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what is 'incumbrance?' asks all the working Committee, with wide eyes, when they come actually to sit upon this Bill of Registry, and to hatch it into some kind of perfection: What is 'incumbrance?' No mortal can tell. They sit debating it, painfully sifting it, 'for three months;' three months by Booker's Almanac, and the Zodiac Horologe: March violets have become June roses; and still they debate what 'incumbrance' is;-and indeed, I think, could never fix it at all; and are perhaps debating it, if so doomed, in some twilight foggy section of Dante's Nether World, to all Eternity, at this hour!-Are not these a set of men likely to reform English Law? Likely these to strip the accumulated owl-droppings and foul guano-mountains from your rock-island, and lay the reality bare,-in the course of Eternities! The wish waxes livelier in Colonel Pride that he could see a certain addition made to the Scots Colours hung in Westminster Hall yonder.

I add only, for the sake of Chronology, that on the fourth day after this appearance of Bulstrode as a Law-reformer, occurred the famous Black Monday; fearfullest eclipse of the Sun ever seen by mankind. Came on about nine in the morning; darker and darker ploughmen unyoked their teems, stars came out, birds sorrowfully chirping took to roost, men in amazement to prayers: a day of much obscurity; Black Monday, or Mirk Monday, 29th March 1652.2 Much noised of by Lilly, Booker, and the buzzard Astrologer tribe. Betokening somewhat? Belike that Bulstrode and this Parliament will, in the way of Law-reform and otherwise, make a Practical Gospel, or real Reign of God, in this England ?

July 9th, 1652. A great external fact which, no doubt, has its effect on all internal movements, is the War with the Dutch. The Dutch, ever since our Death-Warrant to Charles First, have looked askance at this New Commonwealth, which wished to stand well with them; and have accumulated offence on offence against it. Ambassador Dorislaus was assassinated in their country; Charles Second was entertained there; evasive slow answers were given to tough St. John, who went over as new Ambassador: to which St. John responding with great directness, in a proud, brief and very emphatic manner, took his leave, and came home again. Came home again; and passed the celebrated Navigation Act,3

1 Ludlow, i. 430; Parliamentary History, xx. 84; Commons Journals, vii. 67, 110, &c. 2 Balfour, iv. 349; Law's Memorials, p. 6.

Introduced, 5th August 1651; passed, 9th October 1651: given in Scobell, ii.

forbidding that any goods should be imported into England except either in English ships or in ships of the country where the goods were produced. Thereby terribly maiming the 'Carrying Trade of the Dutch; and indeed, as the issue proved, depressing the Dutch Maritime Interest not a little, and proportionally elevating that of England. Embassies in consequence, from their irritated High Mightinesses; sea-fightings in consequence; and much negotiating, apologising, and bickering mounting ever higher;-which at length, at the date above given, issues in declared War. Dutch War: cannonadings and fierce sea-fights in the narrow seas; landsoldiers drafted to fight on shipboard; and land-officers, Blake, Dean, Monk, who became very famous sea-officers; Blake a thricefamous one ;-poor Dean lost his life in this business. They doggedly beat the Dutch, and again beat them: their best Van Tromps and De Ruyters could not stand these terrible Puritan Sailors and Gunners. The Dutch gradually grew tame. The public mind, occupied with sea-fights and sea-victories, finds again that the New Representative must be patiently waited for; that this is not a time for turning out the old Representative, which has so many affairs on its hands.

But the Dutch War brings another consequence in the train of it: renewed severity against Delinquents. The necessities of cash for this War are great: indeed the grand business of Parliament at present seems to be that of Finance,-finding of sinews for such a War. Any remnants of Royal lands, of Dean-and-Chapter lands, sell them by rigorous auction; the very lead of the Cathedrals one is tempted to sell; nay almost the Cathedrals themselves,1 if any one would buy them. The necessities of the Finance Department are extreme. Money, money: our Blakes and Monks, in deadly wrestle with the Dutch, must have money! Estates of Delinquents, one of the readiest resources from of old, cannot, in these circumstances, be forgotten. Search out Delinquents in every County make stringent inquest after them! Many, in past years, have made light settlements with lax Committee-men; neighbours, not without pity for them. Many of minor sort have been overlooked altogether. Bring them up, every Delinquent of them; up hither to the Rhadamanthus-bar of Goldsmiths' Hall and Haberdashers' Hall; sift them, search them; riddle the last due sixpence out of them. The Commons Journals of these months have formidable ell-long Lists of Delin

1 Parliamentary History, xx. 90.

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quents; List after List; who shall, on rigorous terms, be ordered to compound.1 Poor unknown Royalist Squires, from various quarters of England; whose names and surnames excite now no notion in us except that of No. 1 and No. 2: my Lord General has seen them 'crowding by thirties and forties in a morning' about these Haberdasher-Grocer Halls of Doom, with haggard expression of countenance; soliciting, from what austere official person they can get a word of, if not mercy, yet at least swift judgment. In a way which affected my Lord General's feelings. We have now the third year of Peace in our borders: is this what you call Settlement of the Nation?

LETTER CLXXXV 3

THE following Letter 'to my honoured Friend Mr. Hungerford the Elder,' which at any rate by order of time introduces itself here, has probably some reference to these Committee businesses: -at all events, there hangs by it a little tale.

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[There was no fresh sequestration of delinquents at this time, but only a new Act of Sale relating to the lands of delinquents already sequestrated, who had either refused to compound or neglected to pay their fines. The first Act of Sale was in July, 1651, when the estates of seventy-three of these men-estates forfeited to the Commonwealth for treason "—were ordered to be sold, and were placed in the hands of seven trustees, to dispose of to the best advantage. A second act was now passed, August 4, 1652, ordering that twenty-nine more of these forfeited estates should be made over to the same trustees and sold for the use of the Navy. The bill for this was under discussion as early as April, and therefore was not brought in in consequence of the Dutch War, but no doubt the need for money expedited proceedings. Our Council is much divided about Holland," Carew Raleigh wrote to Lord Conway on June 26, "and nothing yet determined, but we provide for war in manning our ships and caring for money, in order to which the Lord Craven's estates and Mr. Cooke's are voted to be sold." The original list included twenty-eight names, but two of them were found to have been inserted in the first act, reducing the number to twenty-six. Four more were added next day, so that the actual number of estates to be sold was thirty. The "ell-long lists" relate to the third Act of Sale, in November of this same year, but so far from being ordered to compound, as a rule these old offenders at first were not allowed to do so. Their names were sent up by the County Committees, and their lands were given over to the Treason Trustees for sale. The market, however, was not active, buyers being shy of a purchase which the possible event of a Restoration might snatch from them, and after a while the owners of the confiscated lands were allowed to compound for them, but at a very high rate.]

'Speech, postea.

[Between the last letter and this one come three short notes; Supplement, Nos. 70, 71.]

Some six miles from Bath, in the direction towards Salisbury, are to be seen, 'on the northeast slope of a rocky height called Farley Hill,' the ruins of an old Castle, once well known by the name of Farley Montfort, or Farley Hungerford: Mansion once of the honourable Family of Hungerfords, while there was such a Family. The Hungerfords are extinct above a century ago; and their Mansion stands there as a Ruin, knowing little of them any more. But it chanced, long since, before the Ruin became quite roofless, some Land-Steward or Agent of a new Family, tapping and poking among the melancholy lumber there,-found an old loose Chest' shoved loosely under the old Chapel-altar;' and bethought him of opening the same. Masses of damp dust; unclean accumulation of beetle-and-spider exuviæ, to the conceivable amount : under these certain bundles of rubbish-papers, extinct lease-records, marriage-contracts, all extinct now,-among which, however, were Two Letters bearing Oliver Cromwell's signature. These Two the Land-Steward carefully copied, thanks to him; and here, out of Collinson's History of Somersetshire, the first of them now is. Very dark to the Land-Steward, to Collinson, and to us. For the Hungerfords are extinct; their Name and Family, like their old Mansion, a mouldering ruin,— almost our chief light in regard to it, the Two little bits of Paper, rescued from the old Chest under the Chapel-altar, in that romantic manner!—

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There were three Hungerfords in Parliament; all for Wiltshire constituencies. Sir Edward, Knight of the Bath,' Puritan original Member for Chippenham; Lord of this Mansion of Farley, as we find:1 then Henry, Esq., 'recruiter' for Bedwin since 1646; probably a cadet of the House, perhaps heir to it: both these are now 'secluded Members;' purged away by Pride; nay it seems Sir Edward was already dead, about the time of Pride's Purge. The third, Anthony Hungerford, original Member for Malmesbury, declared for the King in 1642; was of course disabled, cast into the Tower when caught ;-made his composition, by repentance and due fine, 'fine of 2,532l.,' in 1646,2 when the First Civil War ended; and has lived ever since a quiet repentant man. He is of 'Blackbourton in Oxfordshire,' this Anthony; but I judge by his Parliamentary connexion and other circumstances, likewise a

1 Collinson (iii. 357 n.) gives his Epitaph copied from the old Chapel; but is very dark and even self-contradictory in what he says farther.

Commons Journals, iv. 565 (5th June 1646); ib. iii. 526, &c. [And Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 867.]

cadet of the House of Farley. Of him by and by, when we arrive at the next Letter.

For the present, with regard to Sir Edward, lord of the Farley Mansion, we have to report, by tremulous but authentic lights, that he stood true for the Parliament; had controversies, almost duels, in behalf of it; among other services, lent it 500l. Furthermore, that he is now dead, 'died in 1648;' and that his Widow cannot yet get payment of that 500l.; that she is yet only struggling to get a Committee to sit upon it.1 One might guess, but nobody can know, that this Note was addressed to Henry Hungerford, in reference to that business of Sir Edward's Widow. Or possibly it may be Anthony Hungerford, the repentant Royalist, that is now the Elder Hungerford;' a man with whom the Lord General is not without relations? Unimportant to us, either way. A hasty Note, on some 'business' now unknown,2 about which an unknown 'gentleman' has been making inquiry and negotiation; for the answer to which an unknown 'servant' of some 'Mr. Hungerford the Elder' is waiting in the hall of Oliver's House, the Cockpit, I believe, at this date :-in such faintly luminous state, revealing little save its own existence, must this small Document be left.

For my honoured Friend Mr. Hungerford 'the Elder,' at his House:

SIR,

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These

'London,' 30th July 1652.

I am very sorry why occasions will not permit me to return to you as I would. I have not yet fully spoken with the gentleman I sent to wait upon you; when I shall do it, I shall be enabled to be more particular. Being unwilling to detain your servant any longer, with my service to your lady and family, I take leave, and rest,

Your affectionate servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.*

1 Committee got, 18th February 1652-3, the Lord General' Cromwell in it (Commons Journals, vii. 260): Danger of Duel (ib. ii. 928, 981; iii. 185, JanuaryJune 1643). See ib. iv. 161, v. 618, &c.

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Collinson's History of Somersetshire (Bath, 1791), iii. 357 (Note). [Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lx. p. 1186. Original in the collection of Sir R. Tangye.]— See Appendix, No. 25.

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