d laid him under indelible obligations.

This resolution being taken, the first plan was to proceed to Warminster,
but on the morning of his departure hearing, on the one hand, that the
king's troops were likely to cross his march, and on the other, being
informed by a quaker, before known to the duke, that there was a great
club army, amounting to ten thousand men, ready to join his standard in
the marshes to the westward, he altered his intention, and returned to
Shipton-Mallet, where he rested that night, his army being in good
quarters. From Shipton-Mallet he proceeded, on the 1st of July, to
Wells, upon information that there were in that city some carriages
belonging to the king's army, and ill-guarded. These he found and took,
and stayed that night in the town. The following day he marched towards
Bridgewater in search of the great succour he had been taught to expect;
but found, of the promised ten thousand men, only a hundred and sixty.
The army lay that night in the field, and once again entered Bridgewater
on the 3rd of July. That the duke's men were not yet completely
dispirited or out of heart appears from the circumstance of great numbers
of them going from Bridgewater to see their friends at Taunton, and other
places in the neighbourhood, and almost all returning the next day
according to their promise. On the 5th an account was received of the
king's army being considerably advanced, and Monmouth's first thought was
to retreat from it immediately, and marching by Axbridge and Keynsham to
Gloucester, to pursue the plan formerly rejected, of penetrating into the
counties of Chester and Salop.

His preparations for this march were all made, when, on the afternoon of
the 5th, he learnt, more accurately than he had before done, the true
situation of the royal army, and from the information now received, he
thought it expedient to consult his principal officers, whether it might
not be advisable to attempt to surprise the enemy by a night attack upon
their quarters. The prevailing opinion was, that if the infantry were
not entrenched the plan was worth the trial; otherwise not. Scouts were
despatched to ascertain this point, and their report being that there was
no entrenchment, an attack was resolved on. In pursuance of this
resolution, at about eleven at night, the whole army was in march, Lord
Grey commanding the horse, and Colonel Wade the vanguard of the foot. The
duke's orders were, that the hor