Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

EK5KTBAAATP0N. 249
the said Francis Sinclair had in the city of Madrid performed a more notable exploit,
and of far greater adventure, which was this.
Eight Spanish gentlemen being suspicious of Sinclair's too intimate familiarity with
a kinswoman of theirs, whom they called Prima, that is to say, a she cozen, did all
together set upon him at one time, with their swords drawn ; which unexpected assault
moved him to say, "Gentlemen, I doubt not but that you are valiant men, therefore, if
you would have your desire of me, my intreaty is only that you would take it as be-
comes men of valour, and that by trying your fortune against mine, at the sword's
point, one after another." The Spaniards pretending to be men of honour, not only
promised to do what he required, but, the better to assure him that they would prove
faithful to him in their promise, swore all of them upon a cross which they made with
their swords, that they would not faile therein should it cost them all their lives. In
the extremity that Sinclair was, this kind of unhoped for honest dealing did very much
incourage him, especially he knowing that he and they all had but toledo-blades,
whose fashion was then to be all of one length and size ; in a word, conforme to pac-
tion, they fell to it, and that most cleverly, though with such fatality on the Spanish
side, that in less then the space of half an hour he killed seven of them epassyteroti-
cally, that is, one after another ; gratifying the eighth, to testilie he had done no
wrong to the rest, with the enjoyment of his life, who, rather then to undergoe the
hazard of the destiny of his fore-runners, chused to abandon his vindicative humour,
and leave unrevenged the blood and honour of his male and female cosens.
Much more may be said of him, but that I will not now supererogate in magnify-
ing the fulfilment of the reader's expectation, by the performance of more then I pro-
mised ; being resolved, for brevitie's sake, to pass over with silence many hundreds of
our country, such as Robert Scot, who was the deviser of leathern guns, that were in
other parts much esteemed for their inventions of warlike engines.
And that since the yeer a thousand and six hundred, before which time no action
hath been performed anywhere, nor from that time till this, within the Isle of Britain,
by any of those colonels and others, whom I have here before recited, for which I
have praised them, or otherwaies mentioned any of them, but by way of designation
of their names in relation to their service abroade ; nor amongst them all have I no-
minated above five or six that either served in, or did so much as look upon the wars
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and yet I expect not to merit blame, albeit of those
general persons and colonek of the Scotish nation, whereof there is a great multitude,
that have served, since the yeer 1641, in these our late wars of England, Scotland,
and Ireland, I make no mention, because muliitudo is no more virtus then magnitudo ;
for though there be some, and those but very some, amongst them that have been
pretty well principled in reason, and had true honour before their eyes ; yet seeing the
great mobil of the rest, by circumvolving them into a contrary motion, hath retarded
their action, and made their vertue abortive in not expressing their names, I do them
2r