"Her Highness 1 desires to have her love to you and "and my Sister Franke her respects to you both." 2

my Sister;

'My Sister Franke' and the Lady Mary, these are my 'two little wenches,' grown now to be women; with dress-caps, fresh blossoming hearts, musical glib tongues,-not uninteresting to men! Anthony Ashley Cooper, I am told, is looking towards this Lady Mary; now turned of Eighteen,3 and a desirable match for any youth of ambition,-but not attainable I doubt by Ashley.

LETTER CCVIII 4

Henry

HE that builds by the wayside has many masters! Cromwell, we perceive by all symptoms,5 has no holiday task of it; needs energy, vigilance, intelligence,-needs almost unlimited patience first of all. With a hot proud temper of his own to strive against, too; and is not nine-and-twenty yet: a young man whose carriage hitherto merits high praise. Anabaptist Colonels 'preach' against him; Fleetwood, at headquarters, has perhaps a tendency to favour Anabaptist Colonels, and send them over hither to us? Colonel Hewson, here in Ireland, he, with a leaning that way, has had correspondences, has even had an 'Answer' from the Lord Protector (now lost), whereupon have risen petitionings,

I'our Mother.'

Thurloe, iv. 293. ["In the possession of the right honourable the Earl of Shelburn."]

3 Vol. i. p. 63.

[Before this letter, see letter to Desborow, Jan. 29, and Speech to the Lord Mayor, &c., on March 11, Supplement Nos. 116, 117.]

See his Letters to Thurloe: Thurloe, iv. 254-676 (Letters from Nov. 1655 to April 1656).

[On Dec. 2, 1655, Hewson had petitioned the Protector to send the Lord Deputy back to Ireland. Oliver's letter (first mentioned by H. Cromwell on Dec. 19) was probably an answer to this. Of it, Thomas Harrison, one of the ministers sent over with the Lord Harry" to Ireland, writes: "His Highness' letter to Col. Hewson and his reply to the same are boasted of, even by the meanest persons of that party, with no little reflection upon my Lord [Henry]. They say it is evident by that from his Highness that my Lord was sent over to be commanded, not to command; to serve and not to rule" (Thurloe, iv. pp. 276, 327, 349). It says much for the Protector's impartiality that he received so calmly what was covertly a complaint against his son. Indeed Henry evidently thought his father too impartial, and his own place in danger. "Let his Highness do with me as he pleases," he wrote to Thurloe; "send me into a Welsh cottage if it be for his service.' On Hewson's reply to the Protector, see H. Cromwell's letter of December 26 (ibid., p. 348). Thurloe excuses the Protector's letter to Hewson on the ground that it was

colloquies, caballings,—much loud unreason to absorb into oneself, and convert at least into silence! 'Be not troubled with that Business; we understand the men :' no;-and on the whole, read, and be encouraged, and go on your way.

HARRY,

For my Son Harry Cromwell

'Whitehall,' 21st April 1656.

I have received your letters, and have also seen some from you to others, and am sufficiently satisfied of your burden, and that if the Lord be not with you, to enable you to bear it, you are in a very sad condition.

I am glad to hear what I have heard of your carriage: study still to be innocent, and to answer every occasion, roll yourself upon God,1 which to do needs much grace. Cry to the Lord to give you a plain single heart. Take heed of being over-jealous, lest your apprehensions of others cause you to offend. Know that uprightness will preserve you; in this be confident against

men.

I think the Anabaptists are to blame in not being pleased with you. That's their fault. It will not reach you, whilst you with singleness of heart make the glory of the Lord your aim. Take heed of professing religion without the power: that will teach you to love all who are after the similitude of Christ.

necessary in consequence of the dissatisfaction" shown by him and others, but declares that the letter contained nothing that any one can make evil use of, and was written in "much plainness and sincerity of heart"; and that any one "improving" it to the disadvantage of the Lord Henry will very ill requite his Highness, and "wrest his words to a meaning which hath no place in his own heart" (ibid., p. 373). When Cols. Cooper and Sankey went over to Ireland in January, the Protector wrote again to Hewson. It may be gathered from Hewson's reply (Thurloe, iv. 422) that he took notice" of Hewson's affection for the Lord Deputy, alluded to certain petitions sent from Ireland, urged Hewson to do what he could to heal differences, and told him that he who could readily call persons and forms Antichristian because they differed from himself, made a breach and made reconciliation impracticable.]

1[Unfortunately, the editor's endeavours to discover what has become of this letter have been fruitless. The expression "roll yourself upon God," is very curious. It might be surmised that the true text is "Call upon God," and that the transcriber having written "roll," Carlyle inserted "yourself" to make the phrase a little more possible.]

Take care of making it a business to be too hard for the men who contest with you. Being over-concerned may train you into a snare. I have to do with those poor men, and am not without my exercise. I know they are weak, because they are so peremptory in judging others. I quarrel not with them but in their seeking to supplant others, which is done by some, first by branding them with antichristianism, and then taking away their maintenance.

men.

Be not troubled with the late business: we understand the Do not fear the sending of any over to you but such as will be considering men, loving all godly interests, and men 'that' will be friends to justice. Lastly, take heed of studying to lay for yourself the foundation of a great estate. It will be a snare to you they will watch you; bad men will be confirmed in covetousness. The thing is an evil which God abhors. I pray you think of me in this.

If the Lord did not sustain me, I were undone but I live, and I shall live, to the good pleasure of His grace; I find mercy at need. The God of all grace keep you. I rest,

Your loving father,

OLIVER P.

My love to my dear Daughter (whom I frequently pray for) and to all friends.*

Such a Letter, like a staff dipped in honeycomb and brought to one's lips, is enough to enlighten the eyes of a wearied SubDeputy; and cheer him, a little, on his way! To prove that you can conquer every opponent, to found a great estate: not these, or the like of these, be your aims, Son Harry. 'I pray you think of me in this.' And on the whole, heed not the foolish noises, the fatuous lights; heed the eternal Loadstars and celestial Silences, and vigilantly march: so shall you too perhaps 'find mercy at need.'

*Autograph in the possession of Sir W. Betham (Ulster King of Arms), Dublin. [When Oliver wrote this, he would not yet have heard of the birth of his grandson, announced by a letter from Henry Cromwell written on April 18; intelligence which, as a news-letter states, did "very much rejoice the Lord Protector." The child was named after its grandfather. (Thurloe, iv. 742, 757.).]

LETTER CCIX

NEW Sea-Armaments, and ever new, are fitted out against the Spaniards and their Papist Domdaniel.1 Penn being dismissed, Councillor Colonel Montague, already in the Admiralty, was made Sea-General last January in his stead; and now Blake and he have their flags flying somewhere off Cadiz Bay it would appear.

To Generals Blake and Montague, at Sea

MY LOVING FRIENDS,

Whitehall, 28th April 1656.

You have, as I verily believe and am persuaded, a plentiful stock of prayers going 'on' for you daily, sent up by the soberest and most approved ministers and Christians in this nation; and, notwithstanding some discouragements, very much wrestling of faith for you: which are to us, and I trust will be to you, matter of great encouragement. But notwithstanding all this, it will be good for you and us to deliver up ourselves and all our affairs to the disposition of our All-wise Father; who, not only out of prerogative, but because of His wisdom, goodness and truth, ought to be resigned-unto by His creatures, and most especially by those who are children of His begetting through the Spirit. We have been lately taught that it is not in man to direct his way. Indeed all the dispensations of God, whether adverse or prosperous, do fully read that lesson. We can no more turn away the Evil, as we call it, than attain the Good: And therefore Solomon's counsel, of doing what we have to do with all our might, 'and' getting our hearts wholly submitted, if not to rejoicing, at least to contentation with whatsoever shall be dispensed by Him to whom alone the issues of all things do belong, is worthy to be received by us.3

1[And fresh troops to be sent to Jamaica. See Supplement 118 (1, 2).] 2 In the affair of Hispaniola, &c.

3 Yes, I should say so;-as indeed the whole Universe, since it first had any glimmerings of intelligence in it, has said!

Wherefore we have thought fit to send this honest man, Captain Lloyd, who is known to us to be a person of integrity, to convey to you some thoughts, wherein we do only offer to you such things as do arise to us, partly upon intelligence, and partly upon such a measure as at such a distance we take of that great affair wherein you are engaged; desiring to give no rule to you, but building much more, under God, upon your judgments on the place than our own; forasmuch as our intelligences, coming much upon the examinations of merchants ships and such ways, may not be true oftentimes in matter of fact. And therefore we do offer what we have to say rather as queries than as resolutions.

We are informed that not many of the Plate Fleet are come home; viz. two Galeons and two Pataches; and we hear they are not so rich as they give out. We are informed also that the Spaniards' fleet in Cadiz is in no preparation to come out; and some think they will not come forth, but delay you upon the coast, until your victuals are spent, and you forced to come home. We apprehend that, when General Blake was there last year, they could not have told how to have manned-out a fleet, if the merchants there and gentlemen interested had not (principally for their own interest in the return of their Plate' fleet) done it.

3

We are informed that they sent what men they could well spare, by those six or seven ships which they sent to the West Indies in March last. We know also that it hath ever been accounted that the Spaniards' great want is men, as well as money at this time. What numbers are in and about Cadiz you best know. We only discourse probabilities: Whether now it might not be worthy to be weighed by you and your council of war, whether this fleet of theirs now in Cadiz might not be

1[For Captain Lloyd's mission to the fleet, see Carte, Original Letters, ii. 102, 115.

2 Galeone, in the Spanish Dictionary, is defined as an 'Armed ship of burden used for trade in time of war;' Patache as a Tender, or smaller ship to wait upon the Galeone.

3["6 or 27" in Thurloe's draft.]