Bridge—the key to King’s Island—and the capture of St. Thomas Island, another important Irish post above the city. He, therefore, felt justified in issuing, that same day, a proclamation inviting the garrison of Limerick to surrender on honorable conditions, but the Irish, although now under a veritable rain of fire and iron from every point of the compass, paid no heed to it, whereat the phlegmatic, but skilful, Dutch strategist greatly marveled. But, although the river had been successfully passed, Ginkel was so discouraged by the firm countenance of the Irish garrison that he called a Council of War on the 17th, when it was, at first, decided to cross the whole English army into Clare, destroy the Irish resources of food and forage in that county, and then convert the siege into a blockade that might last indefinitely. Reflection, however, changed this decision. Winter was approaching, and the wet Irish winter meant wholesale death to the soft and pampered English and their foreign allies. Ginkel, then, resolved to again try his favorite manœuvre—a turning movement. Accordingly, on September 22, at the head of the greater portion of the allied army, he crossed the pontoon bridge and, commanding in person, made a sudden and tremendous attack on the small fort which commanded Thomond Bridge, and was garrisoned by about 800 Irish soldiers. The English cannon soon covered this fort with red-hot projectiles. Everything inflammable in the soldiers’ quarters caught fire, and the desperate garrison made a sortie with the object of crossing into King’s Island by Thomond Bridge. The connection was by means of a draw. A little over a hundred of the Irish had crossed in safety, when the French major in command at the drawbridge, fearing, it is said, that the English might enter the town with the fugitives, caused it suddenly to be raised. The men behind were not able to see what had happened, and the foremost ranks that stood on the western abutment were forced over the gulf and nearly all perished in the river. The others put up white handkerchiefs in token of surrender, but the savage victors showed no mercy. Story, who saw the whole sickening butchery, paints the scene in ghastly fashion thus: “Before the killing was over, they [the Irish] were laid in heaps upon the bridge, higher than the ledges of it.” Out of 800 men, only the five score and odd that gained the drawbridge in time, and the few strong ones who swam the river, escaped. It, on a smaller scale, resembled the disaster at Leipsic, in 1813, when the French Major of Engineers, Montfort, caused the bridge over the Elster to be blown up, while yet the corps of MacDonald and Poniatowski, which formed Napoleon’s rearguard, were on the hostile bank of the river. Thus, through the stupidity, or panic, of a subordinate officer, the emperor lost the Polish marshal, who was one of his best generals, and 20,000 of his choicest troops. A fool or