Towards the middle of January, 1691, three French ships entered the harbor of Galway, as an escort to the Duke of Tyrconnell, who, it was confidently believed, had succeeded in the object of his mission, and the tidings of his arrival were received with general manifestations of joy. To the soldiers this news was particularly gratifying. He left them victors, it is true, but victors over a city in ruins;--exhausted in military resources, worn out by fatigue, without clothing or pay, and living on the bounty of a greatly impoverished country. They had borne their privations with cheerfulness, restored and strengthened their city, maintained their flag against overwhelming numerical odds at every post of their frontier; and believing their services about to be rewarded, their enthusiasm knew no bounds, and they looked to his arrival in Limerick with the happiest anticipations. They had been led to expect a full arrear of pay, a complete outfit of clothing, arms equal to their need, and a powerful French auxiliary, that would enable them to turn the tide of war, and wrest the conquered provinces from the grasp of the invader. They were bright hopes;--the brighter for being so long deferred--but, like those of the previous years, they were doomed to cruel disappointment. It soon became known that the only money he brought was about £8,000, to be distributed as a present donation; that the clothing received was not only insufficient, but entirely unfit for wear--their old regimentals being preferable;--and that, instead of the expected auxiliary, he was accompanied but by Sir Richard Nagle and Sir Stephen Rice,--who had been sojourning in France,--and a few of those military adventurers that in all ages appear wherever hostilities in any cause offer a road to ambition. Furthermore, it was found that the Duke of Berwick, who had performed signal service to the cause, and who shared the popular favor with General Sarsfield, was ordered to France, and that the latter was to be placed in a secondary position to another French general,--the Marquis de St. Ruth,--who had been appointed to the command of the army. Serious discontent soon became manifest at this neglect of a general whose unceasing activity, through the darkest period of the war, had kept the army from entire dissolution, and saved the Jacobite cause from irretrievable ruin. Besides, it was believed that the experiment of placing French generals over native troops had proved too disastrous to be again repeated, and, notwithstanding the high military reputation of St. Ruth, the news was received with great disfavor, and in the army created a spirit of disaffection that it required but a breath to fan into mutiny. That Sarsfield himself felt deeply humiliated, we have abundant evidence in the records of the period; nor did the title of Earl of Lucan, nor the commission of lieutenant-general which was borne to him by the deputy, entirely reconcile him to his altered condition.