Lord Essex having conducted a large army into Cornwall, was followed by the King in person, till they approached so near that the King had his head quarters at Boconnoc, and Lord Essex at Lanhidrock, when, after various skirmishes and proposals for negotiation on the part of the King, Lord Essex at last, on the 30th or 31st of August 1644, accompanied by Lord Robartes, and some other officers, abandoned his army, and reached Plymouth by sea; and on the same day Sir William Belfour, with Col. Nicholas Boscowen, Lieut.-Col. James Hals, of Merther, Henry Courtenay, of St. Bennet’s in Lanivet, Col. John Sentaubyn of Clawanar, his Lieut.-Col. Briddon, Col. Carter, and others of the horde of two thousand five hundred cavalry, forced their passage through the King’s army, over St. Winnow, Boconnoc, and Bradock Downs, to Saltash, and from thence to Plymouth. Their escape is said to have been mainly owing to the negligence of General Goring, whose ill conduct and exactions in Cornwall, have left his name as a term of severe reproach up to the present time. After these discouraging events, Major-Gen. Skippon found himself in command of the infantry, for whom he obtained a favourable capitulation, the particulars of which may be seen in Lord Clarendon’s History, and they are given by Mr. Hals, from whose statement the above is chiefly abridged. Mr. Hals adds a circumstance illustrative of the animosity excited by internal dissensions; and, as his feelings and opinions were all on the royal side, the narrative may be esteemed deserving of credit. Notwithstanding the articles, the disarmed soldiers of the Parliament, as they marched by the King and his army on Boconnoc and Bradock Downs, and elsewhere, were barbarously slaughtered and shot upon by the King’s soldiers, so that many perished thereby, others were stripped comparatively naked, and robbed of their money, others had their horses taken from them; whereupon Major-General Skippon, with undaunted courage, rode up to the King’s troop, and told him personally of the injury and violence offered, and the slaughter of his men, contrary to the articles, which in such cases were kept inviolable by all nations of men; and therefore prayed the King to be just, and to prohibit those barbarities of his soldiers for the future, which the King forthwith commanded to be done. But his word and authority were little regarded while his army were in sight of the Parliamentary soldiers. This total discomfiture of Lord Essex’s army left the King without an enemy in arms through the whole of Cornwall, and a letter is preserved in the hands of Lord Dunstanville from his ancestor Sir Francis Basset, respecting the last words addressed to him by the King: “Mr. Sheriff, I leave the county entirely at peace in your hands.”