Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/454

434 for his best profit.' The services of the mountain cattle-lifters were made valuable to Exeter; for the city, 'being destitute of victuals,' was, 'by their special industry, provided in two days.' An order of council had fixed the wages of the horse employed on this service at tenpence a day, and those of the foot at the usual sixpence, sufficient for their necessities without granting them license of pillage; but it was desired to impress on the country the consequences of insurrection: spoil kept the foreign troops in good humour; and the promise of wages was not always the payment of them.

The ill-treatment of the people, however, served to keep alive bad feeling; and the Cornish falling back towards Dartmoor, made a stand when beyond the risk of immediate attack. Arundel, Pomeroy, Underhill, and others of the leaders held together, and in a few days news came that some thousand of the insurgents were still in arms at Sampford Courtenay. The fire was extinguished at the scene where it was first kindled. The battle which finally gave peace and reformation to the western counties, may be described in the despatch of Lord Russell himself:—

'On Friday, August 15,' he reported, 'we marched from Exeter to Crediton, seven miles off. The way was very cumbrous, and therefore that day we went no further. On Saturday we marched towards the camp at Sampford Courtenay, and by the way our scouts and the rebel scouts encountered upon the Sunday on the sudden; and in a skirmish between them was one Maunders taken, who was