into a pound and there tied and pinioned them together, where they so stood for many hours, some of them stripped to their shirts, others to their breeches, most without stockings or shoes, and in that condition removed to the slaughter-house, where they lay all night, and next day were dragged away over Houndslow Heath towards Oatlands, divers of them bare foot and bare leg over fur and thistles till their feet and legs did bleed, and were sorely galled. But these may be accounted acts of grace and favor in comparison to what they did to others of them; for when divers of Master Holles, his soldiers, fled into the Thames for safeguard of their lives, they shot at them as they were swimming, and divers of them were drowned.” “They took, after the fight ended, five of the Earl of Essex his soldiers, and tied by the hands with ropes, inforced them into the river Thames, who standing in the water to their necks, casting their eyes on their enemies in hopes of mercy; but, such was the merciless condition of their adversaries, that a trooper ran in the water after them, and forced them to fall into the depth of the water, crying to them in a jeering manner, swim for your lives, when it was past all possibility to escape. Here had their barbarous carriage begun and ended in the heat of blood and revenge, had a little qualified their offence; but so full of inhumanity was their hearts, even before the fight at Old Brainford, with Colonel Holles, his regiment, that they placed ten of the Earl of Essex his soldiers, whom they had formerly taken prisoners at Kingston, pinioned in the front of their men to be as a breastwork to receive the bullets that came from Colonel Holles, his regiment, that the Cavaliers might escape them; but such was the providence of God, that not one of them was hurt, though shot in the clothes in many places, and one of the ten escaped, who was formerly a sergeant to a company in Colonel Essex, his regiment, and in the presence of divers witnesses averred the truth of this particular. And now since it appears by the prodigious acts of rapine, devastation, and tyranny, that these men delight in cruelty, and fight against their own associates, and spoil those that favour their own cause with those that oppose it, what remains but that they be taken not for such as endeavour the defence of the King, but the ruin of the Kingdom, and not as enemies of some kind of men, but as the common enemies of mankind; and, therefore, mankind should join together against them, as it was said of Ishmael, ‘His hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.’” To this precious and characteristic document which was ordered by Parliament to be published, the King’s advisers thought it necessary to reply at length, and to that reply Parliament replied, and so for a time rebutter and surrebutter were shuttlecocked between the parties in a dispute which must end in the awful issue of civil war.