborough found a thousand barrels of wheat and eighty pipes of claret.
His success had been complete and rapid; and indeed, had it not been rapid, it would not have been complete. His campaign, short as it was, had been long enough to allow time for the deadly work which, in that age, the moist earth and air of Ireland seldom failed, in the autumnal season, to perform on English soldiers.
The malady which had thinned the ranks of Schomberg's army at Dundalk, and which had compelled William to make a hasty retreat from the estuary of the Shannon, had begun to appear at Kinsale.
Quick and vigorous as Marlborough's operations were, he lost a much greater number of men by disease than by the fire of the enemy. He presented himself at Kensington only five weeks after he had sailed from Portsmouth, and was most graciously received.
"No officer living," said William, "who has seen so little service as my Lord Marlborough, is so fit for great commands."757In Scotland, as in Ireland, the aspect of things had, during this memorable summer, changed greatly for the better. That club of discontented Whigs which had, in the preceding year, ruled the Parliament, browbeaten the ministers, refused the supplies and stopped the signet, had sunk under general contempt, and had at length ceased to exist. There was harmony between the Sovereign and the Estates; and the long contest between two forms of ecclesiastical government had been terminated in the only way compatible with the peace and prosperity of the country.
This happy turn in affairs is to be chiefly ascribed to the errors of the perfidious, turbulent and revengeful Montgomery.
Some weeks after the close of that session during which he had exercised a boundless authority over the Scottish Parliament, he went to London with his two principal confederates, the Earl of Annandale and the Lord Ross. The three had an audience of William, and presented to him a manifesto setting forth what they demanded for the public. They would very soon have changed their tone if he would have granted what they demanded for themselves.
But he resented their conduct deeply, and was determined not to pay them for annoying him. The reception which be gave them convinced them that they had no favour to expect. Montgomery's passions were fierce; his wants were pressing; he was miserably poor; and, if he could not speedily force himself into a lucrative office, he would be in danger of rotting in a gaol.
Since his services were not likely to be bought by William, they must be offered to James. A broker was easily found. Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson. The two traitors soon understood each other. They were kindred spirits, differing widely in intellectual power, but equally vain, restless, false and malevolent. Montgomery was introduced to Neville Payne, one of the most adroit and resolute agents of the exiled family, Payne had been long well known about town as a dabbler in poetry and politics. He had been an intimate friend of the indiscreet and unfortunate Coleman, and had been committed to Newgate as an accomplice in the Popish plot. His moral character had not stood high; but he soon had an opportunity of proving that he possessed courage and fidelity worthy of a better cause than that of James and of a better associate than Montgomery.