Winter at last parted the two armies, and during the next six months James, whose treasury was utterly exhausted, strove to fill it by a coinage of brass money while his soldiers subsisted by sheer plunder. William meanwhile was toiling hard on the other side of the Channel to bring the Irish war to an end. Schomberg was strengthened during the winter with men and stores, and when the spring came his force reached thirty thousand men. Lewis too felt the importance of the coming struggle. Seven thousand picked Frenchmen under the Count of Lauzun were despatched to reinforce the army of James, but they had hardly arrived when William himself landed at Carrickfergus and pushed rapidly with his whole army to the south. His columns soon caught sight of the Irish forces, hardly exceeding twenty thousand men in number but posted strongly behind the Boyne. Lauzun had hoped by falling back on Dublin to prolong a defensive war, but retreat was now impossible. "I am glad to see you, gentlemen," William cried with a burst of delight; "and if you escape me now the fault will be mine." Early next morning, the first of July 1690, the whole English army plunged into the river. The Irish foot, who at first fought well, broke in a sudden panic as soon as the passage of the river was effected, but the horse made so gallant a stand that Schomberg fell in repulsing its charge and for a time the English centre was held in check. With the arrival of William however at the head of his left wing all was over. James, who had throughout been striving to secure the withdrawal of his troops to the nearest defile rather than frankly to meet William's onset, abandoned his troops as they fell back in retreat upon Dublin, and took ship at Kinsale for France. [Sidenote: Irish War.]