Sarsfield and most of his officers, and the priests, used their utmost
efforts to persuade the soldiers to enter the French service, in
preference to the English. Their exhortations were successful. Only about
two thousand Irish joined the British army, four thousand laid down their
arms and returned to their homes, and a considerable number deserted on
their march down to Cork. The rest were shipped in transports to France,
where they entered the service of that country. Two days after the treaty
was signed, the French fleet, with ten thousand men and a great abundance
of stores, arrived at the mouth of the Shannon.
The Irish negotiators of the treaty have been greatly and deservedly
blamed, inasmuch as, while they stipulated that the proprietors of the
neighbouring counties should retain their estates, they abandoned those
possessing property throughout the rest of Ireland to ruin and beggary.
There was no excuse for this. They knew that the French fleet had sailed,
and must have arrived in a few days, and that the English cause was
becoming so desperate that Ginckle would not have resisted any terms they
had laid down. This cruel and wholly unnecessary desertion of their
friends has thrown a slur upon the memory of Sarsfield and the other
leaders who conducted the negotiations.
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