The situation had become so urgent that Cromwell resolved to fall back upon Dunbar, in order to wait there for convoys and reinforcements. From there it was possible, if the supplies were too long delayed, to regain the English border. {221} Upon the way, Lesley, having at length issued forth from his camp, constantly harassed the English. Scarcely had they arrived at Dunbar, when they found their retreat cut off by a considerable detachment occupying the defile of Copperspath, "so narrow," said Cromwell himself, "that ten men to hinder are better than forty to make their way." Lesley yielded to the solicitations and anger of the fanatics. He had hitherto carefully avoided battle, being satisfied with driving before him every day the famous Ironsides and their invincible general, without endeavoring to measure his strength with them. But the ministers were eager to enjoy the glory of victory, and called upon the general not to suffer the enemy to escape whom God had delivered into their hands. "They had disposed of us," said Cromwell, "and of their business by sufficient revenge and wrath towards our persons, and had swallowed up the poor interest of England, believing that their army and their king would have marched to London without any interruption." Lesley resisted no longer. "To-morrow, at seven o'clock in the morning," he said, on the 2d of September, to his officers, "the English army will be ours, dead or alive." At this moment Cromwell was leaving a prayer-meeting, and he mounted on horseback, with Lambert, his major-general. Surveying with his telescope the positions of the Scottish army, he was struck by the movement which was taking place among the enemy. Lesley was preparing to throw himself across his passage with all his troops. Cromwell was only anxious to fight. "The Lord delivers them into our hands; they come!" he exclaimed, and he proposed to his officers to forestall the Scots and marched towards them. Monk vigorously supported the opinion of the general, and solicited the command of the infantry of the advanced guard. The English spent the night in preparing for the struggle. {222}