thereat settled on certain creditable persons in the town, of a
known principle, as the fittest to be officers under the command of
Mr Pipe, as commandant, and Mr Dinton, as his colleague under him.
We agreed among us, as the custom was in other places, that they
should be elected major, captain, lieutenants, and ensigns, by the
free votes of the whole corps, according to the degrees that we had
determined for them. In the doing of this, and the bringing it to
pass, my skill and management was greatly approved and extolled by
all who had a peep behind the curtain.

The town-council being, as I have intimated, convened to hear the
gracious answer to the address read, and to take into consideration
the suggesting anent the volunteering, met in the clerk's chamber,
where we agreed to call a meeting of the inhabitants of the town by
proclamation, and by a notice in the church. This being determined,
Mr Pipe and Mr Dinton got a paper drawn up, and privately, before
the Sunday, a number of their genteeler friends, including those
whom we had noted down to be elected officers, set their names as
willing to be volunteers.

On the Sunday, Mr Pittle, at my instigation, preached a sermon,
showing forth the necessity of arming ourselves in the defence of
all that was dear to us. It was a discourse of great method and
sound argument, but not altogether so quickened with pith and bir as
might have been wished for; but it paved the way to the reading out
of the summons for the inhabitants to meet the magistrates in the
church on the Thursday following, for the purpose, as it was worded
by the town-clerk, to take into consideration the best means of
saving the king and kingdom in the then monstrous crisis of public
affairs.