The war had not opened well for the Parliamentary side, and their especial weakness was evidently in cavalry—the arm by which decisive battles in the open field were won. Cromwell, with unerring eye, saw the weakness and started to remedy it. It is about this time that his famous conversation with Hampden took place. Said Cromwell: “Your troops are most of them old decayed serving-men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; and their troops are gentlemen’s sons, younger sons, and persons of quality; do you think that the spirits of such base, mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honor and courage and resolution in them?... You must get men of a spirit; and take it not ill what I say—I know you will not—of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go, or else you will be beaten still.... I raised such men as had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they did, and from that day forward they were never beaten.” The famous Presbyterian clergyman, Baxter, who was by no means friendly to Cromwell, described his special care to get religious men into his troop; men of greater intelligence than common soldiers, who enlisted, not for the money, but from an earnest sense of public duty. Naturally, said Baxter, these troopers “having more than ordinary wit and resolution had more than ordinary success.” [Illustration: Fac-simile of Letter from Oliver Cromwell to Mr. Storie, written January 1, 1635; said to be the earliest extant letter in Cromwell’s handwriting. From the original in The British Museum. ]