But now that the relief of Derry and Enniskillen put a better face on affairs in Ireland; and the death of Dundee freed him from farther apprehension for the safety of Scotland, he resolved to relieve the English people of the presence of his foreign mercenaries, by employing them in the reduction of the only kingdom that preferred allegiance to King James. He accordingly apprised the Parliament of his intention. The proposition was favorably received, and large subsidies being granted for that purpose, an army consisting of eighteen regiments of foot, and six regiments of horse--about 20,000 men,--was soon organized from among the military adventurers that the higher pay given in England at that time had drawn thither from the Continent. A fleet was soon ready to transport this army to Ireland, and the whole was placed under the command of Marshal, the Duke of Schomberg, and Count Solmes, to make a descent on the eastern coast of Ireland, and, after establishing communications with the rebels, to proceed to the reduction of Dublin. On the 12th of August this fleet appeared off the coast of Down, and, sailing into Belfast Lough, effected a landing at Bangor Bay, between Belfast and Carrickfergus. The next day Schomberg took possession of Belfast, and after strengthening its defences, and giving his troops some rest, he appeared before the Castle of Carrickfergus and summoned it to surrender. The garrison was under the command of Colonel McCarthy-More, and consisted of his own regiment and that of Colonel Cormac O'Neil,--about eight hundred men,--poorly supplied, and greatly embarrassed by the population of the town, who had taken refuge within its walls. Schomberg immediately opened upon it from his ships and land batteries, keeping up a fierce cannonade day and night during the entire period of the siege. The garrison made a stubborn resistance, and visited the besiegers with severe loss, which elicited the praise of Schomberg, and excited a spirit of vengeance among his followers. The walls being breached after the second day, the besieged had resort to a singular stratagem. The cattle within the walls were slaughtered, hauled up and thrown into the breach, and earth and stones being heaped over them, the place was soon as tenable as ever; their balls being spent, they tore the lead from the roof of the castle, and converted it into bullets; and at last, their powder being exhausted, and no succor arriving from the Irish army; after a siege of eight days, they surrendered on terms considered highly honorable. But these conditions were flagrantly violated after the evacuation; the prisoners, whom the English Annalist calls "brave fellows, but poorly clad," were subjected to treatment which darkens the history of the time; crimes too abominable for recital, were perpetrated by the foreign mercenaries on the defenceless inhabitants of the town: and Schomberg, who tried to check their excesses, only succeeded in