The Dutch officers had planned a night attack in force on the British camp at Muizenburg. When they were about to attempt it, there arrived, on the 4th of September, a fleet of East Indiamen bringing the main body of the British re-enforcements. These consisted of infantry of the line, engineers and artillerymen, numbering, in all, three thousand troops under the command of General Alured Clarke. This had the effect of so completely discouraging the burgher cavalry that many of them gave up hope and returned to their homes. By the 14th of September only five hundred and twenty-one of this branch of the colonial force remained in the ranks. Once more, on the 9th of September, the British commanders issued an address to the colonists calling upon them to give peaceable admission to the overwhelming force now at their gates, and warning them that, otherwise, they would take forcible possession. Commissioner Sluysken replied, as before, that he would hold and defend the colony for its rightful owners, for so he was bound to do by his oath of office. The English army in two columns, between four and five thousand strong, marched from Muizenburg to attack Cape Town, at 9 o’clock in the morning of the 14th of September. This movement was signaled to the colonial officers at the Cape, who ordered all the burgher cavalry, with the exception of one company, to the support of the regular troops at Cape Town. A part of the burgher force was sent out to strengthen the Dutch camp at Wynberg, about half way from Muizenburg to Cape Town on the route of the British. Some attempt was made to harass the columns on the march, but with so little effect that only one was killed and seventeen were wounded. Major Van Baalen, then in command of the regular troops at Wynberg, arranged a line of battle that was faulty in the extreme, and planted his cannon in such position that they were practically useless as weapons of offense against the advancing army. Certain officers of the artillery and of the burgher militia contingent remonstrated against his plan of battle, but it was in vain, and when the English came within gunfire he retreated with the greater part of the regulars. Then followed a scene of confusion. The burghers protested, and cried out that they were being betrayed in every battle. One company of infantry and most of the artillery made a brief stand and then retreated toward Cape Town, leaving the camp and all its belongings to the British.