When it was learned in Dublin that the plot was known in London, Ormond easily saw what a blow the affairs of the king had sustained even among his own party. He immediately caused Glamorgan to be arrested as having exceeded his powers. The earl kept his counsel, and did not produce the secret documents signed "Charles," which he held in his hands. He even said that the king was not bound to ratify what he had thought himself able to promise for him. On his part, Charles hastened to disown the affair in the proclamation which he addressed to the Houses, as well as in his official letters to the Council of Dublin. Glamorgan, he said, had no other mission than to recruit soldiers and to second the efforts of the Lord Lieutenant. Neither Parliament nor the people believed this. Glamorgan, being soon released, recommenced his attempts to assemble an Irish army to proceed to England. In reply, the command of Cromwell, already several times renewed, was again prolonged, and the king found himself compelled to resume hostilities as though he had been in a position to sustain them. The last remnants of the royalist armies still fought, but without ardor and without hope. When the Prince of Wales found himself abandoned by his generals, Goring and Grenville, he implored Sir Ralph, now Lord Hopton, to resume command of the troops in the west. "Your Highness," replied the brave soldier, "I cannot obey you without resigning myself to the sacrifice of my honor, for with the troops which you have entrusted to me how can I preserve it? {146} Their friends alone fear them; their enemies despise them; they are only terrible on the day of pillage; and only determined when they are resolved to fly. However, since your Highness has judged it well to summon me, I am ready to follow you at the risk of losing my honor;" and he resumed the command of seven or eight thousand men who detested him, and to whom his discipline was odious. On the 16th of February he was defeated by Fairfax at Torrington, upon the borders of Cornwall. All the troops that had remained with him were dispersed. Fairfax pursued him, while the Prince of Wales, driven into a corner at the Land's End, in Cornwall, embarked for the Scilly Isles, being unwilling to leave English soil. Fairfax offered honorable conditions. Hopton, free from all anxiety as to the safety of the prince, desired to attempt once more to fight with the small corps which he had re-formed with great difficulty; but the soldiers called upon him to capitulate. "Bargain, then," said Hopton, "but not for me." He embarked with Lord Chapel to join the Prince of Wales. The king now possessed in the south-west only insignificant garrisons, scattered in a few towns.