inflamed by any national antipathy, and their interests very little interfered: yet few battles have been disputed with more fierce and obstinate courage, than were those many naval combats which were fought during this short but violent war. The desire of remaining sole lords of the ocean animated these states to an honourable emulation against each other. After a battle of two days, in the first of which Dean was killed, the Dutch, inferior in the size of their ships, were obliged, with great loss, to retire into their harbours. Blake, towards the end of the fight, joined his countrymen with eighteen sail. The English fleet lay off the coast of Holland, and totally interrupted the commerce of that republic. 1653. The ambassadors whom the Dutch had sent over to England, gave them hopes of peace. But as they could obtain no cessation of hostilities, the states, unwilling to suffer any longer the loss and dishonour of being blockaded by the enemy, made the utmost efforts to recover their injured honour. Never on any occasion did the power and vigour of that republic appear in a more conspicuous light. In a few weeks they had repaired and manned their fleet; and they equipped some ships of a larger size than any which they had hitherto sent to sea. Tromp issued out, determined again to fight the victors, and to die rather than to yield the contest. He met with the enemy, commanded by Monk; and both sides immediately rushed into the combat. Tromp, gallantly ani- July 29. mating his men, with his sword drawn, was shot through the heart with a musket ball. This event alone decided the battle in favour of the English. Though near thirty ships of the Dutch were sunk and taken, they little regarded this loss compared with that of their brave admiral. Meanwhile the negotiations of peace were continually advancing. The states, overwhelmed with the expense of the war, terrified by their losses, and mortified by their defeats, were extremely desirous of an accommodation with an enemy whom they found by experience too powerful for them. The king having shown an inclination to 1653. 1654. April 15. serve on board their fleet; though they expressed their sense of the honour intended them, they declined an offer which might inflame the quarrel with the English commonwealth. The great obstacle to the peace was found, not to be any animosity on the part of the English; but, on the contrary, a desire too earnest of union and confederacy. Cromwell had revived the chimerical scheme of a coalition with the United Provinces; a total conjunction of government, privileges, interests, and councils. This project appeared so wild to the states, that they wondered any man of sense could ever entertain it; and they refused to enter into conferences with regard to a proposal which could serve only to delay any practicable scheme of acPeace with commodation. The peace was at last signed by Cromwell, now invested with the dignity of protector; and it proves sufficiently, that the war had been impolitic, since, after the most signal victories, no terms more advantageous could be obtained. A defensive league was made between the two republics. They agreed, each of them, to banish the enemies of the other: those who had been concerned in the massacre of Amboyna were to be punished, if any remained alive; the honour of the flag was yielded to the English; eighty-five thousand pounds were stipulated to be paid by the Dutch East India company for losses which the English company had sustained; and the island of Polerone in the East Indies was promised to be ceded to the latter. Holland. Cromwell, jealous of the connexions between the royal family and that of Orange, insisted on a separate article; that neither the young prince nor any of his family should ever be invested with the dignity of stadtholder. The province of Holland, strongly prejudiced against that office, which they esteemed dangerous to liberty, secretly ratified this article. The protector, knowing that the other provinces would not be induced to make such a concession, was satisfied with this security. The Dutch war, being successful, and the peace reasonable, brought credit to Cromwell's administration. An act of justice, which he exercised at home, gave likewise satis faction to the people; though the regularity of it may perhaps appear somewhat doubtful. Don Pantaleon Sa, brother to the Portuguese ambassador, and joined with him in the same commission, fancying himself to be insulted, came upon the exchange, armed and attended by several servants. By mistake, he fell on a gentleman whom he took for the person that had given him the offence; and having butchered him with many wounds, he and all his attendants took shelter in the house of the Portuguese ambassador, who had connived at this base enterprise'. The populace surrounded the house, and threatened to set fire to it. Cromwell sent a guard, who seized all the criminals. They were brought to trial: and notwithstanding the opposition of the ambassador, who pleaded the privileges of his office, Don Pantaleon was executed on Tower-hill. The laws of nations were here plainly violated: but the crime committed by the Portuguese gentleman was to the last degree atrocious; and the vigorous chastisement of it, suiting so well the undaunted character of Cromwell, was universally approved of at home, and admired among foreign nations. The situation of Portugal obliged that court to acquiesce; and the ambassador soon after signed with the protector a treaty of peace and alliance, which was very advantageous to the English commerce. Another act of severity, but necessary in his situation, was, at the very same time, exercised by the protector, in the capital punishment of Gerard and Vowel, two royalists, who were accused of conspiring against his life. He had erected a high court of justice for their trial; an infringement of the ancient laws which at this time was become familiar, but one to which no custom or precedent could reconcile the nation. Juries were found altogether unmanageable. The restless Lilburn, for new offences, had been brought to a new trial; and had been acquitted with new triumph and exultation. If no other method of conviction had been devised during this illegal and un * Thurloe, vol. ii. p. 429. VOL. VII. Ibid. vol. i. P. 616. P 1654. 1654. Sept. 3. A new par liament. popular government, all its enemies were assured of entire impunity. The protector had occasion to observe the prejudices entertained against his government, by the disposition of the parliament, which he summoned on the third of September, that day of the year on which he gained his two great victories of Dunbar and Worcester, and which he always regarded as fortunate for him. It must be confessed that, if we are left to gather Cromwell's intentions from his instrument of government, it is such a motley piece, that we cannot easily conjecture whether he seriously meant to establish a tyranny or a republic. On one hand, a first magistrate in so extensive a government seemed necessary both for the dignity and tranquillity of the state; and the authority which he assumed as protector was, in some respects, inferior to the prerogatives which the laws intrusted and still intrust to the king. On the other hand, the legislative power which he reserved to himself and council, together with so great an army, independent of the parliament, were bad prognostics of his intention to submit to a civil and legal constitution. But if this were not his intention, the method in which he distributed and conducted the elections, being so favourable to liberty, form an inconsistency which is not easily accounted for. He deprived of their right of election all the small boroughs, places the most exposed to influence and corruption. Of four hundred members which represented England, two hundred and seventy were chosen by the counties. The rest were elected by London, and the more considerable corporations. The lower populace too, so easily guided or deceived, were excluded from the elections: an estate of two hundred pounds' value was necessary to entitle any one to a vote. The elections of this parliament were conducted with perfect freedom; and, excepting that such of the royalists as had borne arms against the parliament and all their sons were excluded, a more fair representation of the people could not be desired or expected. Thirty members were returned from Scotland; as many from Ireland. The protector seems to have been disappointed, when 1654. he found that all these precautions, which were probably nothing but covers to his ambition, had not procured him the confidence of the public. Though Cromwell's administration was less odious to every party than that of any other party, yet was it entirely acceptable to none. The royalists had been instructed by the king to remain quiet, and to cover themselves under the appearance of republicans; and they found in this latter faction such inveterate hatred against the protector, that they could not wish for more zealous adversaries to his authority. It was maintained by them, that the pretence of liberty and a popular election was but a new artifice of this great deceiver, in order to lay asleep the deluded nation, and give himself leisure to rivet their chains more securely upon them: that in the instrument of government he openly declared his intention of still retaining the same mercenary army, by whose assistance he had subdued the ancient established government, and who would with less scruple obey him in overturning, whenever he should please to order them, that new system which he himself had been pleased to model: that being sensible of the danger and uncertainty of all military government, he endeavoured to intermix some appearance, and but an appearance, of civil administration, and to balance the army by a seeming consent of the people: that the absurd trial which he had made of a parliament, elected by himself, appointed perpetually to elect their successors, plainly proved, that he aimed at nothing but temporary expedients, was totally averse to a free republican government, and possessed not that mature and deliberate reflection which could qualify him to act the part of a legislator: that his imperious character, which had betrayed itself in so many incidents, could never seriously submit to legal limitations; nor would the very image of popular government be longer upheld than while conformable to his arbitrary will and pleasure and that the best policy was to oblige him to take off the mask at once; and either submit entirely to that parliament which he had summoned, or, by totally re |