484 ~ Colonel Roche F ermoy on the [Nov. 
valleys through the mountains. In these lower parts, through which the 
roads run, the superabundant moisture of the climate requires that drains to 
carry off the water should be run parallel to each side of a road. Sinking 
drains necessarily produces embankments: hence a road in Ireland may, ina - 
military sense, be considered as a defile, where the march of troops can be 
annoyed, if not commanded, from every side—ditches and embankments run- 
ning continually parallel, and, at small distances, being met by other ditches 
and embankments, intersecting the parallel ditches at different angles. All 
these afford protecting positions to troops, capable of rapid movements, and 
trained as good marksmen, to impede in front, and to attack in flanks and rear, 
any bodies of regular troops: more especially, if they should move with their 
usual impedimenta. 
“ There is scarcely occasion to state that the roads running through the val- 
leys of the mountainous districts are, each of them, a natural defile, as the 
roads on the levels are artificially so. 
~ On a defensive system, one advantage attends both. Various streams of 
water, fed by the moisture of the climate, cross, at very short intervals, both 
these classes of roads: they are generally conveyed through low arches, level 
with the surface of the road, and are called gullets. To impede the march of 
regular troops, no other instruments are necessary than the pick-axe, the crow- 
bar, and the shovel. Break down these low arches, and a short way of the 
bed of the road—stop the water below, and the line of passage becomes inun- 
dated. Even if the dam below should be removed, the previously submerged 
portion will remain (especially in bog) an impassable mass of mud. 
“ The art of inundation (see Vallancey’s translation of Clairac) should become 
in Ireland, a branch of general study. ‘“ Out of the roads, the country can 
hardly be passed, its inclosures are so frequent and so strong, ani the soil so 
deep. The manceuvres of a regular army would be much impeded. The 
ditches are deep, and cast up so as to form breast-works, and upon every 
road, there are many places ¢étes de pont might be established to excellent pur- 
pose. It would be difficult to bring on a decisive action here. The troops which 
could move with the greatest celerity, must have the advantage. ‘Their operations 
would be similar to fighting in trenches. or continuous traverses, where the 
enemy is scarcely ever seen—here no imposing masses, no brilliant charges of 
cavalry, no regular deployments from moveable columns ; but a war of con- 
stant fatigue to the troops, constant enterprizes, and occasional capture of 
prisoners. 
«* An improvement in the agricultural system of the country, would, with 
equal steps, improve the defensive system. Increasing the depth and width of 
the ditches, would increase the strength of the embankments. Planting those 
enlarged embankments would increase their military strength, and would add 
to the profit of the tiller of the soil, by increasing shelter, and providing a 
stock of timber, in a country, where, from the protecting influence of England, 
for 600 years, it seems to be the only natural want. Taking off portions at 
the angles of the field divisions, planting those cut off portions, as has been 
already done in some places, would form works, similar in effect to bastions 
or flanking redoubts, to the curtains already formed by the banks and the 
ditches. Breaking up, at intervals, and inundating the direct roads, would, 
from the intersections of the country, deprive any body of infantry, disciplined 
according to the present European system, of its two main arms, cavalry and 
artillery. But European battalions, deprived of these adjuncts, are, of all 
military bodies, the most imbéciles. Some weapons of a defensive military sys- 
tem, the Irish peasant is in complete possession of, and well inured to wield. 
—The spade, the shovel, the mattock, and the crow-bar, are, to any other 
weapons of war, aids of the first necessity.” 
The physical capacity of the garrison of this great fortress is highly 
extolled in the next chapter ; and it is contended, that the Irish, from 
their poverty and general wretchedness, ought to be the finest troops in 
