Cornish Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

General Carpenter, who had been marching into Scotland, turned back into Northumberland, and by forced marches had reached Durham, where he combined with General Wills, who had been sent some time before into the north to quell the many riots that preluded the insurrection.

Wills concentrated six regiments of cavalry, for the most part newly raised, but commanded by experienced officers, at Manchester, whence he moved to Wigan. There it was arranged that Wills should march straight upon Preston, while Carpenter, advancing in another direction, should take the insurgents in flank. As the Hanoverians approached, General Forster, who commanded the Jacobites, gave satisfactory evidence that he was no soldier; he fell into a fright and confusion, and betook himself to bed. But Lord Kenmure roused him, and in a hurried council, where all the gentlemen had a voice, and where those spoke loudest who knew least of war, a plan of defending Preston was adopted. But the plan, at least as executed, consisted merely in throwing up some barricades in the streets and in posting some men in defence of them. Brigadier Mackintosh either knew not the ground or his better judgment was overruled; for Preston offered many advantages as a defensive position which were altogether neglected. In front of the town was a bridge over the Ribble, that might have been held by a handful of men, and from the bridge to the town, for a distance of a mile, the road ran through a hollow between steep banks for a mile. But river, bridge, and road were all left undefended. When Wills rode up to the bridge and saw that it was unprotected he could hardly believe his eyes; and then he concluded that the insurgents must have abandoned Preston and begun their retreat into Scotland, so that there would be no fighting that day.

But as he came to the outskirts of the town, he heard a tumultuous noise within, and saw the barricades that Forster had thrown up, and was saluted by a shower of bullets. He ordered his dragoons to dismount and attack two of the barricades. This service was gallantly performed; but the regulars were sorely galled by a fire from the houses as well as from the barricades.

As night was falling Wills withdrew his men, after they had suffered considerable loss. Early on the following morning General Carpenter came up with a part of his cavalry; and then Forster, who had scarcely lost a man, and whose force more than doubled that of the regular troops, lost heart entirely, and without consulting his friends, sent Colonel Oxburgh to propose a capitulation.

General Wills, irritated at the loss he had sustained on the preceding evening, seemed at first disposed to reject the proposition altogether; but at last he agreed "that, if the rebels would lay down their arms and surrender at discretion, he would protect them from being cut to pieces by the soldiers, until further orders from the Government."

When Oxburgh's mission was known in the town, and the result of it, the more warlike portion of the insurgents were indignant and railed against the coward Forster; and so incensed were they against him that, according to an eye-witness, if he had ventured into the street, he would infallibly have been torn to pieces.

The brave Highlanders, seeing that nothing was to be expected from the Lancastrian boors who had joined them, proposed rushing with sword in hand and cutting their way through the King's troops. But their leaders thought this too hazardous a proceeding and counselled surrender. They gave up Lord Derwentwater and Colonel Mackintosh as hostages, and induced the clans to lay down their arms and submit. Including English and Scotch, only seventeen men had been killed in the defence of Preston.

The Lancastrian peasants got away out of the town, but fourteen hundred men were made prisoners by a thousand, or at the outside twelve hundred English horse. Among those captured were Lords Derwentwater, Widdrington, Nithsdale, Winton, Carnwark, Kenmure, Nairn, and Charles Murray. There were others, members of ancient and honourable families of the north, of Scotland, and of Lancashire.

The invasion of England by the Jacobites had thus ended ingloriously. The noblemen and gentlemen of rank and influence who were taken were sent to London in charge of Brigadier Panter and a hundred men of Lumley's Horse.