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Foster had been appointed General of the insurgents, not for 
any capacity on his part for military affairs, but because he was the 
popular Member of Parliament for the county of Northumberland, 
in the prime of life, and particularly because being a Protestant, he 
was expected to conciliate those Jacobites who were not Roman 
Catholics. This appointment was most unfortunate. He was 
accused of cowardice, but there is no reason to believe he lacked 
personal courage ; he was simply powerless through his incapacity, 
The insurgents in the town prepared for a vigorous defence. 
The gentlemen volunteers were drawn up in the churchyard, under 
the command of Lord Derwentwater and his brother, Mr. Charles 
Radcliffe. Both of them behaved with the utmost intrepidity, 
urging them by words and example to behave with courage suitable 
to the emergency of the occasion; and they maintained their 
ground for a long time, and behaved so well, that they obliged the 
King’s forces to retire. During the whole action Charles Radcliffe 
was in the midst of the fire, and exposed to as much danger as the 
common soldiers. But the rebels being now invested on all sides, 
Mr. Foster proposed a capitulation, which the Highlanders 
opposed, and Mr. Radcliffe protested against, and said that “he 
would rather die with his sword in his hand, like a man of honour, 
than be dragged like a felon to the gallows, to be there hanged 
like a dog.” 
In this “scene of unavoidable destruction,” says Sir Walter 
Scott, “the English gentlemen began to think on the means of 
saving their lives and returning to their homes and estates, while 
most of their Scottish allies were in favour of sallying out sword in 
hand, and preferred death to a base submission.” General Foster 
was disheartened, however, and it was said that, acting on the 
advice of Colonel Oxburgh, he sent him to propose a capitulation 
without the knowledge of his principal colleagues. The majority 
being against Charles Radcliffe, once more he was obliged to yield 
with the rest. 
Whole hecatombs of prisoners were cruelly sacrificed to the 
Moloch which the Parliament had set up. Thirty-four met with 
their death at Liverpool by the hands of the executioners. Among 
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