THE SIEGE OF PLYMOUTH. 263 
London. He denied the treason, was reprieved for a while on the 
application of his wife, and at length was executed on Tower Hill, 
December 28rd, 1644. When voting for the execution of Strafford, 
he told Sir Bevill Grenville: ‘‘If I were sure to be the next man 
that would suffer on the same scaffold with the same axe, I would 
give my consent to the passing of it.” It was with the same axe 
that he was beheaded.* Among the witnesses against Carew were 
Mr. Francis, two ministers named Willis and Rundall, Capt. 
Hancock, John Deep, merchant, and Arthur Skinner. Carew’s 
own soldiers are said to have taken him in the very act of 
attempting to introduce Royalist soldiers into the island. The 
probability is that he was one of those who thought that the 
conflict was being carried beyond what had been intended or 
needed when it commenced. 
Exeter surrendered to Prince Maurice on the 4th September ; 
and Clarendon holds that if Maurice had then marched directly 
upon Plymouth, it would have yielded at his approach, + such was 
the discouragement the loss of Exeter caused, and so little was 
the town provided to sustain an attack. Maurice resolved to take 
Dartmouth on his way, having all the disinclination of the old 
school of generals to leave even a weak enemy in his rear or on 
his flank; and the Parliament took advantage of the consequent 
month’s delay to send 500 or 600 soldiers by sea from Portsmouth 
to Plymouth, under Col. Wardlaw—appointed commander-in-chief 
of the town—and Col. Gould. Passing Dartmouth, they left 100 
men there, and came on to Plymouth with the remainder. This 
addition to the garrison made the place secure. ‘The mayor, 
according to Clarendon, was in no very good heart; while the 
inhabitants were afraid they would lose their trade and become 
only soldiers. Col. Wardlaw, however, took the defence of the 
town vigorously in hand. 
We have seen what the defensive works were—the unfinished 
wall; the partially-connected outworks of Lipson, Holwell, 
Maudlyn, Pennycomequick, and Eldad; the detached works at 
Mount Stamford, Laira Point, Stonehouse, and Cattedown. Our 
materials for arriving at the strength of the garrison which manned 
them are scanty. In 1740 the population of Plymouth is said to 
have been 8,400. A hundred years previously it could not have 
* Duepatg, “Short View of the late Troubles,” p. 198. 
+ Vol. ii. p. 590. 
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