Note 229 — Chapter LII · LONDONDERRY AND ENNISKILLEN, 1689

Walker and Mackenzie. Light to the Blind. The written opinions of Hamilton and his council of war are in Macpherson, i. 217. James’s letter of July 22 ordering the siege to be turned into a blockade, ib. p. 218. Roche’s story is in Harris’s Life of William III., appx. xxix., and see Cal. of Treasury Papers, February 14, 1693-4. Writing to Louis XIV., August 4/14, Avaux says: ‘L’estacade était si mal faite qu’elle n’a pas resisté aux chaloupes qui remorquaient les deux petits bastiments qui portaient des vivres, et nous avons déjà sceu plus d’une fois que cette estacade se rompait souvent par le vent; et par la seule force de la marée.’ Though the Rev. James Gordon can scarcely be credited with the relief of Londonderry, his local knowledge may have been useful to Kirke, or rather to Rooke and Leake: Reid’s Presbyterian Hist., ed. Killen, ii. 387 and notes. Pointis, who was destined to meet Leake again in later years, gave a description of the boom (to Seignelay, probably), which he thought he had made very strong, State Papers, Domestic, June 13, 1689. It was partly attached to a great stone, which may still be seen, though moved from its original place, in the grounds of Boom Hall, and partly to a great tree, of which the stump remains.