The consequences of this ill-advised interference on the part of the king are generally attributed to the Count de Rosen, whose appointment to the command of the army was one of the many unwise proceedings attributed to this very weak or very imprudent monarch. Speaking of the affair just narrated, the Duke of Berwick says: "M. de Rosen was the more to blame in persuading the king to the step I have just mentioned with regard to Derry, as he knew and had approved the agreement of M. Hamilton." But, with due respect for established authority, there is ground for a deduction different to that drawn by the Duke and other learned contemporaries. From the beginning of this revolution the "defenders" had practised the art of duplicity to a very considerable extent. In the winter of 1688, they sent delegations to Dublin and London at the same time with very different objects:--that to Dublin was meant to delay any action on the part of the deputy, while the other went to expedite an invasion by the Prince of Orange. Notwithstanding the short time that had elapsed from their defeat at Cladiford until the conference with Hamilton, they had received a large supply of arms and ammunition from England, and had gathered their scattered forces into the town; and there is reason to surmise, that while the king was outraged before their walls, Hamilton was outwitted by their delegation. But however this may have been, we think that if Hamilton, with his characteristic promptitude, had marched boldly on Derry from Cladiford, he could have dictated his terms within its walls. Most of the "regimented men" spoken of by M. Walker in his history of the siege that succeeded, were still outlying in the "far north;" the fugitives from the late defeat would have been cut off from any hope of entering the place; and the supplies received during the interval would have been intercepted. There was not then within the town, a force capable of offering any protracted resistance, and a surrender would be the probable, nay, the almost certain consequence. Fewer lives, also, would have been sacrificed on each side, and the whole country would have been reduced to the arms of the king before the arrival of the Duke of Schomberg. But, then, the army was under the command of De Rosen, and whether this delay was occasioned by that general or not, it is now hard to determine.