Their numbers were here augmented in a short time to about five thousand, chiefly peasants and farmers of Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, and Galloway, but comprising also a few gentlemen of property, though none of any note. Hamilton continued to exercise a nominal command, though rather from his having been the leading man at the commencement, than from any idea of his fitness for the situation. All of them had arms, and many of them horses; but there was neither discipline, nor any attempt to impose it. The whole insurrection proceeded upon mere impulse. The unfortunate people acted, it would appear, simply from the pressure of immediate circumstances, glad to protect themselves, for a while, even at the risk of utter destruction, against an oppression they could no longer endure. The Privy Council collected all its disposable forces at Edinburgh, and requested instructions from the court. It was speedily determined that the Duke of Monmouth should be sent down to take command of the army. This was the eldest natural son of the king; a youth of amiable character, anxious for popularity, and intimately connected with the English non-conformists, whom he expected to favour him in his views upon the succession. The duke arrived in Edinburgh on the 19th of June, and led forward the army to meet the insurgents. He marched very slowly, in order, as was supposed, to afford them an opportunity of dispersing; but they shewed no disposition to avail themselves of his kindness. They had spent the three weeks during which they had existed as an army, not in training themselves to arms, or arranging themselves into proper divisions, but in disputing about the spiritual objects for which they were in arms. One great cause of division was the Indulgence, which some were for condemning, and others for overlooking; they were also greatly divided as to the propriety of acknowledging their allegiance to the king. In these abstractions they lost all view of practical measures. They called such things ‘trusting in the arm of flesh,’ for which, of course, they could adduce an abundance of condemnatory texts.