Dear Paige,  thank you for your expeditious Management of the matters of the arms, which I have word from Mr Lear are enroute Hampden House.

Please deliver enclosed by your hand only to Firth Elder on Lombard-Street. Please observe his reading of it and obtain verbal confirmation that he understands.

Please advance Firth Younger travel-money to Portsmouth; those rumors on some Cavalier to seize the town for Carolus. Remind Firth that he is not to engage in other wasteful behavior, observe tumblers and acrobats, take fencing or dancing lessons, and all suchlike.

Dear Paige,

Thank you for the letter, which discovered me with Col Hampden’s regt near Southam, west of Northampton. I will make all haste to leave but due to several commitments can’t until tomorrow; expect me in London on the 24th or 25th. In the meantime, please render following (account of engagement near here) into story for Anglia Rediviva; four to five paragraphs. You can call it I think “Supper Spoiled” or something like that.

— Arriving on afternoon of Aug 20, finds the gates shut against him, the city council having elected to obey the declarations of Parliament;

— Several with Charles rode near the walls of Coventry, to harangue the defenders with “traitor,” “roundhead dogs” and the like; imprecations answered with a cannonade, which killed two or three horses and injured one of King’s men (could not obtain name; said to be a “gentleman of note”);

— King compelled by this indignity to return Stonely, and is now en route Nottingham; his rear guarded by Earl of Northampton, with appx 800 horse, half as much foot;