He had learned first that Londonderry had been relieved; then that one of his armies had been beaten by the Enniskilleners; then that another of his armies was retreating, or rather flying, from Ulster, reduced in numbers and broken in spirit; then that Sligo, the key of Connaught, had been abandoned to the Englishry.

He had found it impossible to subdue the colonists, even when they were left almost unaided.

He might therefore well doubt whether it would be possible for him to contend against them when they were backed by an English army, under the command of the greatest general living.
The unhappy prince seemed, during some days, to be sunk in despondency.
On Avaux the danger produced a very different effect.

Now, he thought, was the time to turn the war between the English and the Irish into a war of extirpation, and to make it impossible that the two nations could ever be united under one government.

With this view, he coolly submitted to the King a proposition of almost incredible atrocity.