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perfect for human nature; and must be regarded as one effect, though of the most innocent and even honorable kind, of that spirit, partly fanatical, partly republican, which predominated oten mi aby in England.

Blake lay some time off Cadiz, in expectation of intercepting the Plate fleet, but was at last obliged, for want of water, to make sail towards Portugal. Captain Stayner, whom he had left on the coast with a squadron of seven vessels, came in sight of the galleons, and immediately set sail to pursue them. The Spanish admiral ran his ship ashore: two others followed his example: the English took two ships, valued at near two millions of pieces of eight. Two galleons were set on fire; and the marquis of Badajox, viceroy of Peru, with his wife, and his daughter, betrothed to the young duke of Medina Celi, were destroyed in them. The marquis himself might have escaped; but seeing these unfortunate women, astonished with the danger, fall in a swoon, and perish in the flames, he rather chose to die with them, than drag out a life imbittered When the with the remembrance of such dismal scenes." treasures gained by this enterprise arrived at Portsmouth, the protector, from a spirit of ostentation, ordered them to be transported by land to London. sent

midl baysh The next action against the Spaniards was more honorable, though less profitable, to the nation. Blake, having heard that a Spanish fleet of sixteen ships, much richer than the former, had taken shelter in the Canaries, immediately made sail towards them. He found them in the Bay of Santa Cruz, disposed in a formidable posture. The bay was secured with a strong castle, well provided with cannon, besides seven forts in several parts of it, all united by a line of communication, manned with musketeers, Don Diego Diagues, the Spanish admiral, ordered all his smaller vessels to moor close to the shore, and posted the larger galleons farther off, at anchor, with their broadsides to the seal domen

Blake was rather animated than daunted with this appearance. The wind seconded his courage, and blowing full intu the bay, in a moment brought him among the thickest of his enemies. After a resistance of four hours, the Spaniards yielded to English valor, and abandoned their ships, which were set on fire, and consumed with all their treasu e. The greatest danger still remained to the English. They lay under

Thurloe, vol. v. p. 433.

the fire of the castle and all the forts, which must in a little time have torn them in pieces. But the wind, suddenly shifting, carried them out of the bay; where they left the Span iards in astonishment at the happy temerity of their audacious victors.

This was the last and greatest action of the gallant Blake. He was consumed with a dropsy and scurvy, and hastened home, that he might yield up his breath in his native country, which he had so much adorned by his valor. As he came within sight of land, he expired. Never man, so zealous for a faction, was so much respected and esteemed even by the opposite factions. He was by principle an inflexible republican; and the late usurpations, amidst all the trust and caresses which he received from the ruling powers, were thought to be very little grateful to him. "It is still our duty," he said to the seamen, " to fight for our country, into what hands soever the government may fall." Disinterested, generous, liberal; ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies; he forms one of the most perfect characters of the age, and the least stained with those errors and violences which were then so predominant. The protector ordered him a pompous funeral at the public charge: but the tears of his countrymen were the most honorable panegyric on his memory.

The conduct of the protector in foreign affairs, though imprudent and impolitic, was full of vigor and enterprise, and drew a consideration to his country, which, since the reign of Elizabeth, it seemed to have totally lost. The great mind of this successful usurper was intent on spreading the renown of the English nation; and while he struck mankind with astonishment at his extraordinary fortune, he seemed to ennoble, instead of debasing, that people whom he had reduced to subjection. It was his boast, that he would render the name of an Englishman as much feared and revered as ever was that of a Roman; and as his countrymen found some reality in these pretensions, their national vanity, being gratified, made them bear with more patience all the indignities and calamities under which they labored.

It must also be acknowledged, that the protector, in his civil and domestic administration, displayed as great regard both to ustice and clemency, as his usurped authority, derived from

* 20th of April, 1657.

ao law, and founded only on the sword, could possibly permit, All the chief offices in the courts of judicature were filled with men of integrity: amidst the virulence of faction, the decrees of the judges were upright and impartial; and to every man but himself, and to himself, except where necessity required the contrary, the law was the great rule of conduct and behavior. Vane and Lilburn, whose credit with the republicans and levellers he dreaded, were indeed for some time confined to prison: Cony, who refused to pay illegal taxes, was obliged by menaces to depart from his obstinacy: high courts of justice were erected to try those who had engaged in conspiracies and insurrections against the protector's authority, and whom he could not safely commit to the verdict of juries. But these irregularities were deemed inevitable consequences of his illegal authority. And though often urged by his officers, as is pretended,* to attempt a general massacre of the royalists, he always with horror rejected such sanguinary counsels.

In the army was laid the sole basis of the protector's power, and in managing it consisted the chief art and delicacy of his government. The soldiers were held in exact discipline; a policy which both accustomed them to obedience, and made them less hateful and burdensome to the people. He augmented their pay; though the public necessities sometimes obliged him to run in arrears to them. Their interests, they were sensible, were closely connected with those of their general and protector. And he entirely commanded their affectionate regard, by his abilities and success in almost every enterprise which he had hitherto undertaken. But all military government is precarious; much more where it stands in opposition to civil establishments; and still more where it encounters religious prejudices. By the wild fanaticism which he had nourished in the soldiers, he had seduced them into measures, for which, if openly proposed to them, they would have entertained the utmost aversion. But this same spirit rendered them more difficult to be governed, and made their caprices terrible even to that hand which directed their movements. So often taught, that the office of king was a usurpation upon Christ, they were apt to suspect a protector not to be altogether compatible with that divine authority. Harrison, though raised to the highest dignity, and possessed of Crom

* Clarendon, Life of Dr. Berwick, etc.

well's confidence, became his most inveterate enemy is soon as the authority of a single person was established, agains: which that usurper had always made such violent protestations. Overton, Rich, Okey, officers of rank in the army, were actuated with like principles, and Cromwell was obliged to deprive them of their commissions. Their influence, which was before thought unbounded among the troops, seemed from that moment to be totally annihilated.

The more effectually to curb the enthusiastic and seditious spirit of the troops, Cromwell established a kind of militia in the several counties. Companies of infantry and cavalry were enlisted under proper officers, regular pay distributed among them, and a resource by that means provided both against the insurrections of the royalists and mutiny of the army.

Religion can never be deemed a point of small consequence in civil government: but during this period, it may be regarded as the great spring of men's actions and determinations. Though transported himself with the most frantic whimseys, Cromwell had adopted a scheme for regulating this principle in others, which was sagacious and political. Being resolved to maintain a national church, yet determined neither to admit Episcopacy nor Presbytery, he established a number of commissioners, under the name of tryers, partly laymen, partly ecclesiastics, some Presbyterians, some Independents. These presented to all livings which were formerly in the gift of the crown; they examined and admitted such persons as received holy orders; and they inspected the lives, doctrine, and behavior of the clergy. Instead of supporting that union between learning and theology, which has so long been attempted in Europe, these tryers embraced the latter principle in its full purity, and made it the sole object of their examination. The candidates were no more perplexed with questions concerning their progress in Greek and Roman erudition; concerning their talent for profane arts and sciences: the chief object of scrutiny regarded their advances in grace, and fixing the critical moment of their conversion.

With the pretended saints of all denominations Cromwell was familiar and easy. Laying aside the state of protector, which on other occasions he well knew how to maintain, he insinuated to them, that nothing but necessity cold ever oblige him to invest himself with it. He talked spiritually to hem; he sighed he wept, he canted, he prayed.

entered with them into an emulation of ghostly gifts; and these men, instead of grieving to be outdone in their own way, were proud that his highness, by his princely example, had dignified those practices in which they themselves were daily occupied.*

If Cromwell might be said to adhere to any particular form of religion, they were the Independents who could chiefly boast of his favor; and it may be affirmed, that such pastors of that sect as were not passionately addicted to civil liberty, were all of them devoted to him. The Presbyterian elergy, also saved from the ravages of the Anabaptists and Millenarians, and enjoying their establishments and tithes, were not averse to his government; though he still entertained a great jealousy of that ambitious and restless spirit by which they were actuated. He granted an unbounded liberty of conscience to all but Catholics and Prelatists; and by that means be both attached the wild sectaries to his person, and employed them in curbing the domineering spirit of the Presbyterians. "I am the only man," he was often heard to say, who has known how to subdue that insolent sect, which can suffer none but itself."

The Protestant zeal which possessed the Presbyterians and Independents, was highly gratified by the haughty manner in which the protector so successfully supported the persecuted Protestants throughout all Europe. Even the duke of Savoy, so remote a power, and so little exposed to the naval force of England, was obliged, by the authority of France, to comply with his mediation, and to tolerate the Protestants of the valleys, against whom that prince had commenced a furious persecution. France itself was constrained to bear, not only with the religion, but even, in some instances, with the seditious insolence of the Hugonots; and when the French court applied for a reciprocal toleration of the Catholic religion in

Cromwell followed, though but in part, the advice which he received from General Harrison, at the time when the intimacy and endearment most strongly subsisted betwixt them. "Let the waiting upon Jehovah," said that military saint, "be the greatest and most considerable business you have every day: reckon it so, more than to eat, sleep, and counsel together. Run aside sometimes from your company, and get a word with the Lord. Why should not you have three or four precious souls always standing at your elbow, with whom you might now and then turn into a corner? I have found refreshment and mercy in such a way."-Milton's State Papers,