sappointment in Lord Grey
was aggravated by the loss of Fletcher of Saltoun, who, in a sort of
scuffle that ensued upon his being reproached for having seized a horse
belonging to a man of the country, had the misfortune to kill the owner.
Monmouth, however unwilling, thought himself obliged to dismiss him; and
thus, while a fatal concurrence of circumstances forced him to part with
the man he esteemed, and to retain him whom he despised, he found himself
at once disappointed of the support of the two persons upon whom he had
most relied.

On the 15th of June, his army being now increased to near three thousand
men, the duke marched from Lyme. He does not appear to have taken this
step with a view to any enterprise of importance, but rather to avoid the
danger which he apprehended from the motions of the Devonshire and
Somerset militias, whose object it seemed to be to shut him up in Lyme.
In his first day's march he had opportunities of engaging, or rather of
pursuing, each of those bodies, who severally retreated from his forces;
but conceiving it to be his business, as he said, not to fight, but to
march on, he went through Axminster, and encamped in a strong piece of
ground between that town and Chard in Somersetshire, to which place he
proceeded on the ensuing day. According to Wade's narrative, which
appears to afford by far the most authentic account of these
transactions, here it was that the first proposition was made for
proclaiming Monmouth king. Ferguson made the proposal, and was supported
by Lord Grey, but it was easily run down, as Wade expresses it, by those
who were against it, and whom, therefore, we must suppose to have formed
a very considerable majority of the persons deemed of sufficient
importance to be consulted on such an occasion. These circumstances are
material, because if that credit be given to them which they appear to
deserve, Ferguson's want of veracity becomes so notorious, that it is
hardly worth while to attend to any part of his narrative. Where it only
corroborates accounts given by others, it is of little use; and where it
differs from them, it deserves no credit. I have, therefore, wholly
disregarded it.

From Chard, Monmouth and his party proceeded to Taunton, a town where, as
well from the tenor of former occurrences as from the zeal and number of
the Protestant dissenters, who formed a great portion of its inhabitants,
he had every reason to expect the most favourable re