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of Man brought under subjection to the republic; and the sea which had been much infested by privateers from these islands was rendered safe to the English commerce. The countess of Derby defended the Isle of Man; and with great reluctance yielded to the necessity of surrendering to the enemy. This lady, a daughter of the illustrious house of Trimoille, in France, had, during the civil war, displayed a manly courage by her obstinate defence of Latham House against the parliamentary forces; and she retained the glory of being the last person in the three kingdoms, and in all their dependent dominions, who submitted to the victorious commonwealth.* *

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Ireland and Scotland were now entirely subjected, and reduced to tranquillity. Ireton, the new deputy of Ireland, at the head of a numerous army, thirty thousand strong, prosecuted the work of subduing the revolted Irish; and he defeated them in many rencounters, which, though of themselves of no great moment, proved fatal to their declining cause. He punished without mercy all the prisoners who had any hand in the massacres. Sir Phelim O'Neale, among the rest, was some time after brought to the gibbet, and suffered an ignominious death, which he had so well merited by his inhuman cruelties. Limeric, a considerable town, still remained in the hands of the Irish; and Ireton, after a vigorous siege, made himself master of it He was here infected with the plague, and shortly after died; a memorable personage, much celebrated for his vigilance, industry, capacity even for the strict execution of justice in that unlimited command which he possessed in Ireland. He was observed to be inflexible in all his purposes; and it was believed by many, that he was animated with a sincere and passionate love of liberty, and never could have been induced by any motive tc submit to the smallest appearance of regal government. Cromwell appeared to be much affected by his death; and the republicans, who reposed great confidence in him, were inconsolable. To show their regard for his merit and services, they bestowed an estate of two thousand pounds a year on his family, and honored him with a magnificent funeral at the public charge. Though the established government was but the mere shadow of a commonwealth, yet was it beginning by proper arts, to encourage that public spirit, which no other species of civil polity is ever able fully to inspire.

* See note X, at the end of the volume.

The coinmand of the army in Ireland devolved on Lieutenant-General Ludlow. The civil government of the island was intrusted to commissioners. Ludlow continued to push the advantages against the Irish, and every where obtained an easy victory. That unhappy people, disgusted with the king on account of those violent declarations against them and their religion which had been extorted by the Scots, applied to the king of Spain, to the duke of Lorraine ; and found assistance nowhere. Clanricarde, unable to resist the prevailing power, made submissions to the parliament, and retired into England, where he soon after died. He was a steady Catholic, but a man much respected by all parties.

The successes which attended Monk in Scotland were no less decisive. That able general laid siege to Stirling Castle; and though it was well provided for defence, it was soon surrendered to him. He there became master of all the records of the kingdom; and he sent them to England. The earl of Leven, the earl of Crawford, Lord Ogilvy, and other noblemen, having met near Perth, in order to concert measures for raising a new army, were suddenly set upon by Colonel Alured, and most of them taken prisoners. Sir Philip Musgrave, with some Scots, being engaged at Dumfries in a like enterprise, met with a like fate. Dundee was a town well fortified, supplied with a good garrison under Lumisden, and full of all the rich furniture, the plate and money of the kingdom, which had been sent thither as to a place of safety. Monk appeared before it; and having made a breach, gave a general assault. He carried the town; and following the example and instructions of Cromwell, put all the inhabitants to the sword, in order to strike a general terror into the kingdom. Warned by this example, Aberdeen, St. Andrew's, Inverness, and other towns and forts, yielded of their own accord to the enemy. Argyle made his submissions to the English commonwealth; and excepting a few royalists, who remained some time in the mountains, under the earl of Glencairn, Lord Balcarras, and General Middleton, that kingdom, which had hitherto, through all ages, by means of its situation, poverty, and valor, maintained its independence, was reauced to total subjection.

The English parliament sent Sir Harry Vane, St. John, and other commissioners to settle Scotland. These men. who possessed little of the true spirit of liberty, knew how to maintain the appearance of it; and they required the voluntary

consent of all the counties and towns of this conquered kingdom, before they would unite them into the same common wealth with England. The clergy protested; because, they said, this incorporating union would draw along with it a subordination of the church to the state in the things of Christ.* English judges, joined to some Scottish, were appointed to determine all causes; justice was strictly administered; order and peace maintained; and the Scots, freed from the tyranny of the ecclesiastics, were not much dissatisfied with the present government.† The prudent conduct of Monk, a man who possessed a capacity for the arts both of peace and war, served much to reconcile the minds of men, and to allay their prejudices.

[1652.] By the total reduction and pacification of the British dominions, the parliament had leisure to look abroad, and to exert their vigor in foreign enterprises. The Dutch were the first that felt the weight of their arms.

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During the life of Frederic Henry, prince of Orange, the Dutch republic had maintained a neutrality in the civil wars of England, and had never interposed, except by her good offices, between the contending parties. When William, who had married an English princess, succeeded to his father's commands and authority, the states, both before and after the execution of the late king, were accused of taking steps more favorable to the royal cause, and of betraying a great prejudice against that of the parliament. It was long before the envoy of the English commonwealth could obtain an audience of the states general. The murderers of Dorislaus were not pursued with such vigor as the parliament expected. And much regard had been paid to the king, and many good offices performed to him, both by the public, and by men of all ranks, in the United Provinces.

After the death of William, prince of Orange, which was attended with the depression of his party and the triumph of the Dutch republicans, the parliament thought that the time was now favorable for cementing a closer confederacy with the states. St. John, chief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained the idea of forming a kind of coalition between the two republics, which would have rendered their interests totally inseparable; but fearing that so extraordinary

* Whitlocke, p. 496. Heathe's Chronicle, p. 307.
+ See note Y, at the end of the volume.
§ October 17, 1650.

1647.

a project would not be relished, he contented himself with dropping some hints of it, and openly went no further than to propose a strict defensive alliance between England and the United Provinces, such as has now, for near seventy years, taken place between these friendly powers. * But the states, who were unwilling to form a nearer confederacy with a government whose measures were so obnoxious, and whose situation seemed so precarious, offered only to renew the former alliances with England. And the haughty St. John, disgusted with this disappointment, as well as incensed at many affronts which had been offered him with impunity by the retainers ofthe Palatine and Orange families, and indeed by the populace în general, returned into England, and endeavored to foment a quarrel between the republics.

The movement of great states are often directed by as slender springs as those of individuals. Though war with sɔ considerable a naval power as the Dutch, who were in peace with all their other neighbors, might seem dangerous to the yet unsettled commonwealth, there were several motives which at this time induced the English parliament to embrace hostile measures. Many of the members thought, that a foreign war would serve as a pretence for continuing the same parliament, and delaying the new model of a representative, with which the nation had so long been flattered. Others hoped, that the war would furnish a reason for maintaining, some time longer, that numerous standing army, which was so much complained of. On the other hand, some, who dreaded the increasing power of Cromwell, expected that the great expense of naval armaments would prove a motive for diminishing the military establishment. To divert the attention of the public from domestic quarrels towards foreign transactions, seemed, in the. present disposition of men's minds, to be good policy. The superior power of the English commonwealth, together with its advantages of situation, promised success; and the parliamentary leaders hoped to gain many rich prizes from the Dutch, to distress and sink their flourishing commerce, and by victories to throw a lustre on their own establishment, which was so new and unpopular. All these views, enforced by the violent spirit of St. John, who had great influence over Crom

*Thurloe, vol. i. p. 182.

We are told, in the Life of Sir Harry Van tha that famous republican opposed the Dutch war, and that it was the military gen. tlemen chiefly who supported that measure.

well, determined the parliament to change the purposed alli ance into a furious war against the United Provinces.

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To cover these hostile intentions, the parliament, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, embraced such measures as they knew would give disgust to the states. They framed the famous act of navigation; which prohibited all nations from importing into England in their bottoms any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country. By this law, though the terms in which it was conceived were general, the Dutch were principally affected; because their country produces few commodities, and they subsist chiefly by being the general carriers and fac tors of Europe. Letters of reprisal were granted to several merchants, who complained of injuries which, they pretended, they had received from the states; and above eighty Dutch ships fell into their hands, and were made prizes. The cruelties committed on the English at Amboyna, which were certainly enormous, but which seemed to be buried in oblivion by a thirty years' silence, were again made the ground of complaint. And the allowing the murderers of Dorislaus to escape, and the conniving at the insults to which St. John had been exposed, were represented as symptoms of an unfriendly, if not a hostile disposition in the states.

The states, alarmed at all these steps, sent orders to their ambassadors to endeavor the renewal of the treaty of alliance, which had been broken off by the abrupt departure of St. John. Not to be unprepared, they equipped a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, and took care, by their ministers at London, to inform the council of the state of that armament. This intelligence, instead of striking terror into the English republic, was considered as a menace, and further confirmed the parliament in their hostile resolutions. The minds of men in both states were every day more irritated against each other; and it was not long before these humors broke forth into action.

Tromp, an admiral of great renown, received from the states the command of a fleet of forty-two sail, in order to protect the Dutch navigation against the privateers of the English. He was forced by stress of weather, as he alleged, to take shelter in the road of Dover, where he met with Blake, who commanded an English fleet much inferior in number. Who was the aggressor in the action which ensued between these two admirals, both of them men of such prompt and

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