obstinacy.  I must own I never saw raw men, for they could not have been in arms above four months, act like them in my life.  In short, there was no forcing these men, for, though two whole brigades of our foot, backed by our horse, made five several attacks upon them they could not break them, and we lost a great many brave men in that action.  At last, seeing the obstinacy of these men, a party of horse was ordered to go round from Osterley; and, entering the town on the north side, where, though the horse made some resistance, it was not considerable, the town was presently taken.  I led my regiment through an enclosure, and came into the town nearer to the bridge than the rest, by which means I got first into the town; but I had this loss by my expedition, that the foot charged me before the body was come up, and poured in their shot very furiously.  My men were but in an ill case, and would not have stood much longer, if the rest of the horse coming up the lane had not found them other employment.  When the horse were thus entered, they immediately dispersed the enemy’s horse, who fled away towards London, and falling in sword in hand upon the rear of the foot, who were engaged at the bridge, they were all cut in pieces, except about 200, who, scorning to ask quarter, desperately threw themselves into the river of Thames, where they were most of them drowned.

The Parliament and their party made a great outcry at this attempt—­that it was base and treacherous while in a treaty of peace; and that the king, having amused them with hearkening to a treaty, designed to have seized upon their train of artillery first, and, after that, to have surprised both the city of London and the Parliament.  And I have observed since, that our historians note this action as contrary to the laws of honour and treaties, though as there was no cessation of arms agreed on, nothing is more contrary to the laws of war than to suggest it.

That it was a very unhappy thing to the king and whole nation, as it broke off the hopes of peace, and was the occasion of bringing the Scots army in upon us, I readily acknowledge, but that there was anything dishonourable in it, I cannot allow.  For though the Parliament had addressed to the king for peace, and such steps were taken in it as before, yet, as I have said, there was no proposals made on either side for a cessation of arms, and all the world must allow, that in such cases the war goes on in the field, while the peace goes on in the cabinet.  And if the war goes on, admit the king had designed to surprise the city or Parliament, or all of them, it had been no more than the custom of war allows, and what they would have done by him if they could.  The treaty of Westphalia, or peace of Munster, which ended the bloody wars of Germany, was a precedent for this.  That treaty was actually negotiating seven years, and yet the war went on with all the vigour and rancour imaginable, even to the last.  Nay, the very time