Rev. Thomas Leland, an Irish Protestant divine, who published a history of Ireland about 1763, after describing the catastrophe which befell St. Ruth, says: “His [St. R.’s] cavalry halted, and, as they had no orders, returned to their former station. The Irish beheld this retreat with dismay; they were confounded and disordered. Sarsfield, upon whom the command devolved, had been neglected by the proud Frenchman ever since their altercation at Athlone. As the order of battle had not been imparted to him, he could not support the dispositions of the late general. The English, in the meantime, pressed forward, drove the enemy to their camp, pursued the advantage until the Irish, after an engagement supported with the fairest prospect of success, while they had a general to direct their valor, fled precipitately.” The Right Rev. Dr. Fitzgerald, Episcopalian bishop, in his “History of Limerick,” published some sixty years ago, says: “It [Aughrim] was the bravest battle ever fought on Irish soil.” The bishop, evidently, had not read the lives of Art MacMurrough, Hugh O’Neill, Hugh O’Donnell, and Owen Roe O’Neill, when he penned the words. “Such,” writes O’Callaghan, at the conclusion of his account of it, in the “Green Book,” page 230, “was the battle of Aughrim, or Kilconnell, as the French called it, from the old abbey to the left of the Irish position; a battle unsuccessful, indeed, on the side of the Irish, but a Chæronea, or a Waterloo, fought with heroism and lost without dishonor.” A. M. Sullivan, in his fascinating “Story of Ireland” (American edition, page 458), says, or rather, quotes from a Williamite authority: “The Irish infantry were so hotly engaged that they were not aware either of the death of St. Ruth or of the flight of the cavalry, until they themselves were almost surrounded. A panic and confused flight were the result. The cavalry of the right wing, who were the first in action that day, were the last to quit the ground.... St. Ruth fell about sunset [8.10], and about 9, after three hours’ [nearer four hours’] hard fighting, the last of the Irish army [who were not killed, wounded, or captured] had left the field.”