to desperate men
danger is no danger, when he found he must clear his hands of us,
before he could despatch the foot, he faces up to us, fires but one
volley of his small shot, and fell to battering us with the stocks of
their muskets in such a manner that one would have thought they had
been madmen.

We at first despised this way of clubbing us, and charging through
them, laid a great many of them upon the ground, and in repeating our
charge, trampled more of them under our horses' feet; and wheeling
thus continually, beat them off from our foot, who were just upon the
point of disbanding. Upon this they charged us again with their fire,
and at one volley killed thirty-three or thirty-four men and horses;
and had they had pikes with them, I know not what we should have done
with them. But at last charging through them again, we divided them;
one part of them being hemmed in between us and our own foot, were
cut in pieces to a man; the rest as I understood afterwards, retreated
into the town, having lost 300 of their men.

In this last charge I received a rude blow from a stout fellow on
foot with the butt end of his musket which perfectly stunned me, and
fetched me off from my horse; and had not some near me took care of
me, I had been trod to death by our own men. But the fellow being
immediately killed, and my friends finding me alive, had taken me up,
and carried me off some distance, where I came to myself again after
some time, but knew little of what I did or said that night. This was
the reason why I say I afterwards understood the enemy retreated; for
I saw no more what they did then, nor indeed was I well of this blow
for all the rest of the summer, but had frequent pains in my head,
dizzinesses and swimming, that gave me some fears the blow had
injured the skull; but it wore off again, nor did it at all hinder my
attending my charge.

This action, I think, was the only one that looked like a defeat given
the enemy at this siege. We killed them near 300 men, as I have said,
and lost about sixty of our troopers.

All this time, while the king was harassing and weakening the best
army he ever saw together during the whole war, the Parliament
generals, or rather preachers, were recruiting theirs; for the
preachers were better than drummers to raise volunteers, zealously
exhorting the London dames to part with their husbands, and the city
to send some of their trained bands to join the army for the relief of