[a]
From the town he transferred his services to the district committed to his
charge. No individual of suspicious or dangerous principles, no secret plan
or association of the royalists, could elude his vigilance and activity. At
the head of a military force he was everywhere present, making inquiries,
inflicting punishments, levying weekly the weekly assessments, impressing
men, horses, and stores, and exercising with relentless severity all those
repressive and vindictive powers with which the recent ordinances had armed
the committees. His exertions were duly appreciated. When the parliament
selected officers to command the seventy-five troops of horse, of sixty men
each, in the new army under the earl of Essex,[b] farmer Cromwell received
the
[Footnote 1: Warwick, 247]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1642. August. 15.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1642. Sept. 14.]
commission of captain; within six months afterwards, he was raised to the
higher rank of colonel, with permission to levy for himself a regiment of
one thousand horse out of the trained bands in the Eastern association.[a]
To the sentiment of honour, which animated the Cavaliers in the field, he
resolved to oppose the energy which is inspired by religious enthusiasm.
Into the ranks of his _Ironsides_--their usual designation--he admitted no
one who was not a freeholder, or the son of a freeholder, and at the same
time a man fearing God, a known professor of godliness, and one who would
make it his duty and his pride to execute justice on the enemies of
God.
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