Manchurian Books

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The transport of Eustace, at such a proof of confidence, may be readily
conceived, and he now felt assured that he should expunge all the stains
on his reputation. But ill-fortune and misconduct still attended him, as
indeed they did the army to which he was attached. The bands of
discipline had been too long relaxed. The general of the infantry
refused to obey Lord Hopton, and was committed to prison, to intimidate
other mutineers; and though his rapine and extortion had excited
universal odium, so low was the general feeling of justice, that his
punishment caused yet greater discontent than his rapacity had done. The
troops were as corrupted as their leaders; only a small body of horse
and a few companies of volunteers, chiefly composed of gentlemen, could
be depended upon, in an army drawn up in the extremity of the kingdom,
to defend the last holds of Royalty, and protect the heir of the crown
from sharing the fate of his father, who was at this time a prisoner in
the Scotch army at Newcastle, and scarce treated with the decency of
external respect.


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