ut intended only to take
advantage of the disorder which he might suppose would have attended the
retreat of an army of militia.

On arriving at Carlisle, a council of war was held. Lord George Murray
was in favour of evacuating Carlisle, but his influence was overruled.
"I had been so much fatigued," he remarks, "for some days before, that I
was very little at the Prince's quarters that day." It was, however,
determined to leave a garrison in Carlisle, for Prince Charles had set
his heart upon returning to England. He, therefore, placed in the castle
Mr. Hamilton, whilst the unfortunate Mr. Townley commanded the town.

"This," remarks Mr Maxwell,[155] "was perhaps the worst resolution that
the Prince had taken hitherto. I cannot help condemning it, though there
were specious pretexts for it." It would, indeed, have been highly
advantageous for the Prince to have retained one of the keys of England;
and he might have hoped to return before the place could be retaken. Of
this, however, he could not be certain; and he was undoubtedly wrong in
exposing the lives of the garrison without an indispensable necessity,
which, according to Maxwell, did not exist; for "blowing up the castle,
and the gates of the town might equally have given him an entry into
England."

The day after the Prince had arrived in Carlisle, he left it, and
proceeded northwards. One cause of this, apparently, needless haste was,
the state of the river Esk, about seven miles from Carlisle; it was, by
a nearer road, impassable. This stream, it was argued, might be swollen
by a few hours rain, and then it could not be forded. The Prince might
thus be detained at Carlisle; and he had now become extremely impatient
to know the exact state of his affairs in Scotland; to collect his
forces, in order to return to England. Letters from Lord John Drummond
had re-assured him of the good will of the Court of France--that
delusive hope was not even then extinct. Advice from Viscount
Strathallan had imparted excellent accounts of the army in Scotland.
Under these circumstances, Charles hastened forward, and encountered the
difficult passage over the Esk. Hope again gladdened the heart of one
for whose errors, when we consider the stake for which he fought, and
the cherished wishes of his youth, too little allowance has been made.
But, in the eyes of others, the prospect of the young Chevalier's return
to England was regarded as wholly visionary; and the planting a