It was rumoured that he had, at Versailles, spoken opprobriously of the Irish nation; and he had, on this account, been, only a few days before, publicly affronted by Sarsfield.

[94] On the twenty-first of June the English were busied in flinging up batteries along the Leinster bank.

On the twenty-second, soon after dawn, the cannonade began.

The firing continued all that day and all the following night.

When morning broke again, one whole side of the castle had been beaten down; the thatched lanes of the Celtic town lay in ashes; and one of the mills had been burned with sixty soldiers who defended it.