After the capitulation of Galway, Ginckle moved towards Limerick. King
William, who was absent on the Continent, was most anxious for the aid of
the army warring in Ireland, and the queen and her advisers, considering
that the war was now virtually over, ordered transports to Ireland to
take on board ten thousand men; but Ginckle was allowed a month's delay.

He himself was by no means sanguine as to his position. The Irish army
was still as numerous as the British, and they were not discouraged by
their defeat at Aughrim, where they considered, and rightly, that victory
had only been snatched from their grasp by an accident. Ginckle relied
rather upon concession than force. The Irish were divided into two
parties, one of which earnestly desired peace, if they could obtain fair
terms, while the other insisted that the British could not be trusted to
keep any terms they might make. Sarsfield was at the head of the war
party, and succeeded, for the present, in preventing any arrangement.

Ginckle advanced slowly, for he had to march through a waste and desolate
country. Sarsfield, with his cavalry, hovered round him, and intercepted
his communications, and he was so short of draught horses that it was
only by forcing the gentry of Dublin to give up their carriage horses,
for the use of the army, that he was enabled to move forward.

It was not until the end of August that he sat down with his siege train
in front of Limerick, and prepared for the siege. For the moment, the
party in favour of peace among the Irish had been silenced by the news
that twenty large ships of war, with a great number of transport and
store ships, were being pushed forward at Brest and other French ports to
come to their assistance.