In the Irish Brigade

In the Irish Brigade

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Title: In the Irish Brigade A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain
Author: G. A. Henty
Illustrator: Charles M. Sheldon
Release Date: May 8, 2006 [EBook #18349]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE
IRISH BRIGADE ***

Produced by Martin Robb

In the Irish Brigade: A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain By G. A.
Henty.

Contents
Preface.
Chapter 1
: Fresh from Ireland.
Chapter 2
: A Valiant Band.
Chapter 3
: A Strange Adventure.
Chapter 4
: At Versailles.
Chapter 5
: A New Friend.
Chapter 6
: An Ambuscade.
Chapter 7
: In Paris Again.
Chapter 8
: To Scotland.
Chapter 9

: An Escape From Newgate.
Chapter 10
: Kidnapping A Minister.
Chapter 11
: On the Frontier.
Chapter 12
: Oudenarde.
Chapter 13
: Convalescent.
Chapter 14
: A Mission.
Chapter 15
: Treachery.
Chapter 16
: Captured.
Chapter 17
: An Old Friend.
Chapter 18
: War.

Chapter 19
: In Search of a Family.
Chapter 20
: Gerald O'Carroll.

Preface.
The evils arising from religious persecution, sectarian hatred, ill
government, and oppression were never more strongly illustrated than
by the fact that, for a century, Ireland, which has since that time
furnished us with a large proportion of our best soldiers, should have
been among our bitterest and most formidable foes, and her sons fought
in the ranks of our greatest continental enemy. It was not because they
were adherents of the house of Stuart that Irishmen left their native
country to take service abroad, but because life in Ireland was rendered
well-nigh intolerable for Catholics, on account of the nature and
severity of the laws against them, and the bitterness with which those
laws were carried into effect.
An Irish Catholic had no prospects of employment or advancement at
home. He could hold no civil appointment of any kind. He could not
serve as an officer, nor even enlist as a private, in the army. He could
not hold land. He was subject to imprisonment, and even death, on the
most trifling and frivolous accusations brought against him by the
satellites of the Irish Government. Not only could he not sit in the
parliament of Dublin, but he could not even vote at elections. It was
because they believed that the return of the Stuarts would mean relief,
from at least some of their disabilities, and liberty to carry out the
offices of their religion openly, and to dwell in peace, free from
denunciation and persecution, that the Irish remained so long faithful to
the Jacobite cause.
It was not, indeed, until 1774 that the Catholics in Ireland were

admitted to qualify themselves as subjects of the crown, and not until
the following year that they were permitted to enlist in the army. Irish
regiments had enlisted in France, previous to the Convention of
Limerick; but it was the Irish army that defended that town, and, having
been defeated, passed over to France, that raised the Irish Brigade to
the position of an important factor in the French army, which it held for
nearly a hundred years, bearing a prominent part in every siege and
battle in Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Spain. A long succession of
French marshals and generals have testified to the extraordinary
bravery of these troops, and to their good conduct under all
circumstances. Not only in France did Irishmen play a prominent part
in military matters, but they were conspicuous in every continental
army, and their descendants are still to be found bearing honoured
names throughout Europe.
Happily, those days are past, and for over a hundred years the courage
and military capacity of Irishmen have been employed in the service of
Great Britain. For records of the doings of some of the regiments of the
Irish Brigade, during the years 1706-1710, I am indebted to the
painstaking account of the Irish Brigade in the service of France, by J.
C. O'Callaghan; while the accounts of the war in Spain are drawn from
the official report, given in Boyer's Annals of the Reign of Queen Anne,
which contains a mine of information of the military and civil events of
the time.
G. A. Henty.
Chapter 1
: Fresh from Ireland.
A number of officers of O'Brien's regiment of foot, forming a part of
the Irish Brigade in the service of France, were gathered in a handsome
apartment