ch man was
as a priceless gem in a kingly crown, which if destroyed, the earth's deep
entrails could yield no paragon. He was a young man, and had been hurried
on by presumption, and the notion of his high rank and superiority to all
other pretenders; now he repented his work, he felt that all the blood
about to be shed would be on his head; with sudden impulse therefore he
spurred his horse between the bands, and, having fixed a white handkerchief
on the point of his uplifted sword, thus demanded parley; the opposite
leaders obeyed the signal. He spoke with warmth; he reminded them of the
oath all the chiefs had taken to submit to the Lord Protector; he declared
their present meeting to be an act of treason and mutiny; he allowed that
he had been hurried away by passion, but that a cooler moment had arrived;
and he proposed that each party should send deputies to the Earl of
Windsor, inviting his interference and offering submission to his decision.
His offer was accepted so far, that each leader consented to command a
retreat, and moreover agreed, that after the approbation of their several
parties had been consulted, they should meet that night on some neutral
spot to ratify the truce. At the meeting of the chiefs, this plan was
finally concluded upon. The leader of the fanatics indeed refused to admit
the arbitration of Adrian; he sent ambassadors, rather than deputies, to
assert his claim, not plead his cause.

The truce was to continue until the first of February, when the bands were
again to assemble on the Place Vendome; it was of the utmost consequence
therefore that Adrian should arrive in Paris by that day, since an hair
might turn the scale, and peace, scared away by intestine broils, might
only return to watch by the silent dead. It was now the twenty-eighth of
January; every vessel stationed near Dover had been beaten to pieces and
destroyed by the furious storms I have commemorated. Our journey however
would admit of no delay. That very night, Adrian, and I, and twelve others,
either friends or attendants, put off from the English shore, in the boat
that had brought over the deputies. We all took our turn at the oar; and
the immediate occasion of our departure affording us abundant matter for
conjecture and discourse, prevented the feeling that we left our native
country, depopulate England, for the last time, to enter deeply into the
minds of the greater part of our number. It was a serene starlight night,