Immoral and hardhearted as Rosen and Avaux were, Rosen was a skilful captain, and Avaux was a skilful politician.

Though it is not probable that they would have been able to avert the doom of Ireland, it is probable that they might have been able to protract the contest; and it was evidently for the interest of France that the contest should be protracted.

But it would have been an affront to the old general to put him under the orders of Lauzun; and between the ambassador and Lauzun there was such an enmity that they could not be expected to act cordially together.

Both Rosen and Avaux, therefore, were, with many soothing assurances of royal approbation and favour, recalled to France.

They sailed from Cork early in the spring by the fleet which had conveyed Lauzun thither, [627] Lauzun had no sooner landed than he found that, though he had been long expected, nothing had been prepared for his reception.