That nobleman, in order to give his troops leisure to recruit from their sickness and fatigue, left the main army in quarters, and marched with a small body of fifteen hundred men into the county of Ophelie against the O'Connors and O'Mores, whom he forced to a submission: but, on his return to Dublin, he found the army so much diminished, that he wrote to the English council an account of its condition, and informed them, that if he did not immediately receive a reenforcement of two thousand men, it would be impossible for him this season to attempt any thing against Tyrone.

That there might be no pretence for further inactivity, the queen immediately sent over the number demanded;[**] and Essex began at last to assemble his forces for the expedition into Ulster.
* Cox, p.

421.
** Birch's Memoirs, vol.ii.p.

430.

Cox, p.