foot went and engaged themselves to bring off the dragoons, and the reserve fell on to bring off the forlorn hope; and being thus far engaged, the general being on the field, and seeing the general resolution of the soldiery, held fit that the whole regiments in order after them should fall on. And so both sides were accordingly engaged in the dark for some two hours, till we beat them from the hedges and within their barricadoes, which were very strong, and where some of their men disputed the entrance of our forces with push of pike and butt-end of musket for a long time. At last it pleased God to give us the victory, our foot first entering the town, and afterwards the horse, who chased the enemy through the town, the Lord Hopton, bringing up the rear, had his horse shot dead under him in the middle of the town, their horse once facing about in the street, caused our foot to retreat, but more of our horse coming up pursued them to the bridges, and through the other barricadoes at the further end of the town, where we had no sooner placed guards at the several avenues, and had drawn our whole army of foot and most of our horse into the town, but the magazine of near eighty barrels of powder, which the lord Hopton had in the church, was fired by a desperate villain, one Watts, whom the enemy had hired with thirty pounds for that purpose, as he himself confessed the next day, when he was pulled out from under the rubbish and timber, and the lead, stones, timber, and iron work of the church were blown up into the air and scattered all over the town and fields about it where our forces were; yet it pleased God miraculously to preserve the army, that few were slain besides the enemy’s (that were prisoners in the church where the magazine was blown up), and most of our men that guarded them who were killed and buried in the ruins: and here was God’s great mercy unto us, that the general being there in the streets escaped with his life so narrowly, there falling a web of lead with all its force which killed the horse of one master Rhoads of the lifeguard who was thereon next to the general in the street, but doing neither him nor the general any hurt. There were taken in the town about 600 prisoners besides officers, great store of arms (the lanes and fields being bestrewn with them), all their foot were scattered, their horse fled that night towards Cornwall in great confusion: the prisoners we took confessed they had about 4,000 foot and 4,000 horse at least; the service was very hot, we had many wounded, it was stoutly maintained on both sides for the time.