country to visit the ships, and they returned more confirmed of the truth of what they had heard. Good fellowship was a vice generally spread over that country, and this young great heir, who had been always bred amongst his neighbours, affected that which they were best pleased with, and so his house became a rendezvous for those who delighted in that exercise ................. and all men's mouths were full of general hatred which the whole kingdom had against the Parliament and the army."
  Mr. L'Estrange observed, by the good company that came to the house, that the affections of many in that large and populous country were for the King. So he began to tell Mr. Hales that though his grandfather did in his heart wish the King well, yet his carriage had been such, in conjunction with the Parliament, that he had more need of the King's favour than of his grandfather's

to be heir of that great estate; and that certainly nothing could be more acceptable to his grandfather, or more glorious to him, than to be the instrument of both; and therefore advised him to put himself at the head of his own country, which would willingly be led by him, and that so doing he should have a great share in the honour of restoring the King.
   The weak young man fell into the snare, and being seconded by his wife and by the company that frequented the house, he took up an enormous sum of money, £80,000 (and we must remember what £80,000 must have been in those days,) in order to defray the expenses of raising a Kentish army. The extraordinary thing was his delivering himself blindly to the counsels of L'Estrange; and, as Clarendon here well remarks, "the young gentleman had not enough conver-