Page:15 decisive battles of the world Vol 2 (London).djvu/134

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
126
DEFEAT OF

all the twelve thousand Kentish soldiers arrive at the Nesse, ere the enemy can be ready to disembarque bis army, so that he will find it unsafe to land in the face of so many prepared to withstand him, yet must we believe that he will play the best of his own game (having liberty to go which way he list), and under covert of the night, set sail towards the east, where what shall hinder him to take ground either at Margat, the Downes, or elsewhere, before they, at the Nesse, can be well aware of his departure? Certainly, there is nothing more easy than to do it. Yes, the like may be said of Weymouth, Purbeck, Poole, and of all landing places on the south-west. For there is no man ignorant, that ships, without putting themselves out of breath, will easily outrun the souldiers that coast them. 'Les armées ne volent point en poste;' — 'Armies neither flye, nor run post,' saith a marshal of France. And I know it to be true, that a fleet of ships may be seen at sunset, and after it at the Lizard, yet by the next morning they may recover Portland, whereas an army of foot shall not be able to march it in six dayes. Again, when those troops lodged on the sea-shores, shall be forced to run from place to place in vain, after a fleet of ships, they will at length sit down in the mid-way, and leave all at adventure. But say it were otherwise, that the invading enemy