None but those who live later can take a general survey of the circumstances which, on occasion of a great event, touch and condition one another. At the moment of action no one can know them, consider them, and accommodate himself to them; the work goes on for the most part in a twilight of true and false conceptions; in order not to be unjust one must allow even for mistakes.

When James II prepared to take the field in the latter half of June 1690, he did not yet know that William III had arrived in Ireland. He only heard that the army which was stationed in Ulster was assembling at Newry and Armagh. Shortly before this Schomberg had wrested from him the strong place of Charlemont, principally owing to the garrison's having been too numerous to be able to live on the provisions which had been brought in. James then felt himself unable to relieve it. He now thought that the enemy's designs were directed against Dundalk, which he did not wish to let fall into their hands in like manner. He decided to assemble his army at that very place, not to fight, but to maintain possession of the country, and to employ its produce as long as possible, for his own support; ‘as soon as it should become necessary he would retire and throw himself upon the defensive, for which he thought he could avail himself of many important posts, till autumn should come, which might produce the same results as it had done in the previous year.’