to be given?"-Queries which, I think, do not much look like real despatch of business in the present intricate conjuncture!

This Letter it appears, is, if not accompanied, directly followed by "Mr. Alexander Jaffray " Provost of Aberdeen, and a "Reverend Mr. Carstairs" of Glasgow, two Prisoners of Oliver's ever since Dunbar Drove, who are to "agent" the same."

[To Colonel Strahan, with the Western Army: These.] "EDINBURGH, 25th October, 1650. "SIR,I have considered of the Letter and the Queries; and, having advised with some Christian friends about the same, think fit to return an Answer as followeth : :—

"[That] we bear unto the Godly of Scotland the same Christian affection we have all along professed in our Papers; being ready, through the grace of God, upon all occasions, to give such proof and testimony thereof as the Divine Providence shall minister opportunity to us to do. That nothing would be more acceptable to us to see than the Lord removing offences, and inclining the hearts of His People in Scotland to meet us with the same affection. That we do verily apprehend, with much comfort, that there is some stirring of your bowels by the Lord; giving some hope of His good pleasure tending hereunto; which we are most willing to comply with, and not to be wanting in anything on our part which may further the saine.

"And having seen the heads of two Remonstrances, the one of the Ministers of Glasgow, and the other of the Officers and Gentlemen of the West, we do from thence hope that the Lord hath cleared unto you some things that were formerly hidden, and which we hope may lead to a better understanding. Nevertheless, we cannot but take notice, that from some expressions in the same Papers, we have too much cause to note that there 1 Balfour, iv. 135. 2 Baillie, iii. 120. 3 Remonstrance of the Western Army is this latter; the other, very conceivable as a kind of codicil to this, is not known to me except at secondhand, from Baillie's eager, earnest, very headlong and perplexed account of that Business (iv. 120, 122 et seqq.).

is still so great a difference betwixt us as we are looked upon and accounted as Enemies.

"And although we hope that the Six Queries, sent by you to us to be answered, were intended to clear doubts and remove the remaining obstructions; which we shall be most ready to do: yet, considering the many misconstructions which may arise from the clearest pen (where men are not all of one mind), and the difficulties at this distance to resolve doubts and rectify mistakes, we conceive our Answer in Writing may not so effectually reach that end as a friendly and Christian Conference by equal persons [might].

"And we doubt not we can, with ingenuity and clearness, give a satisfactory account of those general things held forth in the Letter sent by us to the Committee of Estates,' and in our former Declarations and Papers; which we shall be ready to do by a Friendly Debate, when and where our answer to these particulars may probably tend to the better and more clear understanding betwixt the Godly Party of both Nations.

"To speak plainly in a few words: If those who sincerely love and fear the Lord amongst you are sensible that matters have been and are carried by your State so as that therewith God is not well pleased, but the Interest of His People [is] hazarded, in Scotland and England, to Malignants, to Papists, and to the Profane, we can, through Grace, be willing to lay our bones in the dust for your sakes; and can, as heretofore we have [said], still continue to say, That, not to impose upon you in Religious or Civil Interests, not dominion nor any worldly advantage [not these], but the obtaining of a just security to ourselves,' were the motives, and satisfactions to our consciences, in this Undertaking. [A just security ;] which we believe by this time you may think we had cause to be sensible was more than endangered by the carriage of affairs with your King. And it is not success, and more visible clearness to our consciences arising out of the discoveries God hath made of the hypocrisies of men, that hath altered [or can alter] our principles or demands. But we take

1 Letter CL.

2 "securing ourselves" in orig.

1650.

PROCLAMATION.

177

from thence humble encouragement to follow the Lord's providence in serving His Cause and People; not doubting but He will give such an issue to this Business as will be to His glory and your comfort. I rest,

"Your affectionate friend and servant,

"OLIVER CROMWELL.'

"1

There followed no "Friendly Debate" upon this Letter; nothing followed upon it except new noise in the Western Army, and a strait-laced case of conscience more perplexing than ever. Jaffray and Carstairs had to come back on parole again; Strahan at length withdrew from the concern: the Western Army went its own separate middle road, to what issue we shall see.

Here is another trait of the old time; not without illumination for us. "One Watt, a tenant of the Earl of Tweedale's being sore oppressed by the English, took to himself some of his own degree; and by daily incursions and infalls on the English Garrisons and Parties in Lothian, killed and took of them above four hundred," or say the half or quarter of so many, "and enriched himself by their spoils." The like "did one Augustin, a High-German," not a Dutchman, "being purged out of the Army before Dunbar Drove," of whom we shall hear farther. In fact, the class called Moss-troopers begins to abound; the only class that can flourish in such a state of affairs. Whereupon comes out this

PROCLAMATION.

my

command are "I FINDING that divers of the Army under not only spoiled and robbed, but also sometimes barbarously and inhumanly butchered and slain, by a sort of Outlaws and Robbers, not under the discipline of any Army; and finding that all our tenderness to the Country produceth no other effect than their compliance with, and protection of, such 1 Clarendon State-Papers (Oxford, 1773), ii. 551, 552.

persons; and considering that it is in the power of the Country to detect and discover them (many of them being inhabitants of those places where commonly the outrage is committed); and perceiving that their motion is ordinarily by the invitation, and according to intelligence given them by Countrymen:

"I do therefore declare, that wheresoever any under my command shall be hereafter robbed or spoiled by such parties, I will require life for life, and a plenary satisfaction for their goods, of those Parishes and Places where the fact shall be committed; unless they shall discover and produce the offender. And this I wish all persons to take notice of, that none may plead ignorance.

"Given under my hand at Edinburgh, the 5th of November, 1650.

"OLIVER CROMWELL." 1

LETTER CLII.

ONE nest of Moss-troopers, not far off, in the Dalkeith region, ought specially to be abated.

"To the Governor of Borthwick Castle: These.

"6 EDINBURGH, 18th November, 1650.

"SIR,I thought fit to send this Trumpet to you, to let you know, That if you please to walk away with your company, and deliver the House to such as I shall send to receive it, you shall have liberty to carry off your arms and goods, and such other necessaries as you have.

"You have harbored such parties in your House as have basely and inhumanly murdered our men: if you necessitate me to bend my cannon against you, you may expect what I doubt you will not be pleased with. I expect your present Answer; and rest,

"Your servant,

1 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 94).

"OLIVER CRomwell."

2 Russell's Life of Cromwell, ii. 95 (from Statistical Account of Scotland).

The Governor of Borthwick Castle, Lord Borthwick of that Ilk, did as he was bidden; "walked away," with movable goods, with wife and child, and had "fifteen days" allowed him to pack: whereby the Dalkeith region and Carlisle Road is a little quieter henceforth.

LETTER CLIII.

COLONELS Ker and Strahan with their Remonstrance have filled all Scotland with a fresh figure of dissension. The Kirk finds "many sad truths" in it; knows not what to do with it. In the Estates themselves there is division of opinion. Men of worship, the Minister in Kirkcaldy among others, are heard to say strange things: "That a Hypocrite," or Solecism Incarnate, "ought not to reign over us; that we should treat with Cromwell, and give him assurance not to trouble England with a King; that whosoever mars such a Treaty, the blood of the slain shall be on his head!". "Which are strange words," says Baillie, "if true." Scotland is in a hopeful way. The extreme party of Malignants in the North is not yet quite extinct; and here is another extreme party of Remonstrants in the West, to whom all the conscientious rash men of Scotland, in Kirkcaldy and elsewhere, seem as if they would join themselves! Nothing but remonstrating, protesting, treatying and mistreatying from sea to sea.

To have taken up such a Remonstrance at first, and stood by it, before the War began, had been very wise: but to take it up now, and attempt not to make a Peace by it, but to continue the War with it, looks mad enough! Such, nevertheless, is Colonel Gibby Ker's project, not Strahan's, it would seem: men's projects strangely cross one another in this time of bewilderment; and only perhaps in doing nothing could a man in such a scene act wisely. Lambert, however, is gone into the West with three thousand horse to deal with Ker and his projects; the Lord General has himself been in the West: the end of Ker's projects is succinctly shadowed forth in the