a few hours the besiegers had the satisfaction of seeing the
besieged running like rabbits from one shelter to another. The
governor, who had at first held high language, begged piteously
for quarter, and obtained it. The whole garrison were marched off
to Dublin. Only eight of the conquerors had fallen.88

Ginkell passed some days in reconstructing the defences of
Ballymore. This work had scarcely been performed when he was
joined by the Danish auxiliaries under the command of the Duke of
Wirtemberg. The whole army then moved westward, and, on the
nineteenth of June, appeared before the walls of Athlone.89

Athlone was perhaps, in a military point of view, the most
important place in the island. Rosen, who understood war well,
had always maintained that it was there that the Irishry would,
with most advantage, make a stand against the Englishry.90 The
town, which was surrounded by ramparts of earth, lay partly in
Leinster and partly in Connaught. The English quarter, which was
in Leinster, had once consisted of new and handsome houses, but
had been burned by the Irish some months before, and now lay in
heaps of ruin. The Celtic quarter, which was in Connaught, was
old and meanly built.91 The Shannon, which is the boundary of the
two provinces, rushed through Athlone in a deep and rapid stream,
and turned two large mills which rose on the arches of a stone
bridge. Above the bridge, on the Connaught side, a castle, built,
it was said, by King John, towered to the height of seventy feet,
and extended two hundred feet along the river. Fifty or sixty
yards below the bridge was a narrow ford.92

During the night of the nineteenth the English placed their