Article XII read thus: “The Lords Justices and the General do undertake that their Majesties will ratify these articles within the space of three months, or sooner, and use their utmost endeavors that the same shall be ratified and confirmed in the Parliament.” The thirteenth, and final, article made provision for the protection from financial loss of Colonel John Browne, commissary-general of the Irish army, who, during the war, had seized the property of certain Williamites for the public use, charging the debt, pro rata, on the Catholic estates secured to their owners under the treaty; and requiring General (Lord Lucan) to certify the account with Colonel Browne within 21 days. It will be remembered, in examining the religious provisions of the Treaty of Limerick, that Catholic worship in the reign of Charles II was permitted by connivance rather than by law. Many of the worst of the penal laws, although in abeyance, might be revived at any time by law officers tyrannically disposed toward the Catholics. The latter were once again to discover that it is one thing to obtain a favorable treaty from a formidable enemy, while they have arms in their hands and a still inviolate fortress at their backs, but quite a different matter to make the foe live up to the provisions of the treaty when the favorable conditions for the capitulators have passed away. But of this hereafter. Not many days subsequent to the surrender of Limerick, Count Chateau-Renaud, with a powerful French fleet, having on board arms, cannon, and all kinds of military supplies, together with a veteran contingent of 3,000 men and 200 officers, cast anchor in Dingle Bay, on the southern coast, without once coming in contact with the naval might of England. Were the Irish a dishonorable people, they could have then, with great advantage, repudiated the treaty, but the national honor was irrevocably plighted, and, consequently, there was an end of the struggle. Many honest Irish writers have blamed the precipitancy of Sarsfield and the other leaders in signing the articles of capitulation, and not without good cause. Lord Lucan should have court-martialed and shot the leaders of the peace-at-any-price traitors when they first showed their hands. Hugh O’Neill, Red Hugh O’Donnell, or Owen Roe O’Neill would have done so without hesitation, but, then, Sarsfield was only half a Celt, and had an unfortunate tenderness for his fellows of the Pale. It is regrettable that none of the French generals has left a clear statement of the events that led to the premature surrender of the town; but we know that King Louis, who subsequently honored Sarsfield, held D’Usson responsible, for Story tells us, on page 280 of his “Continuation of the History of the Wars in Ireland,” that “the French king [Louis XIV] was so far from thanking him for it [the capitulation] that, after some public indignities, he sent him to the Bastile.”