over those who asserted his claims. There was something like
the spirit of the cavalier of the Great Rebellion in Mr. Forster's reply
to some of his officers, who wished to put down or burn a Presbyterian
meetinghouse at Penrith: "It is by clemency, and not by cruelty, that we
are to prevail."[196]

After the insurgent troops had marched from place to place for some
time, it was decided that the English regiments should recross the
border; and after many disputes and much loss of time, they resolved on
a march into Lancashire, a country abounding at that time in Roman
Catholic gentry, and strongly Jacobite.[197] This decision, like most of
the other military movements of the unfortunate Jacobites, was the work
of a strong party in the camp, and was founded upon the alleged
authority of private letters, which gave the assurance of a general
insurrection taking place on the appearance of the insurgent force. The
unlucky change of plans superseded a meditated attack upon the town of
Dumfries. "Nothing," observes Mr. Patten, "could be a greater token of a
complete infatuation,--that Heaven confounded all their devices, and
that their destruction was to be of their own working, than their
omitting such an opportunity." After a rapid march from Langholm in the
west of Scotland, across the borders, and through Penrith, Appleby, and
Kendal, to Kirby Lonsdale, the combined force entered the county of
Lancaster; and having entered Lancaster without opposition, they
resolved to proceed to Preston. It is now that the last disastrous
events of Lord Derwentwater's brief career brought to light his
excellent qualities, his pure and amiable motives of action. It is not
possible to read the account of the battle of Preston, in which he was
engaged, without a deep regret for the personal misfortunes of one so
young, so well intentioned, and so esteemed, as this ill-fated nobleman.

The forces of the Jacobites amounted, after being joined by a party of
volunteers under the Lords Rothes and Torpichen, and since their
separation from the Highlanders, to about two thousand men. The foot was
commanded by Brigadier Mackintosh; and six hundred Northumbrian and
Dumfriesshire horsemen, by Lord Kenmure and Mr. Forster.[198]

On the ninth instant the march to Preston was commenced; the cavalry
troops reached that town on the same evening; but the day proving rainy,
and the roads heavy, the foot regiments were left at a small market-town
called Ga