Read it through once

In general, I have thought it right to follow Wade's narrative, which appears to me by far the most authentic, if not the only authentic account of this important transaction. It is imperfect, but its imperfection arises from the narrator's omitting all those circumstances of which he was not an eye-witness, and the greater credit is on that very account due to him for those which he relates. With respect to Monmouth's quitting the field, it is not mentioned by him, nor is it possible to ascertain the precise point of time at which it happened. That he fled while his troops were still fighting, and therefore too soon for his glory, can scarcely be doubted; and the account given by Ferguson, whose veracity, however, is always to be suspected, that Lord Grey urged him to the measure, as well by persuasion as by example, seems not improbable. This misbehaviour of the last-mentioned nobleman is more certain; but as, according to Ferguson, who has been followed by others, he actually conversed with Monmouth in the field, and as all accounts make him the companion of his flight, it is not to be understood that when he first gave way with his cavalry, he ran away in the literal sense of the words, or if he did, he must have returned. The exact truth, with regard to this and many other interesting particulars, is difficult to be discovered; owing, not more to the darkness of the night in which they were transacted, than to the personal partialities and enmities by which they have been disfigured, in the relations of the different contemporary writers.