Be it said then, once for all,-no pressure of circumstances can justify an act of insincerity or injustice. But when Cromwell is charged with dissimulation; with having made use of parties at one time whom he put down at another; with severity towards the English royalists; with cruelty in Ireland; and with becoming a party to the death of the king, possibly against his own better judgment;-we are bound to consider the temptations to which the circumstances in which he was placed exposed him, and the tendency of the peculiarities in his religious opinions and natural temperament, and then to reflect how many men there have been who, in a similar position, would have preserved an unblemished character. The activity of public life brings a current along with it which never fails to test the moral principles, and in a degree which private persons can rarely comprehend. Even in quiet times,

tain. It is admitted that Cromwell's defence, in that instance, was so successful, that his antagonists, had they persisted in their accusation, would probably have been sent to the Tower by order of the parliament. The narrative concerning Cromwell's conduct towards Cornet Joyce sets forth base dealing; but is liable to suspicion as being anonymous, and still more on account of the improbabilities and gross misstatements contained in it, though mixed up with particulars carrying with them the appearance of truth. The last witness adduced is Ludlow, who speaks of Cromwell as insincere in urging that Fairfax should undertake the command of the army prepared to invade Scotland soon after the death of the king. But Mrs. Hutchinson, a more discriminating and less passionate adversary, expresses her conviction that his conduct on that occasion was honest, nor do the circumstances mentioned by Ludlow prove the contrary. The other example adduced from this last writer is in the fact that Cromwell, when meditating violent proceedings against the parliament, affected to be pushed on to such courses by Lambert and Harrison, when he had, in fact, been assiduous in getting them over to his views. This charge appears to have been well founded, and in other accusations of this nature there was probably some truth, but truth that would be found to be of comparatively small amount if separated from the mass of exaggeration, misconception, and falsehood, with which it is connected.

HOW IT SHOULD BE JUDGED.

cxix

men who take the lead in political parties are too apt to bring themselves to believe that the success of their party is necessary to the well-being of the state; and that the loss of their power would be the greatest calamity to their country; but in a revolutionary period, when every political passion is excited to the highest degree, this tendency must be augmented in a manner of which persons who have always lived under a regular government can hardly form a conception. In this excitement, as pervading the mass of society in his time, Cromwell fully shared, and to its influence, in part, we must attribute the fact of his having lived and died satisfied that his conduct, in the main, had been governed by the principles of rectitude, and the feelings of humanity.

His failing to be thus viewed by the nation at large, was less the consequence of defectiveness in himself, than of certain fixed elements in our national character, which no force of circumstances has hitherto sufficed to remove, or much to disturb. Had the people of England in that age, been as susceptible as the people of France have since shewn themselves, of the kind of fascination which is inseparable from the display of national superiority, so as to have been capable of regarding the pleasure derived from that one source as a compensation for all other losses, the restoration of the Stuarts might have been effected by the intervention of a foreign power, but would never have been the act of the nation. But the English people still clung with a proud determination to the substance of their ancient institutions, and especially to the idea of being governed by men whose sires had moved in the same high regions of authority from remote times. This passion was far stronger in them than any other that could be influenced by the unprecedented position ceded to their country on

the part of the most powerful states of Europe. Hence, while eager to retain and invigorate their popular institutions, they could not, as a nation, be brought to look with approval on the person who filled the place of their ancient kings. It was in vain to remind them of the noble-hearted patriotism by which the protector was distinguished; or of those high mental qualities which seemed to bespeak him as born to sovereignty; they still dwelt on the conventional blemish of his obscure birth, and that consideration, instead of pleading some excuse for his faults, only served to divest them, in common with himself, of all privilege, and to bring upon them a merciless censorship. There may be more to contemn than to admire in this feature of our character as a people; but those who look upon it with most disfavour will perhaps admit, that, next to the genuine love of country, there is no passion, notwithstanding its usual follies, and its dangerous excesses, that does so much to expel the dross of social selfishness, and to beget a refined generosity of temper, as the passion of loyalty.

LETTERS,

ETC.

MR. PELL TO SECRETARY THURLOE.

Utrecht, April 20, old style, 1654.

SIR, M. D. [Dury]* wrote to you at the Hague, April 14, 24. I hope that letter is come to your hands, and therefore I will not again trouble you with the relation of our journey thither. The next day we parted. He went to Amsterdam; I to Utrecht, where I stayed for him. He came not hither till this morning. He tells me that he hath, in a letter from Amsterdam, given some account of what he did there; and that he cannot go hence today; but that to-morrow morning he will be ready to go with me, early enough to get to Arnheim before the gates are shut. From thence we intend to make all possible haste, so that by next post-day we hope to be well advanced in our way.

* John Dury was a Scottish divine, and the author of many political and theological tracts. Some of his papers are preserved among the Sloane MSS. He was deputed with Pell to negociate on the affairs of the Swiss protestants.

I pray you, cause this inclosed to be delivered. If hereafter I shall inclose any letter without a superscription, I pray you not to forget it is for my master, who, though he employ many factors abroad more exercised than I have yet been, yet I hope he shall find none more careful and faithful than is,

Sir,

Your most humble servant.

For Mr. Adrian Peters, merchant, at London.*

SECRETARY THURLOE TO MR. PELL.

May, 1654.

SIR, I received yours and your colleague's, one of the 19th of April, the other, the 20th, and also that of the 26th April, from Cologne, and am glad you are safely arrived there; my prayers shall be, that you may find the same presence with you to your journey's end. I have very little to trouble you with by this. There are great endeavours used by the French to make an alliance here, but no progress is made therein as yet; nor will there be, without making full provision for the protestants, and that you may be confident upon on all occasions; nay, that no agreement at all will be made without communicating with those to whom you are sent. What

*This was the feigned name and address under which Pell frequently wrote to Secretary Thurloe, and which the Secretary used in his answers.