and 'of' divers other Persons of Quality here, who are engaged by great adventures in his interest, do, for preventing of disturbances or tumults there, will and require you, and all others deriving any authority from you, To forbear disturbing the Lord Baltimore, or his Officers or People in Maryland; and to permit all things to remain as they were before any disturbance or alteration made by you, or by any other upon pretence of authority from you, till the said Differences above mentioned be determined by us here, and we give farther order therein. We rest, Your loving friend, OLIVER P.* Commissioners, it would appear, went out to settle the business; got it, we have no doubt, with due difficulty, settled. See Letter CCIII.,- 26th September, 1655, To the Commissioners of Maryland.' LETTER CXCVII. HERE again, while the Pedant Parliament keeps arguing and constitutioning, are discontents in the Army that threaten to develop themselves. Dangerous fermentings of Fifth-Monarchy and other bad ingredients, in the Army and out of it; encouraged by the Parliamentary height of temperature. Charles Stuart, on the word of a Christian King, is exten Thurloe, i. 724. The Signature only is Oliver's; signature, and Thurloe has jotted on the back of this: A duplicate also hereof was writ, signed by his Highness,' sense. sively bestirring himself. Royalist preparations, provisions of arms; Anabaptist Petitions: abroad and at home very dangerous designs on foot: but we have our eye upon them. The Scotch Army seems, at present, the questionablest. "The pay of the men is thirty weeks in arrear,' for one thing; the Anabaptist humour needs not that addition! Colonel Alured, we saw, had to be dismissed the Service, last year; Overton and others were questioned, and not dismissed. But now some desperate scheme has risen among the Forces in Scotland, of deposing General Monk, of making Republican Overton Commander,—and so marching off, all but the indispensable Garrison-troops, south into England, there to seek pay and other redress. This Parliament, now in its Fourth Month, supplies no money; nothing but constitutional debatings. My Lord Protector had need be watchful! He again, in this December, summons Overton from Scotland; again questions him; - sees good, this time, to commit him to the Tower, and end his military services. The Army, in Scotland and elsewhere, with no settlement yet to its vague fermenting humours, and not even money to pay its arrears, is dangerous enough. Of Adjutant-General Allen whom this Letter concerns, may be proper to say that Ludlow in mentioning him has mis taken his man. The reader recollects, a good while ago, Three Troopers, notable at the moment, who appeared once before the Long Parliament, with a Petition from the Army, in the year Forty-seven? Their names were Allen, Sexby, Sheppard Ludlow will have it, the Trooper Allen was this Adju tant-General Allen ;3 which is a mistake of Ludlow's. Trooper 1 Postea, Speech IV.; and Thurloe, iii. 110, &c. 2 16 January, 1654-5 (Overton's Letter, Thurloe, iii. 110). 3 Ludlow, i. 189: Edward Sexby,'' William Allen; but in the name Sexby we did since see, as Captain Sexby, after Preston Fight; and shall again, in sad circumstances see: but of Trooper Allen there is no farther vestige anywhere except this imaginary one; of Trooper Sheppard not even an imaginary vestige. They have vanished, these two; and Adjutant-General Allen, vindicating his identity such as it is, enters here on his own footing. A resolute devout man, whom we have seen before; the same who was deep in the Prayer-Meeting at Windsor years ago: this is his third, and we hope his last appearance on the stage of things. Allen has been in Ireland, since that Prayer-Meeting; in Ireland and elsewhere, resolutely fighting, earnestly praying, as from of old; has had many darkenings of mind; expects, for almost a year past, 'little good from the Governments of this world,' one or the other. He has honoured, and still would fain honour, the Person now in chief place,' having seen in him much uprightheartedness to the Lord;' must confess, however, the late Change hath more stumbled me than any ever did;'-and on the whole knows not what he will resolve upon.2 We find he has resolved on quitting Ireland, for one thing; has come over to 'his Father-in-Law Mr. Huish's in Devonshire:'-and, to all appearance, is not building established-churches there! Captain Unton Crook,' of whom we shall hear afterwards, is an active man, son of a learned Lawyer ;3 very zealous for the Protector's interest; zealous for his own and his Father's promotion, growls Ludlow. Desborow, who fitted out the late mysterious Sea-Armament of the third Trooper, which is not ' Philips' but Sheppard, he is mistaken (Commons Journals, 30 April, 1647); and as to Adjutant-General Allen' and the impossibility of his identity with this William Allen, see antea, vol. i. pp. 344, 407. 1 Antea, vol. i. p. 407. 6 2 Two intercepted Letters of Allen's (Thurloe, ii. 214, 15), Dublin, 6 April, 1654.* 3 Made Sergeant Crook in 1655 (Heath, p. 693). on the Southern Coast (not too judiciously, I doubt), is Commander-in-chief in those parts. 'For Captain Unton Crook at Exeter: These.' SIR, Whitehall, 20th January, 1654. Being informed by a Letter of yours and General Desborow, also by a Letter from the High Sheriff of Devon, that Adjutant-General Allen doth very ill offices by multiplying dissatisfaction in the minds of men to the present Government, I desire you and the High Sheriff to make diligent inquiry after him, and try to make out what can be made in this kind, and to give me speedy notice thereof. Not doubting of your care herein, I rest, Your loving friend, OLIVER P. If he be gone out of the Country, learn whither he is gone, and send me word by next post.* Allen was not gone out of the Country; he was seized by Crook in his Father-in-law Mr. Huish's house,' on the 31st of January, 1654-5; his papers searched, and himself ordered to be and continue prisoner, at a place agreed upon,- Sand in Somersetshire,' under his note of hand.' So much we learn from the imbroglios of Thurloe; where also are authentic Depositions concerning Allen, by Captains John Copleston and the said Unton Crook;' and two Letters of Allen's own, * Lansdowne Mss. 1236, fol. 102. Superscription torn off ;-only the Signature is in Oliver's hand: Address supplied here by inference. 1 iii. 143; see pp. 140, 1. one to the Protector; and one to Colonel Daniel Axtel' (the Regicide Axtel), 'Dr. Philip Carteret, or either of them,' enclosing that other Letter, and leaving it to them to present it or not, he himself thinking earnestly, that they should. Both of these Letters, as well as Unton Crook's to the Protector, and the authentic Deposition of Copleston and Crook against Allen, are dated February 7th, 1654-5. • Sir The witnesses depose,1 That he has bragged to one John Davis Baronet,' of an interview he had with the Protector not long since,-wherein he, Allen, told the Protector a bit of his mind; and left him in a kind of huff, and even at a nonplus; and so came off to the West Country in a triumphant manner. Farther he talks questionable things of Ireland, of discontents there, and in laud of Lieutenant-General Ludlow ; says, There is plenty of discontent in Ireland; he himself means to be there in February, but will first go to London again. The Country rings with rumour of his questionable speeches. He goes to meetings' about Bristol, whither many persons convene,—for Anabaptist or other purposes. Such meetings are often on week-days. Questionabler still, he rides thither with a vizard or mask over his face;' with glasses over his eyes,'-barnacles, so to speak! Nay, questionablest of all, riding, on Friday the 5th of last month,' month of January 1654-5, to a meeting at Luppit near Honiton, Devon,' there rode also (but not I think to the same place!) a Mr. Hugh Courtenay, once a flaming Royalist Officer in Ireland, and still a flaming zealot to the lost Cause; who spake nothing all that afternoon but mere treason, of Anabaptists that would rise in London, of &c. &c. Allen, as we say, on the last morning of January was awoke from sleep in his Father-inlaw Mr. Huish's, by the entrance of two armed troopers; who informed him that Captain Crook and the High Sheriff were 1 Ibid. iii. 140. 6 6 |