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Updated: June 13, 2025
"Can it be true," General Hamilton said, "that you have ordered some prisoners to be broken on the wheel?" "I have given those orders," Ginckle said angrily, "and I will not permit them to be questioned." "Pardon me," General Hamilton said firmly; "but they must be questioned.
Nevertheless, in spite of the opposition of Generals Ginckle and Mackey, the council determined that one more attempt should be made, and that this should be carried out at daylight next morning, in the hopes of taking the Irish by surprise. It was accordingly given out that the army would retreat in the morning, and the heavy guns were withdrawn from the batteries.
It can never be decided to which of these alternatives it was due that the Irish cavalry remained for so long a time inactive, and that William, and after him Ginckle, were permitted, unmolested save by a few detached bodies of horse, to maintain their long line of communications to their base, unchecked.
The alarm in Dublin was, in consequence, extreme, and the council and lords justices besought Ginckle not to leave them without protection; but he only replied that they had it in their own power to put an end to the war, by publishing such a declaration of pardon and security, for person and property, as would satisfy the Irish in James's army.
Ginckle saw that he had gone too far, and felt that, not only would this quarrel, if pushed further, compel him to raise the siege and fall back upon Dublin, but it would entail upon him the displeasure of the king, still more certainly that of the English parliament. "There is no occasion for threats," he said, mastering his passion. "You tell me that such a punishment is contrary to English law.
The fact that, to carry out his first intention would have been absolutely unlawful, had caused Ginckle to abandon it, but this made him only the more obstinate in carrying the second into execution. The English officers stood talking, not far from his tent, in tones of indignation and disgust at the brutal sentence, and then walked towards their divisional camp.
Had he listened to the advice of the Irish officers, the attempt, like those which had preceded it, must have failed, and in that case there was nothing remained to Ginckle but a precipitous retreat to Dublin, with the loss of the whole of the advantages gained in the previous campaign, and the necessity of bringing the war to an end by the concession of the rights and privileges of the Irish Catholics and landowners.
Their direction was Athlone, towards which point Ginckle was also directing his movements, having assembled his whole force at Mullingar, withdrawing the garrisons from almost all the towns, in order to raise his force in the field.
"Only three days ago, Ginckle issued another proclamation guaranteeing that no provisions, or other goods, should be taken by his soldiers without payment. "To horse, lads! We will ride out and give the peasants a helping hand, if they really mean to attack the enemy."
"You dare speak to me!" exclaimed Ginckle. "You shall share their fate. Every man of you shall be broken on the wheel."
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