Another despatch from Mr. Edgar Hamilton, of the _Tribune_, was published in that journal on Friday, the 14th September:-- “BRENTWOOD, _Thursday, September 13, 1910_. “The events of the last three days have been so tremendous, so involved, and so disastrous to us as a nation, that I hardly know how to deal with them. It is no news now that we have again been beaten, and beaten badly. The whole right of our line of defence has been driven back in disorder, and we are now practically at the ‘last ditch.’ The remnants of that fine force which has, up to now, not only been able to hold the Saxon Army in check, but even to be within an ace of beating it at the memorable battle of Purleigh, less than a week ago, is now occupying the entrenchments which have been under construction ever since the landing of the Germans, and which form a section of the works that have been planned for the defence of the metropolis. “Here, too, are portions of the Braintree Army Corps and some of the troops lately constituting the garrison of Colchester, whom I accompanied on their night march out of that city when it had been decided to abandon it. We have only the vaguest rumours as to what has happened to the other portion of the 1st Army Corps that was occupying Dunmow and the upper part of the river Chelmer. We can only hope that these troops, or at any rate a considerable portion of them, have been able to gain the shelter of the defensive enceinte to the north-westward. It is to be feared this reverse will necessitate the retreat of the Second, Third, and Fourth Armies from Saffron Walden, Royston, and Baldock, that position which they so gallantly defended against the flower of the German Army, emerging victorious from the glorious battle of Royston. For to stay where they are, in the face of the combined forward movement of the IXth, Xth, and XIIth Corps of the invaders, and the rumoured resumption of the offensive by the two corps defeated before Royston, would be to court being outflanked and cut off from the rest of our forces at a time when every single soldier is urgently required to man the northern portion of the defences of London.