Schomberg arrived[539] at Bangor, in Down, on the 13th of August, 1689, with a large army, composed of Dutch, French Huguenots, and new levies from England.  On the 17th he marched to Belfast, where he met with no resistance; and on the 27th Carrickfergus surrendered to him on honorable terms, after a siege of eight days, but not until its Governor, Colonel Charles MacCarthy More, was reduced to his last barrel of powder.  Schomberg pitched on Dundalk for his winter quarters, and entrenched himself there strongly; but disease soon broke out in his camp, and it has been estimated that 10,000 men, fully one-half of the force, perished of want and dysentery.  James challenged him to battle several times, but Schomberg was too prudent to risk an encounter in the state of his troops; and the King had not the moral courage to make the first attack.  Complaints soon reached England of the condition to which the revolutionary army was reduced.  If there were not “own correspondents” then in camp, it is quite clear there were very sharp eyes and very nimble pens.  Dr. Walker, whose military experience at Derry appears to have given him a taste for campaigning, was one of the complainants.  William sent over a commission to inquire into the matter, who, as usual in such cases, arrived too late to do any good.  The men wanted food, the horses wanted provender, the surgeons and apothecaries wanted medicines for the sick.[540] In fact, if we take a report of Crimean mismanagement, we shall have all the details, minus the statement that several of the officers drank themselves to death, and that some who were in power were charged with going shares in the embezzlement of the contractor, Mr. John Shales, who, whether guilty or not, was made the scapegoat on the occasion, and was accused, moreover, of having caused all this evil from partiality to King James, in whose service he had been previously.  Mr. John Shales was therefore taken prisoner, and sent under a strong guard to Belfast, and from thence to London.  As nothing more is heard of him, it is probable the matter was hushed up, or that he had powerful accomplices in his frauds.

[Illustration:  THE CASTLE OF TRIM.]

Abundant supplies arrived from England, which, if they could not restore the dead, served at least to renovate the living; and Schomberg was ready to take the field early in the year 1690, notwithstanding the loss of about 10,000 men.  James, with the constitutional fatuity of the Stuarts, had lost his opportunity.  If he had attacked the motley army of the revolutionary party while the men were suffering from want and disease, and while his own troops were fresh and courageous, he might have conquered; the most sanguine now could scarcely see any other prospect for him than defeat.  He was in want of everything; and he had no Englishmen who hoped for plunder, no French refugees who looked for a new home, no brave Dutchmen who loved fighting for its own sake, to fall back upon in the hour of