doms, there
could be little doubt of the result. Cromwell passed the Tweed[d] at the
head of sixteen thousand men, most of them veterans, all habituated to
military discipline, before the raw levies of the Scots had quitted their
respective shires. By order of the Scottish parliament, the army had been
fixed at thirty thousand men; the nominal command had been given to the
earl of Leven, the real, on account of the age and infirmities of that
officer, to his relative, David Leslie, and instructions had been

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 460, 462. Ludlow says, "he acted his part so to the
life, that I really thought him in earnest; but the consequence made it
sufficiently evident that he had no such intention" (i. 272).
Hutchinson, who was present on one of these occasions, thought him
sincere.--Hutchinson, 315.]

[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 438, 450, 457. Journals, Jan. 8, Feb. 25, March 30,
April 15, May 2, 7, 30, June 4, 12, 14, 25, 26.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. June 25.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. June 26.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. June 29.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. July 16.]

issued that the country between Berwick and the capital should be laid
waste, that the cattle and provisions should be removed or destroyed, and
that the inhabitants should abandon their homes under the penalties of
infamy, confiscation, and death. In aid of this measure, reports were
industriously circulated of the cruelties exercised by Cromwell in Ireland;
that, wherever he came, he gave orders to put all the males between sixteen
and sixty to death, to deprive all the boys between six and sixteen of
their right hands, and to bore the breasts of the females with red-hot
irons. The English were surprised at the silence and desolation which
reigned around them; for the only human beings whom they met on their march
through this wilderness, were a few old women and children who on their
knees solicited mercy. But Cromwell conducted them by the sea coast; the
fleet daily supplied them with provisions, and their good conduct gradually
dispelled the apprehensions of the natives.[1] They found[a] the Scottish
levies posted behind a deep intrenchment, running from Edinburgh to Leith,
fortified with numerous batteries, and flanked by the cannon of the castle
at one extremity, and of the harbour at the other. Cromwell employed all
his art to provoke Leslie to avoid an engagement. It was in vain that for
more than a month the former marched and countermarched; t