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ADVENTURES OF A CAVALIER.

[Daniel De Foe, born in London, 1661; died there, 24th April, 1731. He was the son of a butcher in St. Giles, Cripplegate, and was educated with a view to the Presbyterian ministry. He became a soldier (as an adherent to Monmouth), a hosier, a tile-maker, and a woollen merchant in succession. His political and satirical pamphlets-Essay on Projects; The True-Born Englishman (verse); and The Shortest Way with the Dissenters-earned for him reputation and imprisonment. He was employed as a government agent in the negotiations for the Union between Scotland and England, which supplied him with the materials for his history of that event. But his raillery and satire were misunderstood, imprisonment and fines impoverished him, slander harassed him, and he was stricken with apoplexy whilst writing his defence in 1715-An Appeal to Honour and Justice, though it be of his Worst Enemies, being a True Account of his Conduct in Public Affairs. He recovered his health, and thinking that it would be more to his advantage to attempt to amuse the public than to reform it, he produced Robinson Crusoe. The success was immediate and enduring. It was followed by The Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton; The Adventures of Roxana; The Life of Colonel Jack; The History of Duncan Campbell; Moll Flanders: A Journal of the Plague in 1665; Religious Courtship; The Political History of the Devil, and a System of Magic; A Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal (written to sell a heavy book, Drelincourt on Death); A Tour through England and Scotland; A Plan of the English Commerce; Giving Alms no Charity; and The Memoirs of a Cavalier, during the Civil Wars in England, from which we quote the Cavalier's adventures in escaping from the battle of Marston Moor. De Foe is said to have produced 210 books and pamphlets, and in all he was excellent. He is acknowledged to be one of the master spirits of English literature.]

I had but very coarse treatment in this fight; for, returning with the prince from the pursuit of the right wing, and finding all lost, I halted with some other officers to consider what to do. At first we were for making our retreat in a body, and might have done so well enough if we had known what had happened before we saw ourselves in the middle of the enemy; for Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had got together his scattered troops, and joined by some of the left wing, knowing who we were, charged us with great fury. It was not a time to think of anything but getting away, or dying upon the spot. The prince kept on in the front; and Sir Thomas Fairfax, by this charge, cut off about three regiments of us from our body; but bending his main strength at the prince, left us, as it were, behind him in the middle of the field of battle. We took this for the only opportunity we could have to get off; and joining together, we made across the place of battle in as good order as we could, with our carabines presented. In this posture we passed D SERIES, VOL. I.

by several bodies of the enemy's foot, who stood with their pikes charged to keep us off; but they had no occasion, for we had no design to meddle with them, but to get from them. Thus we made a swift march, and thought ourselves pretty secure; but our work was not done yet, for on a sudden we saw ourselves under a necessity of fighting our way through a great body of Manchester's horse, who came galloping upon us over the moor. They had, as we suppose, been pursuing some of our broken troops which were fled before, and seeing us, they gave us a home charge. We received them as well as we could, but pushed to get through them, which at last we did with a considerable loss to them. However, we lost so many men, either killed or separated from us (for all could not follow the same way), that of our three regiments, we could not be above 400 horse together when we got quite clear, and these were mixed men, some of one troop and regiment, some of another. Not that I believe many of us were killed in the last attack, for we had plainly the better of the enemy; but our design being to get off, some shifted for themselves one way, and some another, in the best manner they could, and as their several fortunes guided them. Four hundred more of this body, as I afterwards understood, having broke through the enemy's body another way, kept together, and got into Pontefract Castle; and 300 more made northward and to Skipton, where the prince afterwards fetched them off.

These few of us that were left together, with whom I was, being now pretty clear of pursuit, halted, and began to inquire who and what we were, and what we should do; and, on a short debate, I proposed we should make to the first garrison of the king's that we could recover, and that we should keep together, lest the country people should insult us upon the roads. With this resolution we pushed on westward for Lancashire; but our misfortunes were not yet at an end. We travelled very hard, and got to a village upon the river Wharf, near Wetherby. At Wetherby there was a bridge, but we understood that a party from Leeds had secured the town and the post, in order to stop the fleeing Cavaliers, and that it would be very hard to get through there, though, as we understood afterwards, there were no soldiers there but a guard of the townsIn this pickle we consulted what course to take. To stay where we were till morning, we all concluded would not be safe. Some advised to take the stream with our horses; but the river, which is deep, and the current

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strong, seemed to bid us have a care what we did of that kind, especially in the night. We resolved therefore to refresh ourselves and our horses, which indeed is more than we did, and go on till we might come to a ford or bridge, where we might get over. Some guides we had, but they either were foolish or false; for after we had rid eight or nine miles, they plunged us into a river at a place they called a ford, but it was a very ill one, for most of our horses swam, and seven or eight were lost, but we saved the men. However, we got all over. We made bold, with our first convenience, to trespass upon the country for a few horses where we could find them, to remount our men whose horses were drowned, and continued our march. But being obliged to refresh ourselves at a small village on the edge of Bramham Moor, we found the country alarmed by our taking some horses; and we were no sooner got on horseback in the morning, and entering on the moor, but we understood we were pursued by some troops of horse. There was no remedy but we must pass this moor; and though our horses were exceedingly tired, yet we pressed on upon a round trot, and recovered an inclosed country on the other side, where we halted. And here, necessity putting us upon it, we were obliged to look out for more horses, for several of our men were dismounted, and others' horses disabled by carrying double, those who lost their horses getting up behind them; but we were supplied by our enemies against their will.

The enemy followed us over the moor, and we having a woody inclosed country about us where we were, I observed by their moving they had lost sight of us; upon which I proposed concealing ourselves till we might judge of their numbers. We did so; and lying close in a wood, they passed hastily by us without skirting or searching the wood, which was what on another occasion they would not have done. I found they were not above 150 horse, and considering that to let them go before us would be to alarm the country and stop our design, I thought, since we might be able to deal with them, we should not meet with a better place for it, and told the rest of our officers my mind, which all our party presently (for we had not time for a long debate) agreed, to. Immediately upon this I caused two men to fire their pistols in the wood at two different places, as far asunder as I could. This I did to give them an alarm and amuse them: for being in the lane, they would otherwise have got through before we had been ready, and I resolved to engage them there as soon as it

was possible. After this alarm we rushed out of the wood with about a hundred horse, and charged them on the flank in a broad lane, the wood being on their right. Our passage into the lane being narrow, gave us some diffi culty in our getting out; but the surprise of the charge did our work, for the enemy, thinking we had been a mile or two before, had not the least thoughts of this onset till they heard us in the wood, and then they who were before could not come back. We broke into the lane just in the middle of them, and by that means divided them: and facing to the left, charged the rear. First our dismounted men, which were near fifty, lined the edge of the wood, and fired with their carabines upon those which were before so warmly, that they put them into a great disorder. Meanwhile fifty more of our horse from the further part of the wood showed themselves in the lane upon their front. This put them of the foremost party into a great perplexity, and they began to face about to fall upon us who were engaged in the rear; but their facing about in a lane where there was no room to wheel (and one who understands the manner of wheeling a troop of horse must imagine), put them into a great disorder. Our party in the head of the lane taking the advantage of this mistake of the enemy, charged in upon them, and routed them entirely. Some found means to break into the inclosures on the other side of the lane, and get away. About thirty were killed. and about twenty-five made prisoners, and forty very good horses were taken: all this, while not a man of ours was lost, and not above seven or eight wounded. Those in the rear behaved themselves better, for they stood our charge with a great deal of resolution, and all we could do could not break them; but at last our men, who had fired on foot through the hedges at the other party, coming to do the like here, there was no standing it any longer. The rear of them faced about, and retreated out of the lane, and drew up in the open field to receive and rally their fellows. We killed about seventeen of them, and followed them to the end of the lane, but had no mind to have any more fighting than needs must; our condition at that time not making it proper, the towns round us being all in the enemy's hands, and the country but indifferently pleased with us. However, we stood facing them till they thought fit to march away. Thus we were supplied with horses enough to remount our men, and pursued our first design of getting into Lancashire. for our prisoners, we let them off on foot.

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But the country being by this time alarmed, | and the rout of our army everywhere known, we foresaw abundance of difficulties before us; we were not strong enough to venture into any great towns, and we were too many to be concealed in small ones. Upon this we resolved to halt in a great wood, about three miles beyond the place where we had the last skirmish, and sent out scouts to discover the country, and learn what they could, either of the enemy or of our friends.

Anybody may suppose we had but indifferent quarters here, either for ourselves or for our horses; but, however, we made shift to lie here two days and one night. In the interim I took upon me, with two more, to go to Leeds to learn some news. We were disguised like country ploughmen; the clothes we got at a farmer's house, which for that particular occasion we plundered; and I cannot say no blood was shed in a manner too rash, and which I could not have done at another time; but our case was desperate, and the people too surly, and shot at us out of the window, wounded one man, and shot a horse, which we counted as great a loss to us as a man, for our safety depended upon our horses. Here we got clothes of all sorts, enough for both sexes; and thus, dressing myself up a la paisant, with a white cap on my head, and a fork on my shoulder, and one of my comrades in the farmer's wife's russet gown and petticoat, like a woman; the other with an old crutch like a lame man, and all mounted on such horses as we had taken the day before from the country, away we go to Leeds by three several ways, and agreed to meet upon the bridge. My pretended countrywoman acted her part to the life, though the party was a gentleman of good quality of the Earl of Worcester's family; and the cripple did as well as he; but I thought myself very awkward in my dress, which made me very shy, especially among the soldiers. We passed their sentinels and guards at Leeds unobserved, and put up our horses at several houses in the town, from whence we went up and down to make our remarks. My cripple was the fittest to go among the soldiers, because there was less danger of being pressed. There he informed himself of the matters of war, particularly that the enemy sat down again to the siege of York; that flying parties were in pursuit of the Cavaliers; and there he heard that 500 horse of the Lord Manchester's men had followed a party of Cavaliers over Bramham Moor; and that, entering a lane, the Cavaliers, who were 1000 strong, fell upon them, and killed them all but about fifty. This, though

it was a lie, was very pleasant to us to hear, knowing it was our party because of the other part of the story, which was thus: that the Cavaliers had taken possession of such a wood, where they rallied all the troops of their flying army; that they had plundered the country as they came, taking all the good horses they could get; that they had plundered Goodman Thompson's house, which was the farmer I mentioned, and killed man, woman, and child; and that they were about 2000 strong.

My other friend in woman's clothes got among the good wives at an inn, where she set up her horse, and there she heard the same sad and dreadful tidings; and that this party was so strong, none of the neighbouring garrisons durst stir out, but that they had sent expresses to York for a party of horse to come to their assistance.

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I walked up and down the town, but fancied myself so ill disguised, and so easy to be known, that I cared not to talk with anybody. We met at the bridge exactly at our time, and compared our intelligence, found it answered our end of coming, and that we had nothing to do but to get back to our men; but my cripple told me he would not stir till he bought some victuals: so away he hops with his crutch, and buys four or five great pieces of bacon, as many of hung beef, and two or three loaves; and borrowing a sack at the inn (which I suppose he never restored), he loads his horse, and getting a large leather bottle, he filled that of aqua vitæ instead of small beer; my woman comrade did the like. I was uneasy in my mind, and took no care but to get out of the town. However, we all came off well enough; but it was well for me that I had no provisions with me, as you will hear presently. came, as I said, into the town by several ways, and so we went out; but about three miles from the town we met again exactly where we had agreed. I being about a quarter of a mile from the rest, I met three country fellows on horseback: one had a long pole on his shoulder, another a fork, the third no weapon at all that I saw. I gave them the road very orderly, being habited like one of their brethren; but one of them stopping short at me, and looking earnestly, calls out, Hark thee, friend," says he, in a broad north-country tone, whar hast thou thilk horse?" I must confess I was in the utmost confusion at the question, neither being able to answer the question, nor to speak in his tone; so I made as if I did not hear him, and went on. "Na, but ye's not gang soa,' says the boor, and comes up to me, and takes hold of the horse's

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