The Prince, upon his arrival at Derby, resolved to halt for one day, and to take the advice of his council what was to be done at this juncture. His hopes were high, and his confidence in the good-will of the people of England to his cause was unabated. He continued to entertain the notion that George the Second was an usurper, for whom no man would willingly draw his sword; that "the people of England, as was their duty, still nourished that allegiance for the race of their native Princes which they were bound to hold sacred, and that if he did but persevere in his daring attempt, Heaven itself would fight in his cause." His conversation, when at table, beneath the roof of Exeter House, turned on the discussion "how he should enter London, whether on foot, or on horseback, or whether in Highland or in Lowland garb."[125] Nor was Charles Edward singular in his sanguine state of mind. It was observed, says Mr. Maxwell, "that the army never was in better spirits than while at Derby."[126] The judgment which Lord George Murray had formed at Manchester, remained, however, unaltered by all these expectations. On the following morning, when the council met, he represented to the Prince that they had marched so far into the country, depending on French succours, or on an insurrection, neither of which had taken place; that the Prince's army, by itself, was wholly unprepared to face the troops which the "Elector of Hanover," as Lord George denominated him, had assembled. Besides General Wade's army, which was coming to oppose them, and that of the Duke of Cumberland, forming together a force of between seventeen and eighteen thousand strong, there was a third army, encamped on Finchley Common, of which George the Second was going to take the command in person. Even supposing that the Prince should be successful in an engagement with one of these armies, "he might be undone by a victory." The loss of one thousand or fifteen hundred men would incapacitate the rest of his small force from another encounter; and supposing that he was routed in that country, he and all his friends must unavoidably be killed. On the whole, including the army formed at London, there would be a force of thirty thousand men to oppose an army of five thousand fighting men; that before such a host, pursued Lord George,[127] "it could not be supposed one man could escape; for the militia, who had not appeared much against us hitherto, would, upon our defeat, possess all the roads, and the enemy's horse would surround us on all hands; that the whole world would blame us as being rash and foolish, to venture a thing that could not succeed, and the Prince's person, should he escape being killed in the battle, must fall into the enemy's hands."