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Defoe, Daniel, 1661-1731

"Memoirs of a Cavalier A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England. From the Year 1632 to the Year 1648."

The fall plunged me into a puddle of water and daubed me; and
my man having brought me another horse and cleaned me a little, I was
just getting up, when another bullet struck me on my left hand, which
I had just clapped on the horse's main to lift myself into the saddle.
The blow broke one of my fingers, and bruised my hand very much; and
it proved a very painful hurt to me. For the present I did not
much concern myself about it, but made my man tie it up close in my
handkerchief, and led up my men to the market-place, where we had
a very smart brush with some musketeers who were posted in the
churchyard; but our dragoons soon beat them out there, and the whole
town was then our own. We made no stay here, but marched back with
all our booty to Oxford, for we knew the enemy were very strong at
Gloucester, and that way.
Much about the same time, the Earl of Northampton, with a strong
party, set upon Lichfield, and took the town, but could not take the
Close; but they beat a body of 4000 men coming to the relief of the
town, under Sir John Gell, of Derbyshire, and Sir William Brereton, of
Cheshire, and killing 600 of them, dispersed the rest.


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