The dispute on this right wing was hot and stiff, for three quarters of an hour. Plenty of fire, from fieldpieces, snaphances, matchlocks, entertains the Scotch main-battle across the Brock ;-poor stiffened men, roused from the cornshocks with their matches all out! But here on the right, their horse, with lancers in the front rank,' charge desperately; drive us back across the hollow of the Rivulet back a little; but the Lord gives us courage, and we storm home again, horse and foot, upon them, with a shock like tornado tempests; break them, beat them, drive them all adrift. Some fled towards Copperspath, but most across their own foot.' Their own poor foot, whose matches were hardly well alight yet! Poor men, it was a terrible awakening for them: fieldpieces and charge of foot across the Brocksburn; and now here is their own horse in mad panic trampling them to death. Above Three-thousand killed the place I never saw such a charge of foot and horse,' says one;1 nor did I. Oliver was still near to Yorkshire Hodgson when the shock succeeded; Hodgson heard him say, 'They run! I profess they run!' And over St. Abb's Head and upon the German Ocean, just then, bursts the first gleam of the level Sun upon us, ' and I heard Nol say, in the words of the Psalmist, "Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered,"'-or in Rous's metre, Let God arise, and scattered Let all his enemies be; And let all those that do him hate Before his presence flee ! ; Even so. The Scotch Army is shivered to utter ruin rushes in tumultuous wreck, hither, thither; to Belhaven, or, in their distraction, even to Dunbar; the chase goes as far as Haddington; led by Hacker. The Lord General made a halt,' says Hodgson, and sang the Hundred-and-seventeenth Psalm,' till our horse could gather for the chase. Hundredand-seventeenth Psalm, at the foot of the Doon Hill; there 1 Rushworth's Letter to the Speaker (in Parliamentary History, xix. 341). we uplift it, to the tune of Bangor, or some still higher score, and roll it strong and great against the sky : O give ye praise unto the Lord, All nati-ons that be; For great to us-ward ever are His lovingkindnesses; His truth endures for evermore : And now, to the chase again. The Prisoners are Ten-thousand, all the foot in a mass. Many Dignitaries are taken; not a few are slain; of whom see Printed Lists,-full of blunders. Provost Jaffray of Aberdeen, Member of the Scots Parliament, one of the Committee of Estates, was very nearly slain: a trooper's sword was in the air to sever him, but one cried, He is a man of consequence; he can ransom himself!—and the trooper kept him prisoner.1 The first of the Scots Quakers, by and by; and an official person much reconciled to Oliver. Ministers also of the Kirk Committee were slain; two Ministers I find taken, poor Carstairs of Glasgow, poor Waugh of some other place, of whom we shall transiently hear again. General David Lesley, vigorous for flight as for other things, got to Edinburgh by nine o'clock; poor old Leven. not so light of movement, did not get till two. Tragical enough. What a change since January 1644, when we marched out of this same Dunbar up to the knees in snow! It was to help and save these very men that we then marched; with the Covenant in all our hearts. We have stood by the letter of the Covenant; fought for our Covenanted Stuart King as we could;—they again, they stand by the substance of it, and have trampled us and the letter of it into this ruinous state!—Yes, my poor friends;-and now be wise, be 1 Diary of Alexander Jaffray (London, 1834;-unhappily relating almost all to the inner man of Jaffray). taught! The letter of your Covenant, in fact, will never rally again in this world. The spirit and substance of it, please God, will never die in this or in any world. Such is Dunbar Battle; which might also be called Dunbar Drove, for it was a frightful rout. Brought on by miscalculation; misunderstanding of the difference between substances and semblances ;-by mismanagement, and the chance of war. My Lord General's next Seven Letters, all written on the morrow, will now be intelligible to the reader. First, however, take the following PROCLAMATION 'FORASMUCH as I understand there are several Soldiers of the Enemy's Army yet abiding in the Field, who by reason ' of their wounds could not march from thence: These are therefore to give notice to the Inhabitants of 'this Nation That they may and hereby have1 free liberty to repair to the Field aforesaid, and, with their carts or "in" any other peaceable way, to carry away the said Soldiers to 'such places as they shall think fit :-provided they meddle 'not with, or take away, any the Arms there. And all Officers and Soldiers are to take notice that the same is ' permitted. 'Given under my hand, at Dunbar, 4th September 1650. 'OLIVER CROMWELL To be proclaimed by beat of drum.'* LETTER CXL FOR THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LENTHALL, ESQUIRE, SPEAKER OF THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND: THESE Dunbar, 4th September 1650. Sir, I hope it's not ill taken, that I make no more frequent 1 sic. * Old Newspaper, Several Proceedings in Parliament, no. 50 (5th-12th Sept. 1650): in Burney Newspapers (British Museum), vol. xxxiv. VOL. II. addresses to the Parliament. Things that are in trouble, in point of provision for your Army, and of ordinary direction, I have, as I could, often presented to the Council of State, together with such occurrences as have happened;—who, I am sure, as they have not been wanting in their extraordinary care and provision for us, so neither in what they judge fit and necessary to represent the same to you. And this I thought to be a sufficient discharge of my duty on that behalf. It hath now pleased God to bestow a mercy upon you, worthy of your knowledge, and of the utmost praise and thanks of all that fear and love His name; yea, the mercy is far above all praise. Which that you may the better perceive, I shall take the boldness to tender unto you some circumstances accompanying this great business, which will manifest the greatness and seasonableness of this mercy. We having tried what we could to engage the Enemy, three or four miles West of Edinburgh; that proving ineffectual, and our victual failing, we marched towards our ships for a recruit of our want. The Enemy did not at all trouble us in our rear; but marched the direct way towards Edinburgh, and partly in the night and morning slips-through his whole Army; and quarters himself in a posture easy to interpose between us and our victual. But the Lord made him to lose the opportunity. And the morning proving exceeding wet and dark, we recovered, by that time it was light, a ground where they could not hinder us from our victual: which was an high act of the Lord's Providence to us. We being come into the said ground, the Enemy marched into the ground we were last upon; having no mind either to strive to interpose between us and our victuals, or to fight; being indeed upon this "aim of reducing us to a" lock, hoping that the sickness of your Army would render their work more easy by the gaining of time. Whereupon we marched to Musselburgh, to victual, and to ship away our sick men; where we sent aboard near fivehundred sick and wounded soldiers. And upon serious consideration, finding our weakness so to increase, and the Enemy lying upon his advantage,—at a general council it was thought fit to march to Dunbar, and there to fortify the Town. Which (we thought), if anything, would provoke them to engage. As also, That the having of a Garrison there would furnish us with accommodation for our sick men, "and" would be a good Magazine,—which we exceedingly wanted; being put to depend upon the uncertainty of weather for landing provisions, which many times cannot be done though the being of the whole Army lay upon it, all the coasts from Berwick to Leith having not one good harbour. As also, To lie more conveniently to receive our recruits of horse and foot from Berwick. Having these considerations,-upon Saturday the 30th1 of August we marched from Musselburgh to Haddington. Where, by that time we had got the van-brigade of our horse, and our foot and train, into their quarters, the Enemy had marched with that exceeding expedition that they fell upon the rearforlorn of our horse, and put it in some disorder; and indeed had like to have engaged our rear-brigade of horse with their whole Army, had not the Lord by His Providence put a cloud over the Moon, thereby giving us opportunity to draw-off those horse to the rest of our Army. Which accordingly was done without any loss, save of three or four of our aforementioned forlorn; wherein the Enemy, as we believe, received more loss. The Army being put into a reasonable secure posture,— towards midnight the Enemy attempted our quarters, on the west end of Haddington: but through the goodness of God we repulsed them. The next morning we drew into an open field, on the south side of Haddington; we not judging it safe for us to draw to the Enemy upon his own ground, he being prepossessed thereof; but rather drew back, to give him way to come to us, if he had so thought fit. And having waited about the space of four or five hours, to see if he would come to us; and not finding any inclination in the Enemy so to do,—we resolved to go, according to our first intendment, to Dunbar. 1 sic: but Saturday is 31st. |