Towards Preston, by way of Manchester and Wigan, came General Wills, on behalf of King George. His force numbered only a thousand men, and had the invaders been commanded by a soldier, or even by a civilian of ordinary courage and determination, it is possible the rebellion, of 1715 might have been successful. But Forster was a pitiful fellow. He did not even place Preston in a proper state of defence. It was not a walled town, and barricades were hastily run up on Wills’s approach being made known; but no advantage was taken of the excellent defensible position in advance of the town, where the road ran in a hollow way, and where the bridge across the river in itself could have been successfully held by few. [Sidenote: _ESCAPE OF FORSTER_] Forster, on hearing of Wills’s march, did certainly a more extraordinary thing than ever any other military commander is reported to have done on the approach of the enemy: he went to bed! I believe we could have respected him more had he run away. How it was that the other leaders, the Earls of Derwentwater and Kenmure, merely roused him from his couch, and did not take stronger measures, is a mystery. Better, perhaps, had they done so; for although the barricaded town repulsed the attack made by Wills on the 12th, and indeed inflicted severe loss upon him, Forster agreed to surrender unconditionally, and delivering Lord Derwentwater and Colonel Macintosh as hostages, did actually deliver up the town on the 15th. Meanwhile, the Lancashire Roman Catholics had run away, and none saw the going of them. Fighting at Sheriffmuir and elsewhere in Scotland followed before the rebellion was crushed, but the surrender at Preston marked the end of this incursion upon English soil. Fourteen hundred prisoners were taken, many of considerable standing. Some among them being half-pay officers, were treated as deserters, and were summarily shot: hundreds were consigned to Chester Castle and afterwards sold into slavery overseas; but those who had been the moving spirits were taken to London. Among them were the egregious Forster, Lords Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Carnwath, Widdrington, Wintoun, and Nairn. They reached London on December 9th; riding horseback from Highgate with their arms tied behind their backs, to the sound of the drum: a mock “public entry,” to satirise the hopes they had expressed, in a happier hour, of a triumphal procession into London. On the whole, the Government acted with leniency. Derwentwater and Kenmure were executed, twenty-two rebels were hanged in Lancashire, and four in London; but Lord Nithsdale, exchanging clothes with his wife, fled from the Tower, and others were permitted to escape, or were pardoned after an interval.