jee, and to wile him into good-humour with all the ability in my power,
by saying that it was natural enough of the king and government to think
of Mr Pipe as one of the most proper men in the town, he paying, as he
did, the largest sum of the king's dues at the excise, and being, as we
all knew, in a great correspondence with foreign ports--and I winkit to
Mr Pipe as I said this, and he could with a difficulty keep his
countenance at hearing how I so beguiled Mr Dinton into a spirit of
loyalty for the raising of the volunteers.

The ice being thus broken, next day we had a meeting, before the council
met, to take the business into public consideration, and we thereat
settled on certain creditable persons in the town, of a known principle,
as the fittest to be officers under the command of Mr Pipe, as
commandant, and Mr Dinton, as his colleague under him. We agreed among
us, as the custom was in other places, that they should be elected major,
captain, lieutenants, and ensigns, by the free votes of the whole corps,
according to the degrees that we had determined for them. In the doing
of this, and the bringing it to pass, my skill and management was greatly
approved and extolled by all who had a peep behind the curtain.

The town-council being, as I have intimated, convened to hear the
gracious answer to the address read, and to take into consideration the
suggesting anent the volunteering, met in the clerk's chamber, where we
agreed to call a meeting of the inhabitants of the town by proclamation,
and by a notice in the church. This being determined, Mr Pipe and Mr
Dinton got a paper drawn up, and privately, before the Sunday, a number
of their genteeler friends, including those whom we had noted down to be
elected officers, set their names as willing to be volunteers.

On the Sunday, Mr Pittle, at my instigation, preached a sermon, showing
forth the necessity of arming ourselves in the defence of all that was
dear to us. It was a discourse of great method and sound argument, but
not altogether so quickened with pith and bir as might have been wished
for; but it paved the way to the reading out of the summons for the
inhabitants to meet the magistrates in the church on the Thursday
following, for the purpose, as it was worded by the town-clerk, to take
into consideration the best means of saving the king and kingdom in the
then monstrous crisis of public affairs.

The discourse, with the summons, and a rumour an