should, I ought to have secured you immediately upon your coming into England; and therefore I now require you to give assurance not to act against the Government." LUDLOW.-"I must beg to be excused in that particular, and to remind you of the reasons I formerly gave you for my refusal. I am, however, in your power, and you may use me as you think fit." CROMWELL." Pray, then, what is it that you would have? May not every man be as good as he will? What can you desire more than you have?" LUDLOW.--"It were easy to tell what we would have.” LUDLOW.-"That which we fought for that the nation might be governed by its own consent." CROMWELL.-"I am as much for a government by consent as any man; but where shall we find that consent? Among the prelatical, Presbyterian, independent, anabaptist, or levelling parties?" LUDLOW.-"Amongst those of all sorts who have acted with fidelity and affection to the public." CROMWELL.-"The people enjoy protection and quiet under my government; and I am resolved to keep the nation from being again imbrued'in blood." LUDLOW.-"I am of opinion too much blood has been already shed, unless there be a better account of it." CROMWELL. "You do well to charge us with the guilt of blood; but we think there has been a good return for what hath been shed; and we understand what clandestine correspondences are carrying on at this time between the Spaniard and those of your party, who make use of your name, and affirm that you will own them and assist them." LUDLOW.-"I know not what you mean by my party, and I can truly say that, if any men have entered into an engagement with Spain, they have had no advice from me so to do, and that, if they will use my name, I cannot help it." CROMWELL.-"I desire not to put any more hardships on you than on myself. I have always been ready to do you all the good offices that lay in my power; and I aim at nothing by this proceeding but the public quiet and security." LUDLOW.-"Truly, sir, I know not why you should be an enemy to me, who have been faithful to you in all your dif ficulties." CROMWELL.-"I understand not what you mean by my difficulties. I am sure they were not so properly mine as those of the public; for, in respect to my outward condition, I have not much improved it, as these gentlemen well know." The members of the council, thus appealed to, rose from their seats in token of assent to what he said. LUDLOW."It is from that duty which I owe to the public, whereof you express such a peculiar regard, that I dare not give the security, because I conceive it to be against the liberty of the people and contrary to the known law of England. Here is an Act of Parliament for restraining the Council from imprisoning any of the free-born people of England; and, in case they should do so, requiring the Justices of the Upper Bench, upon the application of the aggrieved party, to grant his habeas corpus, and to give him considerable damages. To this act I suppose you gave your free vote, and I assure you that, for my own part, I dare not do anything that may tend to the violation of it." CROMWELL.-"But did not the army and Council of State commit persons to prison ?" LUDLOW.-"The Council of State did so, but it was by virtue of an authority granted to them by the Parliament; and if the army have sometimes acted in that manner, it has been in time of war, and then only in order to bring the persons secured to a legal trial. Whereas, it is now pretended that we live in a time of peace, and are to be governed by the known laws of the land." CROMWELL,-"A justice of peace may commit, and shall not I?" LUDLOW.-"A justice of peace is a legal officer, and authorized by the law to do so, which you could not be, though you were king; because if you do wrong therein, no remedy can be had against you." The discussion, on both sides, was evidently vain; Cromwell carried it no further, but dismissed Ludlow without ordering his arrest. He was less surprised than he was willing to appear at this resistance and this language. He himself thought, in his inmost heart, that England could be governed neither tranquilly nor long, without the fulfilment of certain conditions of legality, and the co-operation of a Parliament; and experience, more powerful than Ludlow's arguments, confirmed him every day in these convictions. He had succeeded in all his undertakings; he had overcome all his enemies, and surmounted all obstacles; and yet obstacles reappeared, and enemies rose once more against him; though universally and invariably victorious, his government had obtained no stability; neither the defeat of all factions, nor the re-establishment of order, nor the salutary activity of his home administration, could suffice to secure him what he sought the right of present, and the prospect of future rule. Great successes abroad, brilliant and useful alliances, the wide diffusion of the power of England and the glory of his own name; would they be more likely to accomplish this twofold object? By gaining more influence and celebrity throughout the world, would he strengthen his position in his own country? He hoped to do so; and, in his foreign policy, he displayed, with greater confidence than in his home government, his bold spirit of enterprise, and the absolute power which he had at his command. ILudlow's Memoirs, pp. 233-235, 240-242; Guizot's Etudes Biographiques sur la Revolution d'Angleterre, pp. 68-77, BOOK VII. CROMWELL'S PREPARATIONS FOR WAR AGAINST SPAIN-HIS PROJECTED CAMPAIGN IN BOTH HEMISPHERES-BLAKE'S EXPEDITION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, BEFORE LEGHORN, TUNIS, TRIPOLI, AND ALGIERS, and OFF THE COAST OF SPAIN -DEPARTURE FROM PORTSMOUTH OF THE FLEET UNDER PENN AND VENABLES -SECRET OF THEIR DESTINATION-DON LUIS DE HARO, CONDE, AND MAZARIN PUSH THEIR NEGOTIATIONS WITH CROMWELL-PERSECUTION OF THE VAUDOIS IN PIEDMONT INTERVENTION OF CROMWELL ON THEIR BEHALF-PENN AND VENABLES ATTACK ST. DOMINGO, UNSUCCESSFULLY-CAPTURE OF JAMAICARUPTURE BETWEEN CROMWELL AND SPAIN-TREATY BETWEEN CROMWELL AND FRANCE-THE COURT OF MADRID PROMISES ASSISTANCE TO CHARLES II.CROMWELL SENDS LOCKHART AS HIS AMBASSADOR TO PARIS-CROMWELL'S GREATNESS AND IMPORTANCE IN EUROPE-HE CONVOKES ANOTHER PARLIA MENT. TOWARDS the end of the summer, and during the course of the autumn of 1654, whilst the Protector and the Parliament which he had just called together, were engaged in secret conflict with one another, two great fleets were being equipped and armed at Portsmouth; one, consisting of twentyfive ships, was under the command of Admiral Blake; the other, comprising thirty-eight vessels, was to carry the flag of Admiral Sir William Penn, and, in addition to its crew, was to take on board three thousand soldiers under the cammand of General Venables. The utmost secrecy was maintained as to the destination of these two fleets; the Parliament had placed them at the disposal of the Protector, without inquiring what he intended to do with them; and Cromwell merely stated that their duty would be to establish the maritime predominance of England in all seas. One day, a mob of the wives of the sailors who were serving on board, pursued him through the streets, inquiring whither their husbands were to be sent; Cromwell replied with a smile: "The ambassadors of France and Spain would each of them willingly give me a million to know that." These were preparations for the execution of a plan which he had determined on in his own mind. In order to maintain himself in his position, and to mount still higher, he required that England should be in the enjoyment of prosperity and greatness, and that he should himself lack neither renown nor money; for neither his revolutionary measures nor his major-generals had provided sufficiently for the expenses of government. Moreover, he was anxious to employ the national fleet with distinction in distant service; the sailors, both officers and men, were in general not very friendly to him; they had not, like the land army, been partakers in his victories and accomplices in his crimes. Some of them were republicans, but the greater number were royalists. Spain and the New World alone seemed to furnish the means of giving ample satisfaction to all these interests of the Protector's policy: there would be expeditions and conquests, booty and trade, enough to occupy ardent minds, to keep malcontents at a distance, and to satiate even the most avaricious. And these successes might be obtained at the expense of that country which was pre-eminently Catholic and Papistical; of a country which, far from containing within its boundaries, as was the case in France, a large number of Protestants who were tolerated by the law, would not suffer, on its territory, the slightest practice of the reformed religion 1 Thurloe's State Papers, vol. ii, pp. 542, 571–574, 638, 553, vol. iii. p. 14; Whitelocke, p. 621; Dixon's Life of Blake, pp. 266-272; Penn's Memorials of Sir William Penn, vol. ii. pp. 2–27; Letters from Bordeaux to Brienne, December 21, 1654; in the Archives des Affaires Etrangères de France. See Appendix X. |