He entered into a correspondence with Spain; he procured thence a supply of arms and ammunition; and having united all the Irish chieftains in a dependence upon himself, he began to be regarded as a formidable enemy.
The native Irish were so poor, that their country afforded few other commodities than cattle and oatmeal, which were easily concealed or driven away on the approach of the enemy; and as Elizabeth was averse to the expense requisite for supporting her armies, the English found much difficulty in pushing their advantages, and in pursuing the rebels into the bogs, woods, and other fastnesses to which they retreated.

These motives rendered Sir John Norris, who commanded the English army, the more willing to hearken to any proposals of truce or accommodation made him by Tyrone; and after the war was spun out by these artifices for some years, that gallant Englishman, finding that he had been deceived by treacherous promises, and that he had performed nothing worthy of his ancient reputation, was seized with a languishing distemper, and died of vexation and discontent.

Sir Henry Bagnal, who succeeded him in the command, was still more unfortunate.

As he advanced to relieve the fort of Black Water, besieged by the rebels, he was surrounded in disadvantageous ground: his soldiers, discouraged by part of their powders accidentally taking fire, were put to flight; and, though the pursuit was stopped by Montacute, who commanded the English horse, fifteen hundred men, together with the general himself, were left dead upon the spot.

This victory, so unusual to the Irish, roused their courage, supplied them with arms and ammunition, and raised the reputation of Tyrone, who assumed the character of the deliverer of his country, and patron of Irish liberty.[*] The English council were now sensible, that the rebellion of Ireland was come to a dangerous head, and that the former temporizing arts, of granting truces and pacifications to the rebels, and of allowing them to purchase pardons by resigning part of the plunder acquired during their insurrection, served only to encourage the spirit of mutiny and disorder among them.