Page:The Siege of London - Posteritas - 1885.djvu/66

 columns attempted to follow, but found it impossible without guides to keep from sinking into the quicksands, and none of the fishermen on the beach could be tempted by any amount of money to lead their foes across. The retreating English thus secured breathing time, and the French were compelled to march round the head of the Frith to Carlisle.

Finding no British troops there, and having ascertained that the remnants of the shattered British northern army which had escaped by crossing the sands were on their way south by train, the French commander determined not to halt longer than was necessary for all his forces to come up. He had lost heavily at the "Battle of Carlisle," for 630 had been killed and 2,000 wounded; while the British losses were 410 killed and about 1,300 wounded.

Leaving a garrison behind in Carlisle, together with all his wounded and his prisoners, the French commander pushed on to co-operate with the invaders from the south in opening the projected siege operations, the aim being to reach London before any great number of troops could be concentrated in the capital. The French marched rapidly, considering their numbers and their impedimenta. They went through Cumberland and Westmoreland, into Yorkshire, and thence on to Derby. On the road they met with no opposition or annoyance beyond what an irritated population could show; the country was denuded of troops, regular and irregular, for they had all been ordered to rendezvous at London. The spirit of hostility on the part of the people seemed to culminate at Derby, where it found vent in a tremendous outbreak of patriotic enthusiasm and wrath. Peasants and labourers in the field called down curses upon the heads of the invaders, but the townspeople of Derby displayed their animosity in a more practical way. When it was announced that the French were marching on Derby, 300 navvies were set to work by a committee of the citizens to open a wide ditch in the centre of the road for about 100 yards, and this was filled with barrels of gunpowder with the heads knocked in, and quantities of guncotton and dynamite. This was all covered over with large blocks of stone, and on the top of that again a layer of dirt to give the road its usual appearance. This deadly mine