Sarsfield perceived that one chief cause of the desertion which was thinning his army was the natural unwillingness of the men to leave their families in a state of destitution.  Cork and its neighbourhood were filled with the kindred of those who were going abroad.  Great numbers of women, many of them leading, carrying, suckling their infants, covered all the roads which led to the place of embarkation.  The Irish general, apprehensive of the effect which the entreaties and lamentations of these poor creatures could not fail to produce, put forth a proclamation, in which he assured his soldiers that they should be permitted to carry their wives and families to France.  It would be injurious to the memory of so brave and loyal a gentleman to suppose that when he made this promise he meant to break it.  It is much more probable that he had formed an erroneous estimate of the number of those who would demand a passage, and that he found himself, when it was too late to alter his arrangements, unable to keep his word.  After the soldiers had embarked, room was found for the families of many.  But still there remained on the water side a great multitude clamouring piteously to be taken on board.  As the last boats put off there was a rush into the surf.  Some women caught hold of the ropes, were dragged out of their depth, clung till their fingers were cut through, and perished in the waves.  The ships began to move.  A wild and terrible wail rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith.  Even the stern Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three years, left the undisputed lord of the bloodstained and devastated island, could not hear unmoved that bitter cry, in which was poured forth all the rage and all the sorrow of a conquered nation.139

The sails disappeared.  The emaciated and brokenhearted crowd of those whom a stroke more cruel than that of death had made widows and orphans dispersed, to beg their way home through a wasted land, or to lie down and die by the roadside of grief and hunger.  The exiles departed, to learn in foreign camps that discipline without which natural courage is of small avail, and to retrieve on distant fields of battle the honour which had been lost by a long series of defeats at home.  In Ireland there was peace.  The domination of the colonists was absolute.  The native population was tranquil with the ghastly tranquillity of exhaustion and of despair.  There were indeed outrages, robberies, fireraisings, assassinations.  But more than a century passed away without one general insurrection.  During that century, two rebellions were raised in Great Britain by the adherents of the House of Stuart.  But neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at Scone, nor when the younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard of that House set up in Connaught or Munster.  In 1745, indeed, when the Highlanders were marching towards London,