THE SIEGE OF PLYMOUTH. 277 
your Rebellion wil never be clad with: You advise us to consider the great 
charges we have beene at, and the future dangers we runn our selves into, 
by making our selves enemies to his Majesty, who more desires our good 
than we our selves, & thus would have us prepare conditions for Peace. 
That we have bin at great charges already we are sufficiently sensible, & 
yet resolve that it shall not any way lessen our affections to that cause, with 
which God hath honoured us, by making us instruments to plead it against 
the malicious adversaries. If the King be our enemy, yet Oxford cannot 
proove that we have made him so. That his Majestie desires our wel-fare 
we can easily admit, as well as that its the mischievous Councellors so neere 
him who render him cruel to his most faithful subjects: & as for our 
proposing conditions of peace, we shall most gladly do it when it may 
advance the publique service; but to do it to the enemies of peace, though 
we have bin thereto formerly invited, yet hath it pleased the disposer of all 
things to preserve us from the necessity of it, & to support us against all 
the fury of the inraged enemy. ‘The same God is still our rock and refuge, 
under whose wings we doubt not of protection & safety, when the Seducers 
of a King shall die like a candle, and that name which by such courses is 
sought to be perpetual in honor, shall end in ignominy. For the want of 
money to pay the Parliaments souldiers, though it be not such as you would 
persuade us, yet certain we are their treasury had now bin greater, and 
honest men better satisfied, but that some as unfaithful as your selfe have 
gone before you in betraying them both of their trust & riches. Whereas 
you mind us of the lost condition of our town, sure it cannot be you should 
be so truly persuaded of it, as they are of your personall, who subscribe 
themselves, and so remaine friends to the faithfull. 
Grenville enclosed a book entitled the ‘ Iniquity of the Covenant.” 
This was burnt in the market-place (somewhere in Whimple Street, 
I take it), by the hands of the common hangman (then apparently 
a town official), by order of the Council of War. Moreover, a 
proclamation was made that all those who had any of these books, 
and did not bring them forth, should be held and dealt with as 
enemies to the State and Town. 
Colonel Martin was a commander of decision and vigour. He 
acted upon the offensive, to prevent the enemy from taking up 
close quarters again; but the Cavaliers, as the year wore on, 
gradually drew their circle narrower. The garrison must have 
received some reinforcements. Our only definite information is 
the statements, that certain of the prisoners captured took the 
covenant and enlisted on the Parliamentary side; and (in a 
despatch by Martin himself) that men from all parts came in 
daily, but that there was no money to pay them. 
Martin’s earliest movement of importance was an assault upon 
St. Budeaux. Hearing that 500 Cavaliers were quartered there, he 
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