her of
them, to avoid grief to your heart. A monstrous fault there hath been
somewhere." Of what nature the "monstrous fault" was we may conjecture
from the language of the Commander-in-Chief. "There can be no doubt of
our driving the enemy out of the country through famine and excessive
charges, if every one of us will put our minds to forward, _without
making a miserable gain by the wars_." (We give the Italics as we find
them in the text.) He believed that much of the work might be speedily
done; for he "would undertake to furnish from hence, upon two months'
warning, a navy for strong and tall ships, with their furniture and
mariners."

In the mean time "there was a whisper of peace-overtures," "rumors
which, whether true or false, were most pernicious in their effects";
for "it was war, not peace," that the despot "intended," and the "most
trusty counsellors [of England] knew to be inevitable." Worse than this,
there was treachery of the most dangerous kind. "Take heed whom you
trust," said the brother of the Commander-in-Chief to him; "for that
you have some false boys about you." In fact, "many of those nearest his
person and of highest credit out of England were his deadly foes, sworn
to compass his dishonor, his confusion, and eventually his death, and in
correspondence with his most powerful adversaries at home and abroad."

It was a sad state of things. The General "was much disgusted with the
raw material out of which he was expected to manufacture serviceable
troops." "Swaggering ruffians from the disreputable haunts of London"
"were not the men to be intrusted with the honor of England at a
momentous crisis." "Our simplest men in show have been our best men,
and your _gallant blood and ruffian men the worst of all others_." (The
Italics again are the author's.) Yet, said the muster-master, "there is
good hope that his Excellency will shortly establish such good order
for the government and training of our nation, that these weak, badly
furnished, ill-armed, and worse trained bands, thus rawly left unto
him, shall within a few months prove as well armed, complete, gallant
companies as shall be found elsewhere in Europe."

Very pleasant it must have been to the Commander-in-Chief to report to
his Government that in one of the first actions "five hundred Englishmen
of the best Flemish training had flatly and shamefully run away."
Yet this was the commencement of the struggle which ended with the
dispersion