The poor countenance shown by the rebels in the field, now emboldened Galmoy to attempt the reduction of Enniskillen, which was their chief rendezvous in the south-western portion of the province; and for that purpose he approached the Castle of Crom, one of its principal defences, and having driven in its outposts, invested it about the middle of March. This fortress, which stands on a peninsula in the waters of the Lower Erne, being impregnable to his light-armed infantry, he now had recourse to stratagem. He got some tin cannon constructed, and giving out that artillery had reached him from Dublin, placed them in battery within musket range of the castle. On the 21st he summoned it to surrender, but the garrison, having been apprised of the _ruse_ intended for them, provided themselves with the long guns used in duck-shooting on the lake, and answered his summons with a well-directed fire that killed about forty of his men, and compelled him to retire to a safer distance, leaving his mock cannon behind him. They were soon conveyed into the fort, and were exhibited as trophies at many a succeeding celebration of "the glorious and pious, etc.," furnishing the Enniskilleners with a theme of boastful merriment.[9] The name "Enniskilleners," has now become nearly obsolete, and is only applied to a regiment of dragoons in the English army, kept up in perpetuation of the part they took in the ruin of their country; but at the time of the Revolution it was applied without distinction to the partisans of William, who, when driven before the Jacobites, took refuge within the town of Enniskillen, and held out until the relief of Derry, to which it was next in importance. It is a place of great natural strength, and has many historic memories dating farther back than the unhappy events that have given it such unenviable notoriety. It was originally the stronghold of the Maguires, who held it for centuries against each successive invasion, but had passed into the hands of Sir William Cole, after the civil war of 1641. It stands on a river connecting the upper and lower waters of Lough-Erne, which, lying from the north-west to the south-east of the County Fermanagh, and connecting with Lough-Oughter on the south, extends over a distance of more than forty miles. These lakes and their tributaries, studded with islands innumerable, render the country for several miles a labyrinth almost impassable to all but the natives. There is not, perhaps, in the world, for the same extent of country, a place so well adapted to insurgent warfare. In such a country the people of La Vendée would have exhausted all the resources of the French Directory; and the wonder is, not why Galmoy could not take it, but how he even approached it, in the face of such overwhelming odds.