Read it through once

But if Monmouth was inclined to delay, Argyle seems, on the other hand, to have been impatient in the extreme to bring matters to a crisis, and was of course anxious that the attempt upon England should be made in co- operation with his upon Scotland. Ralph, an historian of great acuteness as well as diligence, but who falls sometimes into the common error of judging too much from the event, seems to think this impatience wholly unaccountable; but Argyle may have had many motives which are now unknown to us. He may not improbably have foreseen that the friendly terms upon which James and the Prince of Orange affected at least to be, one with the other, might make his stay in the United Provinces impracticable, and that, if obliged to seek another asylum, not only he might have been deprived, in some measure, of the resources which he derived from his connections at Amsterdam, but that the very circumstance of his having been publicly discountenanced by the Prince of Orange and the states-general, might discredit his enterprise. His eagerness for action may possibly have proceeded from the most laudable motives, his sensibility to the horrors which his countrymen were daily and hourly suffering, and his ardour to relieve them. The dreadful state of Scotland, while it affords so honourable an explanation of his impatience, seems to account also, in a great measure, for his acting against the common notions of prudence, in making his attack without any previous concert with those whom he expected to join him there. That this was his view of the matter is plain, as we are informed by Burnet that he depended not only on an army of his own clan and vassals, but that he took it for granted that the western and southern counties would all at once come about him, when he had gathered a good force together in his own country; and surely such an expectation, when we reflect upon the situation of those counties, was by no means unreasonable.