both a hundred pikes; whereof I much marvelling, and desiring greatly to know the cause that had moved them to leave the pike, which in my conceit I always judged the strength of the field; happening afterwards in the company of certain French captains, some of them antient in years, and such as were of the religion, I demanded the reason that had moved them to give over that defensible weapon, the pike, and to betake them altogether to shot? Not to any disliking, or other cause, said they, but for that we have not such personable bodies, as you Englishmen have, to bear them; neither have we them at that commandment as you have, but are forced to hire other nations to supply our insufficiency, for of ourselves we cannot say we can make a complete body.
Moreover they affirmed, that in the time of Newhaven, if we had let them have but 6000 of our armed pikes, they would have marched through all France, so highly esteemed they of the pike, who nevertheless in our judgment seem to have given over the fame, or to make small account thereof.
Moreover for the better and readier ordering and training of your men in every shire, those, that are appointed to be private captains, should have under every of their several charges only one sort of weapon, viz. one captain to have the charge of pikes, another of shot, &c. And no man's band to be less than 200 men. By means whereof your serjeant major, or such, to whom you shall commit the order of your footmen, may from time to time readily know the numbers of every sort of weapons, whereby at one instant a skilfull man may range them into any order and form of battle you will have them. And every captain and his officers shall serve with their own men, which is a matter of great contentment both to captain and soldier. For otherwise he have charge of more sorts of weapons, then must he either disjoin himself from his officers in time of service, or else he must commit his men under anotherman's
