[222] Avaux's despatches, April 26/May 6 to July 30/August 9, 1689. Rosen wrote to James on July 5 that the troops lately sent him had to take such arms as were given them, 'mostly damaged and broken, and accordingly useless, as you have not in all your army a single gunsmith to mend them.' Hamilton's soldiers were still worse off, no battalion stronger than 200 men; and more than two-thirds without swords. No troop of cavalry had more than fourteen serviceable men.--Macpherson's _Original Papers_, i. 205. The account of the siege in Witherow's _Derry and Enniskillen_, 3rd edition, 1885, would leave little to be desired but for the writer's violent antipathy to Walker. [223] Walker and Mackenzie. Sermons and speeches by Walker are reprinted in Dwyer's edition of the _True Account_. Sir Charles Lyttleton, writing to Lord Hatton on August 8, 1689, says he had talked the day before to a gentleman who was storekeeper in Ireland, who confirmed all he had heard about the Irish want of guns. There were only a few heavy ones in the country, and the ground about Londonderry was so 'rotten' that they could not be drawn thither.--_Hatton Correspondence._ Walker and Mackenzie both call the work at Bishop's Gate a ravelin, but as there was no ditch it should probably be called a demi-lune. [224] Walker and Mackenzie. _Light to the Blind_, p. 77. [225] Walker and Mackenzie. Pointis to Louis XIV. or Seignelay, June 13, 17, and 22, State Papers, _Domestic_. Colonel Birch's speech, June 19, in Grey's _Debates_, ix. 351. Schomberg's order to Kirke is printed from the copy among the Nairne MSS. in Dwyer's edition of Walker: it was apparently written on June 29 and despatched with a postscript on July 3. Avaux to Louvois, June 16/26. The author of the _Light to the Blind_ says a sunken gabbard or two would have destroyed the channel, but that James had forbidden this for fear of lessening his customs revenue. [226] 'I myself,' says John Hunter, a private soldier, 'would have eaten the poorest cat or dog I ever saw with my eyes. Many a man, woman, and child died from want of food. I myself was so weak from hunger that I fell under my musket one morning as I was going to the walls, yet God gave me strength to continue all night at my post there, and enabled me to act the part of a soldier as if I had been as strong as ever I was; yet my face was blackened with hunger.'--Journal in Graham's _Ireland Preserved_, p. 335. [227] Hamilton's proposals, June 27, are in Walker's appendix and elsewhere. Rosen's declaration, June 30, is enclosed in Avaux's letter to Louvois, an English version being printed by Walker and elsewhere. Rosen's correspondence with James, June 30 to July 5, is in Macpherson, i. 204-210. See Berwick's account of Rosen, and Avaux to Louvois, July 5/15.