him as their head if he would consent to govern by the advice of a council truly Irish.  Berwick indignantly expressed his wonder that military men should presume to meet and deliberate without the permission of their general.  They answered that there was no general, and that, if His Grace did not choose to undertake the administration on the terms proposed, another leader would easily be found.  Berwick very reluctantly yielded, and continued to be a puppet in a new set of hands.79

Those who had effected this revolution thought it prudent to send a deputation to France for the purpose of vindicating their proceedings.  Of the deputation the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and the two Luttrells were members.  In the ship which conveyed them from Limerick to Brest they found a fellow passenger whose presence was by no means agreeable to them, their enemy, Maxwell.  They suspected, and not without reason, that he was going, like them, to Saint Germains, but on a very different errand.  The truth was that Berwick had sent Maxwell to watch their motions and to traverse their designs.  Henry Luttrell, the least scrupulous of men, proposed to settle the matter at once by tossing the Scotchman into the sea.  But the Bishop, who was a man of conscience, and Simon Luttrell, who was a man of honour, objected to this expedient.80

Meanwhile at Limerick the supreme power was in abeyance.  Berwick, finding that he had no real authority, altogether neglected business, and gave himself up to such pleasures as that dreary place of banishment afforded.  There was among the Irish chiefs no man of sufficient weight and ability to control the rest.  Sarsfield for a time took the lead.  But Sarsfield, though eminently brave and active in the field, was little skilled in the administration of war, and still less skilled in civil business.  Those who were most desirous to support his authority were forced to own that his nature was too unsuspicious and indulgent for a post in which it was hardly possible to be too distrustful or too severe.  He believed whatever was told him.  He signed whatever was set before him.  The commissaries, encouraged by his lenity, robbed and embezzled more shamelessly than ever.  They sallied forth daily, guarded by pikes and firelocks, to seize, nominally for the public service, but really for themselves, wool, linen, leather, tallow, domestic utensils, instruments of husbandry, searched every pantry, every wardrobe, every cellar, and even laid sacrilegious hands on the property of priests and prelates.81

Early in the spring the government, if it is to be so called, of which Berwick was the ostensible head, was dissolved by the return of Tyrconnel.  The Luttrells had, in the name of their countrymen, implored James not to subject so loyal a people to so odious and incapable a viceroy.  Tyrconnel, they said, was old; he was infirm; he needed much sleep; he knew nothing of war; he was dilatory; he was partial; he