missioners, had power to subject whom they pleased to deci mation, to levy all the taxes imposed by the protector and his council, and to imprison any person who should be exposed to their jealousy or suspicion; nor was there any appeal from them but to the protector himself and his council. Under color of these powers, which were sufficiently exorbitant, the major-generals exercised an authority still more arbitrary, and acted as if absolute masters of the property and person of every subject. All reasonable men now concluded, that the very mask of liberty was thrown aside, and that the nation was forever subjected to military and despotic government, exercised not in the legal manner of European nations, but according to the maxims of Eastern tyranny. Not only the supreme magistrate owed his authority to illegal force and usurpation; he had parcelled out the people into so many subdivisions of slavery, and had delegated to his inferior ministers the same unlimited authority which he himself had so violently assumed.

A government totally military and despotic, is almost sure, after some time, to fall into impotence and languor : but when it immediately succeeds a legal constitution, it may, at first, to foreign nations appear very vigorous and active, and may exert with more unanimity that power, spirit, and riches, which had been acquired under a better form. It seems now proper, after so long an interval, to look abroad to the general state of Europe, and to consider the measures which England at this time embraced in its negotiations with the neighboring princes. The moderate temper and unwarlike genius of the two last princes, the extreme difficulties under which they labored at home, and the great security which they enjoyed from foreign enemies, had rendered them negligent of the transactions on the continent; and England, during their reigns, had been, in a manner, overlooked in the general system of Europe. The bold and restless genius of the protector led him to extend his alliances and enterprises to every part of Christendom; and partly from the ascendant of his magnanimous spirit, partly from the situation of foreign kingdoms, the weight of England, even under its most legal and bravest princes, was never more sensibly felt than during this unjust and violent usurpation.

A war of thirty years, the most signal and most destructive that had appeared in modern annals, was at last finished in

Germany; and by the treaty of Westphalia, were composed those fatal quarrels which had been excited by the palatine's precipitate acceptance of the crown of Bohemia. The young palatine was restored to part of his dignities and of his dominions. The rights, privileges, and authority of the several members of the Germanic body were fixed and ascertained: sovereign princes and free states were in some degree reduced to obedience under laws: and by the valor of the heroic Gustavus, the enterprises of the active Richelieu, the intrigues of the artful Mazarine, was in part effected, after an infinite expense of blood and treasure, which had been fondly expected and loudly demanded from the feeble efforts of the pacific James, seconded by the scanty supplies of his jealous parliaments.

Sweden, which had acquired by conquest large dominions. in the north of Germany, was engaged in enterprises which promised her, from her success and valor, still more extensive acquisitions on the side both of Poland and of Denmark. Charles X., who had mounted the throne of that kingdom after the voluntary resignation of Christina, being stimulated by the fame of Gustavus, as well as by his own martial disposition, carried his conquering arms to the south of the Baltic, and gained the celebrated battle of Warsaw, which had been obstinately disputed during the space of three days. The protector, at the time his alliance was courted by every power in Europe, anxiously courted the alliance of Sweden; and he was fond of forming a confederacy with a Protestant power of such renown, even though it threatened the whole north with conquest and subjection.

The transactions of the parliament and protector with. France had been various and complicated. The emissaries of Richelieu had furnished fuel to the flame of rebellion, when it first broke out in Scotland; but after the conflagration had diffused itself, the French court, observing the materials to be of themselves sufficiently combustible, found it unnecessary any longer to animate the British malecontents to an opposi tion of their sovereign. On the contrary, they offered their mediation for composing these intestine disorders; and their

* In 1648.

+ This prince, during the civil wars, had much neglected his uncle, and paid court to the parliament; he accepted of a pension of eight thousand pounds a year from them, and took a place in their assem bly of divines

ambassadors, from decency, pretended to act in concert with the court of England, and to receive directions from a prince with whom their master was connected by so near an affinity. Meanwhile Richelieu died, and soon after him the French king, Louis XIII., leaving his son, an infant four years old, and his widow, Anne of Austria, regent of the kingdom. Cardinal Mazarine succeeded Richelieu in the ministry; and the same general plan of policy, though by men of such opposite characters, was still continued in the French councils. The establishment of royal authority, the reduction of the Austrian. family, were pursued with ardor and success; and every year brought an accession of force and grandeur to the French monarchy. Not only battles were won, towns and fortresses taken; the genius too of the nation seemed gradually to improve, and to compose itself to the spirit of dutiful obedience and of steady enterprise. A Condé, a Turenne were formed; and the troops, animated by their valor, and guided by their discipline, acquired every day a greater ascendant over the Spaniards. All of a sudden, from some intrigues of the court, and some discontents in the courts of judicature, intestine commotions were excited, and every thing relapsed into confusion. But these rebellions of the French, neither ennobled by the spirit of liberty, nor disgraced by the fanatical extravagancies which distinguished the British civil wars, were conducted with little bloodshed, and made but a small impression on the minds of the people. Though seconded by the force of Spain, and conducted by the prince of Condé, the malecontents in a little time were either expelled or subdued; and the French monarchy, having lost a few of its conquests, returned with fresh vigor to the acquisition of new dominion.

The queen of England and her son Charles, during these commotions, passed most of their time at Paris; and notwithstanding their near connection of blood, received but few civilities, and still less support, from the French court. Had the queen regent been ever so much inclined to assist the English prince, the disorders of her own affairs would, for a long time, have rendered such intentions impracticable. The banished queen had a moderate pension assigned her; but it was so ill paid, and her credit ran so low, that, one morning, when the cardinal De Retz waited on her, she informed him, that her daughter, the princess Henrietta, was obliged to lie abed for want of a fire to warm her. To such a condition was reduced, in the

midst of Paris, a queen of England, and daughter of Henry IV. of France!

The English parliament, however, having assumed the sovereignty of the state, resented the countenance, cold as it was, which the French court gave to the unfortunate monarch. On pretence of injuries of which the English merchants complained, they issued letters of reprisal upon the French; and Blake went so far as to attack and seize a whole squadron of ships which were carrying supplies to Dunkirk, then closely besieged by the Spaniards. That town, disappointed of these supplies, fell into the hands of the enemy. The French ministers soon found it necessary to change their measures. They treated Charles with such affected indifference, that he thought it more decent to withdraw, and prevent the indignity of being desired to leave the kingdom. He went first to Spaw, thence he retired to Cologne; where he lived two years, on a small pension, about six thousand pounds a year, paid him by the court of France, and on some contributions sent him by his friends in England. In the management of his family he discovered a disposition to order and economy; and his temper, cheerful, careless, and sociable, was more than a sufficient compensation for that empire of which his enemies had bereaved him. Sir Edward Hyde, created lord chancellor, and the marquis of Ormond, were his chief friends and confidants.

If the French ministry had thought it prudent to bend under the English parliament, they deemed it still more necessary to pay deference to the protector, when he assumed the reins of government. Cardinal Mazarine, by whom all the counsels of France were directed, was artful and vigilant, supple and patient, false and intriguing; desirous rather to prevail by dexterity than violence, and placing his honor more in the final success of his measures, than in the splendor and magnanimity of the means which he employed. Cromwell, by his imperious character, rather than by the advantage of his situation, acquired an ascendant over this man; and every proposal made by protector, however unreasonable in itself, and with whatever insolence, met with a ready compliance from the politic and timid cardinal. Bourdeaux was sent over to England as minister; and all circumstances of respect were paid to the daring usurper, who had imbrued his hands in the blood of his sovereign, a prince so nearly related to the royal family of France. With indefatigable patience did Bourdeaux conduct this negotiation, which Cromwell seemed entirely to

urged the a

VOL. V.

39

H

neglect; and though privateers with English commissions committed daily depredations on the French commerce, Mazarine was content, in hopes of a fortunate issue, still to submit to these indignities.*

The court of Spain, less connected with the unfortunate royal family, and reduced to greater distress than the French monarchy, had been still more forward in her advances to the prosperous parliament and protector. Don Alonzo de Cardenas, the Spanish envoy, was the first public minister who recognized the authority of the new republic; and in return for this civility, Ascham was sent envoy into Spain by the parliament. No sooner had this minister arrived in Madrid, than some of the banished royalists, inflamed by that inveterate hatred which animated the English factions, broke into his chamber, and murdered him together with his secretary. Immediately they took sanctuary in the churches; and, assisted by the general favor which every where attended the royal cause, were enabled, most of them, to make their escape. Only one of the criminals suffered death; and the parliament seemed to rest satisfied with this atonement.

Spain, at this time, assailed every where by vigorous ene mies from without, and laboring under many internal disorders retained nothing of her former grandeur, except the haughty pride of her counsels, and the hatred and jealousy of her neighbors. Portugal had rebelled, and established her monarchy in the house of Braganza: Catalonia, complaining of violated privileges, had revolted to France: Naples was shaken with popular convulsions: the Low Countries were invaded with superior forces, and seemed ready to change their master the Spanish infantry, anciently so formidable, had been annihilated by Condé in the fields of Rocroy: and though the same prince, banished France, sustained by his activity and valor the falling fortunes of Spain, he could only hope to protract, not prevent, the ruin with which that monarchy was visibly threatened.

Had Cromwell understood and regarded the interests of his country, he would have supported the declining condition of Spain against the dangerous ambition of France, and preserved that balance of power on which the greatness and security of

* Thurloe, vol. iii. p. 103, 619, 653. In the treaty, which was signed after long negotiation, the protector's name was inserted before the French king's in that copy which remained in England. Thurloe, vol. v p. 116. See further, vol. vii. p. 178.