Meanwhile, the enemy's main body, under
Kilmaine, had landed, and had scarcely began their
march, when a flag of truce arrived from Castlebar,
carried by Captain Grey of the carbineers. He
came, under pretence of inquiry for an officer
wounded at Ballina, to discover the strength of
the enemy. He privately told the bishop that a
force three times Humbert's number waited at
Castlebar to give a good account of the enemy.

Everywhere before the French advance
fluttered the impudent proclamation of General
Kilmaine. In this caricature of republican
aggression he said that a band of heroes
had come to liberate the Irish from the
hands of tyrants, to teach them the arts of
war, and to despise the "low pursuits of toil
and industry." "We have made," said the
gasconader, "all the nations we have conquered
happy by arresting their property, by applying
it to the common cause, and consecrating it to
the champions of liberty. Property is a common
right belonging to the valour that seizes it."
(Could Canning have written a more bitter
parody than this of intolerant and fanatical
republicanism?) "We have always destroyed the
unaspiring tranquillity of Switzerland, and the
wealth, the power, and the bigotry of Italy are
no more." The proclamation ended by imploring
the Irish to cast off the bondage of religion, and
to put down "that grand impostor, the Pope."
The Irish were to "fly to the French standard,
and enjoy at once the blessings of French
fraternity."

The French entered Ballina with about nine
hundred bayonets and two thousand pikes.

The omens that greeted them were not
favourable. No disaffected Protestants joined
the tricolour, no well-to-do persons of any
kind. On a tree, in a conspicuous place, hung
a rebel agent, executed for having a French
commission in his pocket. The French officers
embraced the unconscious rascal, "bedewed
the body with tears of sympathetic civism,"
exposed the corpse in the streets to excite the
populace against the loyalists; and, after that,
carried the dead body to the Roman Catholic
chapel to lie in state surrounded by lighted
candles, as that of a hero, a patriot, and a
martyr.

In the mean time, Lake and Cornwallis were
roused and in earnest. There were two roads
(now disused) leading from Ballina to Castlebar.
The lower road, by the east of Lough Conn,
passes through Foxford and crosses the
river Moy, a deep wide river, by a long narrow
bridge. This road was guarded by General
Taylor with the Kerry regiment, two battallion
guns, some companies of the line, and some
yeomanry cavalry. The upper road by the pass
of Barnageeragh, running westward of Lough
Conn, was considered impracticable,  and
therefore left open. Humbert leaped at the
chance; he pretended to go by Foxford, then
dashed at the pass and all but surprised the
unsuspecting English. An accident prevented the
surprise. A small farmer, up at three to visit the
cattle on his mountain-farm, observed a strong
column of men dressed in dark blue winding
towards the pass. He instantly galloped to
Castlebar and woke up the garrison. General
Tench rode out towards the pass, but his escort
Being fired on by the French advanced guard,
he rode back to call out his forces and form them
on a range of rocky heights north of the town,
commanding a rising ground one thousand yards
distant, which Humbert must of necessity cross.
The blue and the scarlet were to meet again upon
a new battle-field. It was too late now to occupy
the pass that Humbert could never have forced
if it had been held by only a single company.
The pikemen were already hallooing and
tossing their rude weapons, that thirsted for
English-Protestant blood; but Humbert did not
believe in pikes against muskets.

The royalists were in two lines on the heights;
first the Kilkenny militia, some of the 6th, and
a party of the Prince of Wales's fencibles. In
the second line were the Fraser fencibles and
the Galway yeomanry. In a valley in the rear
were four companies of the Longford militia in
reserve. The cavalry, a part of the 6th Dragoon
Guards and the 1st Fencibles, were in the rear
of the first line; the artillery were a little in
advance, two curricle guns on the right of the
road, and to the left two battalion guns of the
Kilkenny militia.

At eight o'clock the tricolour showed, and the
French drums beat loud, as Humbert's men came
on in a close driving column, covered by a clump
of rebels roughly dressed in French uniform, sent
forward with the agreeable object to themselves
of drawing the first heat of the artillery fire.
To the swarms of noisy pikemen in his rear,
Humbert—already sick of his wild allies, and
their superstition, treachery, greediness, and
cruelty—paid no attention whatever. But woe
betide the Kilkenny and Longford men if they
were once broken and the pikes came down
among them.

The royalist guns were coolly and cleverly
served. The first round shot from Captain
Shortall's six-pounder plumped full into the
head of the advancing French column and broke
it into two parts. Humbert drew his column
back and re-formed. Again the hydra head
appeared over the ridge, and a second shot
struck the column in the old wound. Fifty brave
Frenchmen then ran forward and got under cover
of a house, but the rest retired again to re-form.
The first blood was decidedly for the king; so
far so good.

Five minutes' lull and the indefatigable column
again crossed the ridge, driving cattle before
them to blunt the cannonade. This was an old wild
Irish and buccaneer trick. But, again repulsed,
Humbert at once changed his tactics, and
deployed rapidly from his centre with open files,
until he had formed lines, mostly in rank entire,
nearly parallel to the English position. The skill
and rapidity of these manoeuvres of veteran
troops staggered the mere militia regiments.
They began firing uselessly at a harmless
distance. The French, encouraged by this alarm,
ran forward en tirailleur, seized some hedges,