Tyrconnell, seeing that a civil war could no longer be averted in Ireland, bitterly regretted the loss of those troops that he had sent to England. A few well-equipped regiments: those of Mountcashel, Clancarty, Lord Antrim, Lord Bellew, and his own, about three thousand,--were all that remained in the country. Men by thousands daily presented themselves for enrollment, but they were destitute of every thing that constitutes the soldier, "excepting courage and good will," and he had neither money nor arms to equip them. The Williamite organization grew more powerful and extended, day by day. Along with the province of Ulster, it soon embraced the counties of Longford, Meath, and Dublin; its leaders, in the mean time, feigning to treat with Tyrconnell, while privately soliciting arms and succors from the Prince of Orange. Tyrconnell at last determined to make a final appeal to the country, and for this purpose issued colonels' commissions to the heads of the old Catholic houses and the loyal Palesmen of Leinster. The effect was electric. With a common impulse they rushed to his standard, and threw the wrecks of their former fortunes in the balance. In a short time, the regiments of McMahon, O'Reilley, MacDonnell, Maguinness, Maguire, O'Donnell, Nugent, Loutrell, Fitzgerald, Felix O'Neil, Gordon O'Neil, Cormac O'Neil, Bryan O'Neil, Sir Neale O'Neil, Clare, Galway, O'Moore, O'Dempsey, and others were in the field, to the number of 20,000, nearly all recruited from their respective households.