as to the state of public feeling in Somersetshire. As Yet
all seemed to promise well. [363]

But a force was collecting at Bridport to oppose the insurgents. On the
thirteenth of June the red regiment of Dorsetshire militia came pouring
into that town. The Somersetshire, or yellow regiment, of which Sir
William Portman, a Tory gentleman of great note, was Colonel, was
expected to arrive on the following day. [364] The Duke determined to
strike an immediate blow. A detachment of his troops was preparing to
march to Bridport when a disastrous event threw the whole camp into
confusion.

Fletcher of Saltoun had been appointed to command the cavalry under
Grey. Fletcher was ill mounted; and indeed there were few chargers in
the camp which had not been taken from the plough. When he was ordered
to Bridport, he thought that the exigency of the case warranted him in
borrowing, without asking permission, a fine horse belonging to Dare.
Dare resented this liberty, and assailed Fletcher with gross abuse.
Fletcher kept his temper better than any one who knew him expected. At
last Dare, presuming on the patience with which his insolence had been
endured, ventured to shake a switch at the high born and high spirited
Scot Fletcher's blood boiled. He drew a pistol and shot Dare dead.
Such sudden and violent revenge would not have been thought strange in
Scotland, where the law had always been weak, where he who did not right
himself by the strong hand was not likely to be righted at all, and
where, consequently, human life was held almost as cheap as in the worst
governed provinces of Italy. But the people of the southern part of the
island were not accustomed to see deadly weapons used and blood spilled
on account of a rude word or gesture, except in duel between gentlemen
with equal arms. There was a general cry for vengeance on the foreigner
who had murdered an Englishman. Monmouth could not resist the clamour.
Fletcher, who, when his first burst of rage had spent itself, was
overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow, took refuge on board of the
Helderenbergh, escaped to the Continent, and repaired to Hungary, where
he fought bravely against the common enemy of Christendom. [365]

Situated as the insurgents were, the loss of a man of parts and energy
was not easily to be repaired. Early on the morning of the following
day, the fourteenth of June, Grey, accompanied by Wade, marched with
about five hundred men to attack Bridport. A conf