"Great alarm," he says, "has been felt about an insurrection of Sectaries in different localities; some had assembled in the neighbourhood of York, with the intention of taking it by surprise; and, at the distance of twenty leagues from London, Colonel Lambert had gathered together a body of cavalry, which the first accounts stated to consist of three hundred men. Orders were immediately given to send against him most of the troops which are in London; the levy of the London militia was directed to hold itself in readiness, and that of several counties, which has not been set on foot, to be placed within the hands of persons considered to be too violent Royalists, was also ordered out. At the same time, some of the most distinguished Sectaries, both in this city and in the country, were arrested, and the General was making preparations to go and attack Lambert before he could increase his forces; but news arrived, at the end of last week, that he had only two or three hundred men; and, this morning, we were informed of his defeat by a party of six hundred horse, without much bloodshed; his troops having abandoned him one after another, he was taken prisoner with a few others who have been officers in the Army, and they are on their way to London. The militia were immediately countermanded, and the universal topic of conversation now is the punishment of the offenders, whose leader was proclaimed a traitor on the day before yesterday. "His capture seems entirely to ruin all his party, against which the people entertain so great an aversion, that, unless the old troops had mutinied, it could not have met with better fortune. Some Royalists could have wished it to hold out a little longer, in the hope that the present authorities would have been thereby compelled to hasten the return of the King upon more advantageous conditions, whereas they will now have entire liberty to act, and will, perhaps, impose harsher conditions, as they have nothing to fear from the Sectaries." [Sidenote: 1660.]