Should I find, as, alas! may be the case, that the spirit of religious persecution is fiercely abroad, I will consult with them, as to whether they may wish to cross the sea until you can join them, and will make arrangements, as they may direct, for their passage." "I am truly obliged to you," Captain Davenant said.

"It will make me comfortable to know that, whatsoever may befall me, they will have a friend in these stormy times." "Say nought about it," Jabez replied.

"Did not you and your son succour my boy in his extremity?
If I do all, and more than all that I can in this matter, I shall not deem that we are quits." The Irish army moved forward to the Boyne, which William was approaching from the north.

James's officers endeavoured to dissuade him from setting everything on the hazard of the battle.

They represented that his army, though now quite unequal to the contest, was rapidly improving in skill and confidence in itself; that reinforcements were every day expected from France, which would at least make them equal to the enemy in numbers; that they were in want of arms, artillery, and stores, all which might be expected also from France, in a short period; and that their policy was clearly to protract the war, and wear out the enemy by a contest of posts and sieges.
Unskilled as his troops might be in the field, they had proved themselves steady and resolute in the defence of fortified places.