contend against fourfold odds. The most active infantry could not
outrun horsemen. Yet the leaders, probably despairing of pardon,
urged the men to try the chance of battle. In that region, a spot
almost surrounded by swamps and pools was without difficulty
found. Here the insurgents were drawn up; and the cannon were
planted at the only point which was thought not to be
sufficiently protected by natural defences. Ginkell ordered the
attack to be made at a place which was out of the range of the
guns; and his dragoons dashed gallantly into the water, though it
was so deep that their horses were forced to swim. Then the
mutineers lost heart. They beat a parley, surrendered at
discretion, and were brought up to London under a strong guard.
Their lives were forfeit: for they had been guilty, not merely of
mutiny, which was then not a legal crime, but of levying war
against the King. William, however, with politic clemency,
abstained from shedding the blood even of the most culpable. A
few of the ringleaders were brought to trial at the next Bury
assizes, and were convicted of high treason; but their lives were
spared. The rest were merely ordered to return to their duty. The
regiment, lately so refractory, went submissively to the
Continent, and there, through many hard campaigns, distinguished
itself by fidelity, by discipline, and by valour.47

This event facilitated an important change in our polity, a
change which, it is true, could not have been long delayed, but
which would not have been easily accomplished except at a moment
of extreme danger. The time had at length arrived at which it was
necessary to make a legal distinction between the soldier and the
citizen. Under the Plantagenets and the Tudors there had been no
standing army. The standing army which had existed under the last