And as I had no command
here to oblige my attendance, I was once going to make one, but my
comrades, whom I had been the principal occasion of bringing hither,
began to take it ill, that I would leave them, and so I resolved we
would take our fate together.
While thus we had nothing before us but a soldier's death, a fair
field, and a strong enemy, and people began to look one upon another,
the soldiers asked how their officers looked, and the officers asked
how their soldiers looked, and every day we expected to be our last,
when unexpectedly the enemy's general sent a trumpet to Truro to my
Lord Hopton, with a very handsome gentlemanlike offer:--
That since the general could not be ignorant of his present condition,
and that the place he was in could not afford him subsistence or
defence; and especially considering that the state of our affairs were
such, that if we should escape from thence we could not remove to
our advantage, he had thought good to let us know, that if we would
deliver up our horses and arms, he would, for avoiding the effusion of
Christian blood, or the putting any unsoldierly extremities upon us,
allow such honourable and safe conditions, as were rather better than
our present circumstances could demand, and such as should discharge
him to all the world, as a gentleman, as a soldier, and as a
Christian.
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