Meanwhile the garrison of Londonderry continued to defend that fortress with sanguinary perseverance, and few days passed without King James's army sustaining severe loss from the sallies of the resolute defenders of the place. The want of provisions occasioned the loss of many men from dysentery; and Governor Baker dying on the 30th of June, Colonel Mitchelburne was elected joint-governor with the Reverend Mr. Walker. The cruelties exercised on the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns and villages, to induce the garrison to surrender, stimulated the men to resistance. Major-General Kirke arrived on the 30th of June with two regiments of foot (the second and eleventh), and a supply of arms, ammunition and provisions, but was prevented from approaching the town by forts on the banks, and a boom across the river. After waiting a few days, he landed on the island of Inch, where he threw up entrenchments, and being joined by a number of countrymen, he formed the design of assembling a sufficient force for relieving the town by land. On the 12th of July he was visited on board his vessel by the Reverend Andrew Hamilton, and Mr. John Rider, who represented to him the state of affairs at INNISKILLING, and obtained a supply of arms, ammunition, and eight field-pieces; also commissions for a regiment of horse to be commanded by Colonel William Wolseley,--a regiment of dragoons of twelve troops, commanded by Colonel James Wynne (afterwards the fifth, or Royal Irish dragoons), and three regiments of foot, commanded by Colonels Zachariah Tiffin (now twenty-seventh), Gustavus Hamilton, and Thomas Lloyd, with a troop of cavalry to be attached to each battalion of infantry. Before these corps were embodied, King James's generals, designing to crush the intrepid _Inniskilling_ bands at once, sent three bodies of troops against them. Lieutenant-Colonel Lloyd, by a forced march of twenty miles, surprised one division, under Major-General Sarsfield, in their camp by night, and although his opponents were five times more numerous than his own party he routed them with a dreadful slaughter. The Duke of Berwick, advancing with the second body of King James's army, destroyed two companies of Inniskilling foot sent forward to secure a pass, but when he came to the defences made to cover the approach to the town, he did not venture to attack them, but withdrew, and was soon afterwards ordered to join the army before Londonderry: he subsequently skirmished with a body of men which Major-General Kirke had landed at Rathmetan, but failed to dislodge them.