Definition of "begun"

... when he should take the sield, that city was persuaded to complete the regiment they had begun to form, under the command of a Colonel whom the King had recommended to them ; which they did raise to the number of a thousand men.

1807, Edward Hyde (1st earl of Clarendon.), The history of the rebellion and civil wars in England, begun in the year 1641. 3 vols. [each in 2 pt.]., page 717

When we've been there ten thousand years, / Bright shining as the sun, / We've no less days to sing God's praise, / Than when we first begun.

1790 (see Amazing Grace)