Thus ended the decisive battle of Sedgmoor; an attack which seems to have been judiciously conceived, and in many parts spiritedly executed.  The general was deficient neither in courage nor conduct; and the troops, while they displayed the native bravery of Englishmen, were under as good discipline as could be expected from bodies newly raised.  Two circumstances seem to have principally contributed to the loss of the day; first, the unforeseen difficulty occasioned by the ditch, of which the assailants had had no intelligence; and secondly, the cowardice of the commander of the horse.  The discovery of the ditch was the more alarming, because it threw a general doubt upon the information of the spies, and the night being dark they could not ascertain that this was the only impediment of the kind which they were to expect.  The dispersion of the horse was still more fatal, inasmuch as it deranged the whole order of the plan, by which it had been concerted that their operations were to facilitate the attack to be made by the foot.  If Lord Grey had possessed a spirit more suitable to his birth and name, to the illustrious friendship with which he had been honoured, and to the command with which he was entrusted, he would doubtless have persevered till he found a passage into the enemy’s camp, which could have been effected at a ford not far distant:  the loss of time occasioned by the ditch might not have been very material, and the most important consequences might have ensued; but it would surely be rashness to assert, as Hume does, that the army would after all have gained the victory had not the misconduct of Monmouth and the cowardice of Grey prevented it.  This rash judgment is the more to be admired, as the historian has not pointed out the instance of misconduct to which he refers.  The number of Monmouth’s men killed is computed by some at two thousand, by others at three hundred—­a disparity, however, which may be easily reconciled, by supposing that the one account takes in those who were killed in battle, while the other comprehends the wretched fugitives who were massacred in ditches, corn-fields, and other hiding-places, the following day.

In general, I have thought it right to follow Wade’s narrative, which appears to me by far the most authentic, if not the only authentic account of this important transaction.  It is imperfect, but its imperfection arises from the narrator’s omitting all those circumstances of which he was not an eye-witness, and the greater credit is on that very account due to him for those which he relates.  With respect to Monmouth’s quitting the field, it is not mentioned by him, nor is it possible to ascertain the precise point of time at which it happened.  That he fled while his troops were still fighting, and therefore too soon for his glory, can scarcely be doubted; and the account given by Ferguson, whose veracity, however, is always to be suspected, that Lord Grey urged him to the measure, as well by persuasion