his mistake, and got to Northampton, between the Highlanders and London.
They got nine thousand pounds at Derby, and had the books brought to
them, and obliged everybody to give them what they had subscribed
against them. Then they retreated a few miles, but returned again to
Derby, got ten thousand pounds more, plundered the town, and burnt a
house of the Countess of Exeter. They are gone again, and go back to
Leake, in Staffordshire, but miserably harassed, and, it is said, have
left all their cannon behind them, and twenty waggons of sick. The Duke
has sent General Hawley with the dragoons to harass them in their
retreat, and despatched Mr. Conway to Marshal Wade, to hasten his march
upon the back of them. They must either go to North Wales, where they
will probably all perish, or to Scotland, with great loss. We dread them
no longer. We are threatened with great preparations for a French
invasion, but the coast is exceedingly guarded; and for the people, the
spirit against the rebels increases every day. Though they have marched
thus into the heart of the kingdom, there has not been the least symptom
of a rising, nor even in the great towns of which they possessed
themselves. They have got no recruits since their first entry into
England, excepting one gentleman in Lancashire, one hundred and fifty
common men, and two parsons, at Manchester, and a physician from York.
But here in London, the aversion to them is amazing: on some thoughts of
the King's going to an encampment at Finchley,[1] the weavers not only
offered him a thousand men, but the whole body of the Law formed
themselves into a little army, under the command of Lord Chief Justice
Willes, and were to have done duty at St. James's, to guard the royal
family in the King's absence.

[Footnote 1: The troops which were being collected for the Duke of
Cumberland, as soon as he should arrive from the Continent, to march
with against the Pretender, were in the meantime encamped on Finchley