DORSET SOLDIERS. 51 



Picardy. The drafts for Ireland in the years 1578, 1581, 

 1586, and from 1598 to 1601 certainly absorbed over 1,000 

 men, and, it is stated, 798 were sent out of the county to 

 various parts in the ten years ending in 1598. Dorset men 

 also fought under Sir John Norreys in his hardly-won 

 partial successes in Brittany and Normandy between 1591 

 and 1593, and in 1596 were sent to defend Boulogne on 

 behalf of the French against the Spaniards. Levies from 

 the county were also present (apparently ten companies 

 strong) at the capture of Cadiz in 1596, and at the unsuccessful 

 attack on the same place in 1625, and they shared of course 

 in most of the wars in the Low Countries, and were once or 

 twice required for the defence of Jersey and Guernsey. The 

 English forces who attempted to relieve Rochelle in 1627 and 

 1628 included some hundreds of Dorset troops, who, if they 

 suffered in the same proportion as their other English 

 comrades, lost considerably more than half their number 

 at the disastrous landing on the Isle of Rhe. Three hundred 

 were despatched to Dover in 1623 to be embarked for foreign 

 service, but I have been unable to ascertain their destination. 

 That these men, who for the most part went to the wars 

 so unwillingly and were formed of such unpromising material 

 for soldiers, acquitted themselves well when face to face 

 with an enemy was proved on several occasions. We can 

 know so little of them individually that it may not be out 

 of place to mention two whose names have been met with 

 by chance. John Mason, a carpenter, of Nether bury, stated 

 in 1630 that by procurement of his brother he was pressed 

 for Cadiz, and afterwards for the Isle of Rhe, where he was 

 severely wounded, and found on his return home that his 

 brother had taken possession of copyhold which should have 

 descended to him. The other soldier was more fortunate. 

 Erancis Coffin, of Sherborne and later of Weymouth, a shoe- 

 maker, had been pressed for Ireland about 1607, and in the 

 course of twenty years' service there managed to accumulate 

 considerable property, no doubt in the form of loot. These 

 two cases are likely to have been typical of many others. 



