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The Famine of 1741—The Cruelty of Creeds: A Meditated
Massacre—Dr. George Stone, Bishop of Derry, succeeds to the Primacy—An
Abortive French Invasion—Thurot's Descent upon Carrickfergus—Attempt at
Resistance—The Garrison capitulates—Provisions demanded and sent for to
Belfast—John Wesley's Journal—Supplies arrive, and the French depart—Thurot
attacked in the Irish Sea—Loses 300 Men, and is shot through the
Heart—Death of George II.
Dr. Hugh Boulter, who had been appointed to the
Archbishopric of Armagh in 1724, continued to take an active share in
the management of Irish affairs until his death in 1742. His principal
defect was his bitter hostility to the native Irish. In other respects
he was just, and his sentiments were often such as to prompt him to
benefit the country. He certainly contributed in many ways to the
improvement of Ireland, and he was a great promoter of public works. He
promoted, among other schemes of national importance, that for making a
navigable canal from Lough Neagh to Newry, for the more effectual
carrying on an inland trade in the northern province.
Potatoes had long been almost exclusively the sole
means of sustenance of the peasantry, and the entire crop of the popular
tuber being destroyed by a severe frost in November, 1740 (it being at
that time the custom to leave potatoes in the ground until Christmas), a
terrible famine ensued in 1741, when it was estimated that at least
400,000 people died of starvation.
The cruelty of creeds continued without abatement. In
1743, Dr. Curry, the historian, asserts that "an ancient nobleman and
privy councillor [whom, however, he does not name] openly declared in
council: 'that as the Papists had begun the massacre on them, about a
hundred years before', so he 'thought it both reasonable and lawful, in
their parts, to prevent them, at that dangerous juncture, by first
falling upon them'". Curry, who was a contemporary of the events he
chronicles, states that, "so entirely were some of the lower northern
Dissenters possessed and influenced by this prevailing prepossession and
rancour against Catholics, that in the same year, and for the same
declared purpose of prevention, a conspiracy was actually formed by some
of the inhabitants of Lurgan, to rise in the night-time and destroy all
their neighbours of that denomination in their beds". This inhuman
design, he says, was known and attested by several inhabitants of Lurgan,
and an account of it was transmitted to Dublin by a respectable
linen-merchant of that city then at Lurgan. It was also frustrated "by
an information of the honest Protestant publican in whose house the
conspirators had met to settle the execution of their scheme, sworn
before the Rev. Mr. Ford, a Justice of the Peace in that district, who
received it with horror, and with difficulty put a stop to the intended
massacre".
In 1742, the Primacy of the Irish Church becoming
vacant by the death of Dr. Boulter, Bishop Hoadley was appointed to the
See of Armagh, but was in a short time succeeded by Dr. George Stone,
the Bishop of Derry, who possessed in an eminent degree the
qualifications needed to be the political successor of Archbishop
Boulter. In 1745 Lord Chesterfield became Lord-Lieutenant, and the
stringency of the Penal Laws was for a time relaxed.
Profound quiet now reigned in Ulster, and even when
the Scottish rebellion broke out, in 1745, there was no corresponding
movement in Ireland. In Ulster the cause of Charles Edward found no
adherents. The rebellion was crushed
at Culloden, on the 16th of April, 1746, and on the 25th of the same
month three Lords Justices (Archbishop Hoadley, Lord Chancellor Newport,
and Henry Boyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons) were appointed to
receive the reins of Government from Lord Chesterfield, who was
succeeded by the Earl of Harrington.
In January, 1747, Bishop Berkeley asks in one of his
letters: "Is there any apprehension of an invasion upon Ireland?" But
rumour, though busy, did not justify her alarming statements until
twelve years later, when preparations of an intended invasion from
France took definite shape. The year 1756 witnessed the outbreak of the
Seven Years' War, and hostilities between England and France in Canada
culminated in the victory of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, and
the acquisition of the Dominion a year later. In 1759 armaments were
being prepared at Havre and Vannes for a descent on some indefinite part
of the coast of Ireland. A powerful fleet, under Admiral Conflans, lay
at Brest, to convoy the expedition, and another squadron, under the
celebrated Thurot, was to sail from Dunkirk to engage the attention of
the English elsewhere. At this time, however, England had her Rodney and
her Hawke. The latter admiral defeated the Brest fleet on the 20th
November, in an action off Quiberon; the expedition from Normandy did
not sail at all; the Dunkirk squadron, which consisted of only five
frigates, having sailed on the 3rd of October, and proceeded northwards,
was driven by storms to seek shelter in ports of Sweden and Norway. On
these inhospitable coasts, and among the western isles of Scotland,
Thurot passed the winter.
The ships under Thurot's command were the Marechal
Belleisle, of forty-eight guns; the Blonde and the Begon,
each of thirty-six guns; and the Terpsichore and Amaranthe,
each of twenty-four guns; and two cutters as tenders, carrying
between 700 and 800 sailors, and about 1400 soldiers.
One of the ships, the Amaranthe, deserted, and
returned to France, another disappeared and was never again heard of,
and with the remaining three, Thurot, on Thursday, the 21st of February,
1760, appeared off Island Magee, standing inshore for the Bay of
Carrickfergus, where the vessels came to anchor scarcely three miles
distant from the town and within musket-shot of the point of Kilroot.
The small garrison of Carrickfergus consisted of four
companies of the 62nd Regiment, which did not amount to 150 men, who
were at the moment exercising in a field half a mile from the town on
the Belfast road. At a quarter after eleven o'clock the guard was turned
out, made up, and marched to relieve the guard on the French prisoners
in the castle, an old and ruinous fortification, built upon a rock which
adjoins the town and projects into the bay. The rest of the men
continued in the field, where intelligence soon arrived that three
ships, which at first were taken for India-men, and then for an English
frigate and two store-ships, had seized a couple of fishing-boats, and
with these boats and several others were plying between the shore and
the ships landing soldiers. An order was immediately dispatched to the
castle by Colonel Jennings, the commanding officer, for both guards to
continue under arms, and to double the sentries over the French
prisoners, with directions that a strict watch should be kept over them
until it could be ascertained whether the disembarking troops were
friends or enemies.
The garrison soldiers, most of whom were recruits,
then marched from the exercise-field to the market-place of
Carrickfergus, and the adjutant, Lieutenant Benjamin Hall, was
dispatched with a small party to reconnoitre. From the rising ground
upon which he posted himself Hall observed eight boats landing armed
men, who formed in detached bodies, and took up the most advantageous
positions they could find. After posting his little party, Hall left
them, with instructions to fire upon the French troops as they advanced,
and to retard their progress as much as possible; and he hurried back to
Carrickfergus, to inform Colonel Jennings that there could be no doubt
of the hostile intentions of the body of men just landed, whom he
estimated at 1000. Detachments were immediately made for the defence of
the town and the approaches to it. The French prisoners of war were
marched off to Belfast in charge of the sheriff, and escorted by forty
townsmen under the command of James M'Ilwain.
Willoughby Chaplin, the Mayor, now called upon
Colonel Jennings to prepare for a defence; but Jennings said that,
considering the smallness of the force at his disposal, and the
numerical superiority of the enemy, together with the ruinous state of
the castle, he deemed all attempts at resistance would be futile. But
the Mayor, notwithstanding the fact that there was a breach in the
castle wall towards the sea of 50 feet, that it did not possess a single
cannon mounted, and that there were only a few rounds of ball-cartridge
for the soldiers, regarded the castle of Carrickfergus as impregnable,
and angrily insisted upon resistance, accompanied by the threat that he
would report the conduct of Colonel Jennings to the Government if he
declined the defence. Upon this the Colonel made the best preparation in
his power for a temporary stand, and his small force was joined by the
Mayor, Lieutenant Heracles Ellis, and a few other zealous and loyal
inhabitants.
The French advanced against the town in two bodies,
one marching up to the east, or Water Gate, by what is called the Scotch
quarter, the other crossing the fields to the north gate. Twelve
soldiers and a corporal were posted on the wall. They fired upon the
advancing enemy, when General Flaubert (the commander of the French
troops) fell, his leg being broken by a musket-ball, and he was carried
into a house in the neighbourhood. The next in command, traditionally
said to have been "the young Marquis D'Estrees", then led on the
division, and entered the High Street by the Water Gate, where, after a
few shots had been fired, it was joined in the market-place by the
division that had forced its way down North Street with the loss of an
officer and several men.
The small party of the 62nd by whom the town walls
were defended, having expended all their ammunition, retired into the
castle, and in doing so failed to secure properly the gate behind them,
which was therefore easily forced by the French. Here the invaders were
met with a very warm fire, and lost, with others, their leader, the
Marquis D'Estrees. Upon his fall, the French troops whom he had led took
up position under cover of the adjoining houses and an old wall, north
of the castle, when Colonel Cavenac immediately assumed the command and
formed for the assault. Noting this movement, and being aware that their
ammunition was almost exhausted, the besieged determined to beat a
parley and capitulate upon honourable terms, stipulating that the town
should not be plundered. The number who surrendered amounted to 10
officers, 11 sergeants, 10 corporals, 5 drummers, and 102 rank and file.
Of the garrison there had been 2 killed and 3 wounded, and in the
encounter about 50 of the French were killed, among whom were 3
officers.
This surrender, which suited both sides, was followed
by an agreement to furnish the French troops with provisions in six
hours; but that could not be accomplished, there not being a sufficient
supply in the town to meet the requirement. "On this," says John Wesley
in his Journal, "Mr. Cavenec sent for Mr. Cobham, and desired him
to go to Belfast and procure them [provisions] leaving his wife with the
general as a hostage for his return. But the poor Frenchmen could not
stay for this. At the time prefixed they began to serve themselves with
meat and drink, having been in such want that they were glad to eat raw
oats to sustain nature."
The French being masters of Carrickfergus, guards
were placed by them in the evening on the different roads leading into
the town, and sentinels in the houses of some of the principal
inhabitants. On the first alarm the more timid had fled; those who
remained shut up their doors and windows; but, to the credit of the
French, it is recorded that "they neither hurt nor affronted man, woman,
or child, nor did any mischief for mischief's sake, though they were
sufficiently provoked; for many of the inhabitants affronted them
without fear or wit, cursed them to their faces, and even took up pokers
and other things to strike them". During Friday the French liberated
some prisoners confined in Antrim jail.
As Carrickfergus could not supply the required
quantity of provisions, the Rev. David Fullerton, a Presbyterian, left
for Belfast, accompanied by a French officer with a flag of truce and a
letter to the mayor demanding provisions to the value of about £1200,
which, it was stated, would be paid for. The letter also contained a
threat that if the provisions were not forthcoming without delay the
French would fire both Carrickfergus and Belfast. The town of Belfast
contained at that time less than 9000 inhabitants, but it was a
prosperous trading-place, and entirely Protestant. Alarm was instantly
spread through the counties of Down, Antrim, and Armagh, the most
populous Protestant districts of the north, and within a few days 2220
volunteers were thronging towards Belfast. After some slight and
unavoidable delay, cars containing the required provisions arrived on
Sunday morning at Carrickfergus from Belfast, and these were followed by
a drove of live bullocks. A lighter also arrived, laden with
food-stuffs, and the French spent Sunday evening and Monday in
provisioning their ships and in preparing for their departure.
On Tuesday, the 26th of February, 1760, the last of
the French forces, which consisted of volunteer drafts from regular
regiments of French and Swiss guards, embarked at four in the afternoon,
taking with them, as hostages for the delivery of the French prisoners
of war, the Mayor, the Port Surveyor, and the Rev. Mr. Fullerton. They
had scarcely left when the volunteers began to arrive from Belfast.
Thurot was of Irish descent, his real name being
O'Farrell. He soon discovered that there was little sympathy for his
cause in the north of Ireland, and he made what haste he could, in spite
of unfavourable winds, to leave Carrickfergus. He was encountered in the
Irish Sea by three English ships, one of which, the Æolus,
commanded by Captain Elliott, gave battle. Thurot attempted to board
her, but was shot through the heart. His ships were shattered, and 300
of his men were killed.
On the 25th of October, this year (1760), George
II died suddenly at Kensington of heart
disease, and was succeeded by his grandson as George III.
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