** Walsing. p. 75. Heming, vol. i. p. 163.

The king, when he arrived in sight of the Scots, was pleased with the
prospect of being able, by one decisive stroke, to determine the fortune
of the war; and dividing his army also into three bodies, he led them
to the attack. The English archers, who began about this time to surpass
those of other nations, first chased the Scottish bowmen off the field;
then pouring in their arrows among the pikemen, who were cooped up
within their intrenchments, threw them into disorder, and rendered the
assault of the English pikemen and cavalry more easy and successful.
The whole Scottish army was broken, and chased off the field with great
slaughter; which the historians, attending more to the exaggerated
relations of the populace than to the probability of things, make amount
to fifty or sixty thousand men.[*] It is only certain, that the Scots
never suffered a greater loss in any action, nor one which seemed to
threaten more inevitable ruin to their country.

* Walsing. p. 76. T. Wykes, p. 127. Heming vol. i. p. 163,
164, 165. Trivet (p. 313) says only twenty thousand. M.
West. (p. 431) says forty thousand.

In this general rout of the army, Wallace's military skill and presence
of mind enabled him to keep his troops entire and retiring behind the
Carron, he marched leisurely along the banks of that small river, which
protected him from the enemy. Young Bruce, who had already given many
proofs of his aspiring genius, but who served hitherto in the English
army, appeared on the opposite banks, and distinguishing the Scottish
chief, as well by his majestic port as by the intrepid activity of his
behavior, called out to him, and desired a short conference. He here
represented to Wallace the fruitless and ruinous enterprise in which he
was engaged; and endeavored to bend his inflexible spirit to submission
under superior power and superior fortune: he insisted on the unequal
contest between a weak state, deprived of its head and agitated by
intestine discord, and a mighty nation, conducted by the ablest and most
martial monarch of the age, and possessed of every resource either for
protracting the war, or for pushing it with vigor and activity; if the
love of his country were his motive for perseverence, his obstinacy
tended only to prolong her misery; if he carried his views to private
grandeur and ambition, he might reflect that, even if Edward should
withdraw his a