"The spirit of the French," you say, “will never deign | the thing is clear enough in itself; from which you to receive our ambassadors." It has deigned, which is much more, voluntarily to send ambassadors three or four times to us. The French, therefore, are as noble minded as usual; but you are degenerate and spurious, and your politics betray as much ignorance as falsehood. Hence you attempt to demonstrate that "the negotiation of the United States was purposely protracted, because they wished neither to treat with us, nor to go to war with us." But it certainly behoves their High Mightinesses not to suffer their counsels to be thus exposed, and, I may say, traduced by a Genevese fugitive; who, if they suffer him any longer to remain among them, will not only debauch their women but their counsels. For they profess the most unfeigned amity; and have lately renewed a peace with us, of which it is the wish of all good men that it may be perpetual. "It was pleasant," he says, to see how those ruffian ambassadors," he means the English, "had to contend with the mockery and the menace of the English royalists, but chiefly of the Dutch." If we had not thoroughly known to whom the murder of our former ambassador, Dorislaus, and the affronts which were offered to our two other ambassadors are to be ascribed, we might well exclaim, lo! a slanderous informant, who falsely accuses the very persons by whose bounty he is fed! Will you any longer, O Batavians! cherish and support a man, who, not contented with practising the most infamous debaucheries in the church, wishes to introduce the most sanguinary butchery into the state; who not only exposes you to violate the laws of nations, but falsely imputes to you the guilt of such violations? may conjecture what the French would have done if they had the power. I add, moreover, that those who oppose a tyrant in the field, do all in their power to put him to death; indeed, whatever sophistry they may use, they have already morally put him to death. But this doctrine is not to be imputed to us more than to the French, whom you wish to exempt from the imputation. For whence issued that work of "Franco Gallia," except from Gaul, or “ the defence against tyranny?" A book which is commonly ascribed to Beza. Whence others, which Thaunus mentions? But, as if I were the only author of the doctrine, you say, "Milton makes a pother about that, whose raving spirit I would have chastised as it deserves." You would have chastised, miscreant? You, whose atrocious proceedings, if the church of Middleburgh, which was disgraced by your impieties, had punished as they deserved, it would long since have committed you to the keeping of the devil; and if the civil power had rewarded you according to your desert, you would long ago have expiated your adulteries on a gibbet. And the hour of expiation seems on the point of arriving; for, as I hear, the church of Middleburgh, awakening to a right sense of your enormities and of its own disgrace, has expelled such a priest of lechery from her communion, and devoted you to perdition. Hence, the magistrates of Amsterdam have excluded you from the pulpit, that pious ears may no longer be scandalized, by hearing the sounds of your profligate effrontery in the bosom of the sanctuary. Your Greek professorship is now all that is left you; and this you will soon lose, except one single letter, of which you will not be the professor, but the pupil, pensile from the top [5]. Nor do I omen this in rage; I express only the truth; for I am so far from being offended with such revilers as you, that I would always wish for such persons to revile me; and I esteem it a mark of the divine benevolence, that those, who have most bitterly inveighed against me, have usually been persons whose abuse is praise, and whose praise is infamy. But what served to restrain the irruption of such impotence of rage? "Unless," you say, "I have been fearful of encroaching on the province of the great Salmasius, to whom I relinquish the undivided praise of victory over his great antagonist." Since indeed you now profess to consider me great, as well as him, you will find the difficulties of your undertaking increased, particularly since his death; though I feel very little solicitude about the victory, as long as truth prevails. In the mean time you exclaim, that “we are converting parricide into an article of faith, to which they secretly desire, though they do not openly dare to ascribe, the unanimous consent of the reformed The last head of his accusations is," our injuries to the reformed churches." But how our injuries towards them, rather than theirs towards us? For if you recur to examples, and turn over the annals of history from the Waldenses and the Thoulousians to the famine of Rochelle, you will find that we, of all churches, have been the last to take up arms against tyranny; but the first" to bring the tyrant to a scaffold." Truly, because we were the first who had it in our power; and I think that they hardly know what they would have done if they had experienced similar opportunities. Indeed I am of opinion, that he against whom we wage war, must necessarily, and as long as we have any use of reason, be judged an enemy; but it has always been as lawful to put an enemy to death, as to attack him with the sword. Since then a tyrant is not only our enemy, but the public enemy of mankind; he may certainly be put to death with as much justice on the scaffold, as he is opposed with arms in the field. Nor is this only my opinion, or one of recent date; for common sense has long since dictated the same to others. Hence Tully, in his oration for Rabirius, de-churches; and Milton says, that it was the doctrine clares," If it were criminal to put Saturninus to death, arms could not, without a crime, have been taken up against Saturninus; but if you allow the justice of taking up arms against him, you must allow the justice of putting him to death." I have said a good deal on this subject at other times and in other places, and of the greatest theologians, who were the principal authors of the reformation." It was, I say; as I have more fully shewn in the tenure of kings and magistrates, and in other places. But now we are become scrupulous about doing what has been so often done. In that work, I have cited passages from Luther, Zuin to have followed the worst counsels, and those too of the worst advisers. Charles is the victim of persuasion, Charles the dupe of imposition, Charles the pageant of delusion; he is intimidated by fear or dazzled by hope; and carried about here and there, the common prey of every faction, whether they be friends or foes. Let them either erase these facts from their writings, or cease to extol the sagacity of Charles. Though therefore a superior degree of penetration is an honourable distinction, yet when a country is torn with factions, it is not without its inconveniencies; and the most discreet and cautious are most exposed to the ca glius, Calvin, Bucer, Martyr, Paræus, and lastly, from that Knox, who you say alone countenances the doctrine which all the reformed churches at that time, and particularly those of France, condemned. And he himself affirms, as I have there explained, that he derived the doctrine from Calvin and other eminent theologians of that time, with whom he was in habits of familiarity and friendship. And in the same work you will find the same opinions supported by the authorities of some of our more pure and disinterested divines, during the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. You conclude your work with a prolix effusion of your devotional abominations to the Deity. You dare to lift up your adulter-lumnies of opposite factions. This often proved an obous eyes and your obdurate heart to heaven! I will throw no impediments in your way, but leave you to yourself; for your impiety is great beyond the possibility of increase. I now return, as I promised, to produce the principal accusations against Cromwell, that I may show what little consideration particulars deserve, when the whole taken together is so frivolous and absurd." He declared in the presence of many witnesses, that it was his intention to subvert every monarchy, and extermi- | nate every king." We have often seen before what credit is due to your assertions; perhaps one of the emigrants ascribed this saying to Cromwell. Of the many witnesses, you do not mention the name of a single one; but aspersions, so destitute of proof, must be destitute of permanence. Cromwell was never found to be boastful of his actual exploits: and much less is he wont to employ any ostentatiousness of promise or arrogance of menace respecting atchievements which were never performed, and the performance of which would be so difficult. Those, therefore, who furnished you with this piece of information, must have been liars rather from a spontaneous impulse or a constitutional propensity, than from deliberate intention, or they would never have invented a saying so contrary to his character and disposition. But the kings, whose trembling apprehensions and vigilant precautions you labour to excite, instead of accommodating their policy to the opinions which may be casually uttered in the street, had better enter on the consideration of the sub-chieved. ject in a manner more suitable to its dignity, and more likely to throw light upon their interests. Another accusation is, that Cromwell had persuaded "the king secretly to withdraw himself into the Isle of Wight." It is well known that the affairs of Charles were often rendered desperate in other ways, and thrice by flight; first, when he fled from London to York, next, when he took refuge among the Scotch in the pay of Eugland, and lastly, when he retired to the Isle of Wight. But "Cromwell persuaded this last measure." This is to be sure beyond all possibility of doubt; but I wonder that the royalists should lavish such an abundance of praise respecting the prudence of Charles, who seems scarce ever to have had a will of his own. For whether he was among his friends or his enemies, in the court or in the camp, he was generally the mere puppet of others; at one time of his wife, at another of his bishops, now of his nobles, then of his troops, and last of all, of the enemy. And he seems, for the most part, stacle in the way of Cromwell. Hence the presbyterians, and hence the enemy, impute every harsh treatment which they experience, not to the parliament but to Cromwell alone. They do not even hesitate to ascribe their own indiscretions and miscarriages to the fraud and treachery of Cromwell; against him every invective is levelled, and every censure passed. Indeed the flight of Charles to the Isle of Wight, which took place while Cromwell was at a distance, and was so sudden and unexpected, that he acquainted by letter every member then in the metropolis with the extraordinary occurrence. But this was the state of the case. The king, alarmed by the clamours of the whole army, which, neither softened by his intreaties nor his promises, had begun to demand his punishment, he determined to make his escape in the night with two trusty followers. But more determined to fly, than rightly knowing where to fly, he was induced, either by the ignorance or the cowardice of his attendants, to surrender himself to Hammond, governor of the Isle of Wight, whence he thought that he might easily be conveyed by ship into France or Holland. This is what I have learned concerning the king's flight to the Isle of Wight, from those who possessed the readiest means of obtaining information. This is also one of the criminal charges; that "the English under Cromwell procured a great victory over the Scots." Not " procured," Sir, but, without any solecism, gloriously atBut consider how sanguinary that battle must have been, the mere idea of which excited such trembling apprehensions, that you could not mention it without striking your head against Priscian's pate. But let us see what was the great crime in Cromwell in having gained such a complete victory over the Scots, who were menacing England with invasion, with the loss of her independence. "During this confusion, while Cromwell is absent with his army:" yes, while he was engaged in subduing an enemy, who had marched into the very heart of the kingdom, and menaced the safety of the parliament: while he was employed in reducing the revolted Welsh to their obedience, whom he vanquished wherever he could overtake, and dispersed wherever he could find; the presbyterians "began to conceive a disgust against Cromwell." Here you speak the truth. While he is repelling the common enemy at the hazard of his life, and bravely defending their interests abroad, they are conspiring to ruin his reputation at home, and suborn one Huntington to take away his life. Does not this atrocious instance of ingratitude excite our abhorrence and our rage? By their instigation a mob of worthless people, reeking from the taverns and the stews, besieges the doors of the parliament, and (O indignity) compels them by clamour and intimidation, to vote such measures as they chose to dictate. And we should now have seen our Camillus, on his return from Scotland, after all his triumphs, and all his toils, either driven into exile, or put to an ignominious death, if General Fairfax had not openly remonstrated against the disgrace of his invincible lieutenant; if the whole army, which had itself experienced a good deal of illtreatment, had not interposed to prevent such atrocious proceedings. Entering the metropolis, they quelled the citizens without much difficulty; they deservedly expelled from the senate those members who favoured the hostile Scotch; the rest, delivered from the insolence of the rabble, broke off the conference which had begun with the king in the Isle of Wight, contrary to the express orders of the parliament. But Huntington the accuser was left to himself; and at last, struck with remorse, solicited the forgiveness of Cromwell, and confessed by whom he had been suborned. These are the principal charges, except those to which I have replied above, which are brought forward against this noble deliverer of his country. Of how little force they are, is very apparent. But, in speaking of such a man, who has merited so well of his country, I should do nothing, if I only exculpated him from crimes; particularly since it not only so nearly concerns the country, but even myself, who am so closely implicated in the same disgrace, to evince to all nations, and as far as I can, to all ages, the excellence of his character, and the splendour of his renown. Oliver Cromwell was sprung from a line of illustrious ancestors, who were distinguished for the civil functions which they sustained under the monarchy, and still more for the part which they took in restoring and establishing true religion in this country. In the vigour and maturity of his life, which he passed in retirement, he was conspicuous for nothing more than for the strictness of his religious habits and the innocence of his life; and he had tacitly cherished in his breast that flame of piety which was afterwards to stand him in so much stead on the greatest occasions, and in the most critical exigencies. In the last parliament which was called by the king, he was elected to represent his native town; when he soon became distinguished by the justness of his opinions, and the vigour and decision of his counsels. When the sword was drawn, he offered his services, and was appointed to a troop of horse, whose numbers were soon increased by the pious and the good, who flocked from all quarters to his standard; and in a short time he almost surpassed the greatest generals in the magnitude and the rapidity of his atchievements. Nor is this surprising; for he was a soldier disciplined to perfection in the knowledge of himself. He had either extinguished, or by habit had learned to subdue, the whole host of vain hopes, fears, and passions, which infest the soul. He first acquired the government of | himself, and over himself acquired the most signal victories; so that on the first day he took the field against the external enemy, he was a veteran in arms, consummately practised in the toils and exigencies of war. It is not possible for me in the narrow limits in which I circumscribe myself on this occasion, to enumerate the many towns which he has taken, the many battles which he has won. The whole surface of the British empire has been the scene of his exploits, and the theatre of his triumphs; which alone would furnish ample materials for a history, and want a copiousness of narration not inferior to the magnitude and diversity of the transactions. This alone seems to be a sufficient proof of his extraordinary and almost supernatural virtue, that by the vigour of his genius, or the excellence of his discipline, adapted, not more to the necessities of war, than to the precepts of Christianity, the good and the brave were from all quarters attracted to his camp, not only as to the best school of military talents, but of piety and virtue; and that during the whole war, and the occasional intervals of peace, amid so many vicissitudes of faction and of events, he retained and still retains the obedience of his troops, not by largesses or indulgence, but by his sole authority, and the regularity of his pay. In this instance his fame may rival that of Cyrus, of Epaminondas, or any of the great generals of antiquity. Hence he collected an army as numerous and as well equipped as any one ever did in so short a time; which was uniformly obedient to his orders, and dear to the affections of the citizens; which was formidable to the enemy in the field, but never cruel to those who laid down their arms; which committed no lawless ravages on the persons or the property of the inhabitants; who, when they compared their conduct with the turbulence, the intemperance, the impiety, and the debauchery of the royalists, were wont to salute them as friends, and to consider them as guests. They were a stay to the good, a terror to the evil, and the warmest advocates for every exertion of piety and virtue. Nor would it be right to pass over the name of Fairfax, who united the utmost fortitude with the utmost courage; and the spotless innocence of whose life seemed to point him out as the peculiar favourite of heaven. Justly indeed may you be excited to receive this wreath of praise; though you have retired as much as possible from the world, and seek those shades of privacy which were the delight of Scipio. Nor was it only the enemy whom you subdued; but you have triumphed over that flame of ambition and that lust of glory, which are wont to make the best and the greatest of men their slaves. The purity of your virtues and the splendour of your actions consecrate those sweets of ease which you enjoy; and which constitute the wished-for haven of the toils of man. Such was the ease which, when the heroes of antiquity possessed, after a life of exertion and glory, not greater than yours, the poets, in despair of finding ideas or expressions better suited to the subject, feigned that they were received into beaven, and invited to recline at the tables of the gods. But whether it were your health, which I principally believe, or any other motive which caused you to re- | tire, of this I am convinced, that nothing could have induced you to relinquish the service of your country, if you had not known that in your successor liberty would meet with a protector, and England with a stay to its safety, and a pillar to its glory. For, while you, O Cromwell, are left among us, he hardly shews a proper confidence in the Supreme, who distrusts the security of England; when he sees that you are in so special a manner the favoured object of the divine regard. But there was another department of the war, which was destined for your exclusive exertions. Without entering into any length of detail, I will, if possible, describe some of the most memorable actions, with as much brevity as you performed them with celerity. After the loss of all Ireland, with the exception of one city, you in one battle immediately discomfited the forces of the rebels: and were busily employed in settling the country, when you were suddenly recalled to the war in Scotland. Hence you proceeded with unwearied diligence against the Scots, who were on the point of making an irruption into England with the king in their train: and in about the space of one year you entirely subdued, and added to the English dominion, that kingdom which all our monarchs, during a period of 800 years, had in vain struggled to subject. In one battle you almost annihilated the remainder of their forces, who, in a fit of desperation, had made a sudden incursion into England, then almost destitute of garrisons, and got as far as Worcester; where you came up with them by forced marches, and captured almost the whole of their nobility. A profound peace ensued; when we found, though indeed not then for the first time, that you was as wise in the cabinet as valiant in the field. It was your constant endeavour in the senate either to induce them to adhere to those treaties which they had entered into with the enemy, or speedily to adjust others which promised to be beneficial to the country. But when you saw that the business was artfully procrastinated, that every one was more intent on his own selfish interest than on the public good, that the people complained of the disappointments which they had experienced, and the fallacious promises by which they had been gulled, that they were the dupes of a few overbearing individuals, you put an end to their domination. A new parliament is summoned and the right of election given to those to whom it was expedient. They meet; but do nothing; and, after having wearied themselves by their mutual dissensions, and fully exposed their incapacity to the observation of the country, they consent to a voluntary dissolution. In this state of desolation, to which we were reduced, you, O Cromwell! alone remained to conduct the government, and to save the country. We all willingly yield the palm of sovereignty to your unrivalled ability and virtue, except the few among us, who, either ambitious of honours which they have not the capacity to sustain, or who envy those which are conferred on one more worthy than themselves, or else who do not know that nothing in the world is more pleasing to God, more agreeable to reason, more politically just, or more generally useful, than that the supreme power should be vested in the best and the wisest of men. Such, O Cromwell, all acknowledge you to be; such are the services which you have rendered, as the leader of our councils, the general of our armies, and the father of your country. For this is the tender appellation by which all the good among us salute you from the very soul. Other names you neither have nor could endure; and you deservedly reject that pomp of title which attracts the gaze and admiration of the multitude. For what is a title but a certain definite mode of dignity; but actions such as yours surpass, not only the bounds of our admiration, but our titles; and like the points of pyramids, which are lost in the clouds, they soar above the possibilities of titular commendation. But since, though it be not fit, it may be expedient, that the highest pitch of virtue should be circumscribed within the bounds of some human appellation, you endured to receive, for the public good, a title most like to that of the father of your country; not to exalt, but rather to bring you nearer to the level of ordinary men; the title of king was unworthy the transcendent majesty of your character. For if you had been captivated by a name over which, as a private man, you had so completely triumphed and crumbled into dust, you would have been doing the same thing as if, after having subdued some idolatrous nation by the help of the true God, you should afterwards fall down and worship the gods which you had vanquished. Do you then, Sir, continue your course with the same unrivalled magnanimity; it sits well upon you;-to you our country owes its liberties, nor can you sustain a character at once more momentous and more august than that of the author, the guardian, and the preserver of our liberties; and hence you have not only eclipsed the atchievements of all our kings, but even those which have been fabled of our heroes. Often reflect what a dear pledge the beloved land of your nativity has entrusted to your care; and that liberty which she once expected only from the chosen flower of her talents and her virtues, she now expects from you only, and by you only hopes to obtain. Revere the fond expectations which we cherish, the solicitudes of your anxious country; revere the looks and the wounds of your brave companions in arms, who, under your banners, have so strenuously fought for liberty; revere the shades of those who perished in the contest; revere also the opinions and the hopes which foreign states entertain concerning us, who promise to themselves so many advantages from that liberty, which we have so bravely acquired, from the establishment of that new government, which has begun to shed its splendour on the world, which, if it be suffered to vanish like a dream, would involve us in the deepest abyss of shame ; and lastly revere yourself; and, after having endured so many sufferings and encountered so many perils for the sake of liberty, do not suffer it, now it is obtained, either to be violated by yourself, or in any one instance impaired by others. You cannot be truly free unless we are free too; for such is the nature of things, that he, who entrenches on the liberty of others, is the first to lose his own and become a slave. But, if you, who have hitherto been the patron and tutelary genius of liberty, if you, who are exceeded by no one in justice, in piety, and goodness, should hereafter invade that liberty, which you have defended, your conduct must be fatally operative, not only against the cause of liberty, but the general interests of piety and virtue. Your integrity and virtue will appear to have evaporated, your faith in religion to have been small; your character with posterity will dwindle into insignificance, by which a most destructive blow will be levelled against the happiness of mankind. The work which you have undertaken is of incalculable moment, which will thoroughly sift and expose every principle and sensation of your heart, which will fully display the vigour and genius of your character, which will evince whether you really possess those great qualities of piety, fidelity, justice, and self-denial, which made us believe that you were elevated by the special direction of the Deity to the highest pinnacle of power. At once wisely and discreetly to hold the sceptre over three powerful nations, to persuade people to relinquish inveterate and corrupt for new and more beneficial maxims and institutions, to penetrate into the remotest parts of the country, to have the mind present and operative in every quarter, to watch against surprise, to provide against danger, to reject the blandishments of pleasure and the pomp of power;-these are exertions compared with which the labour of war is mere pastime; which will require every energy and employ every faculty that you possess; which demand a man supported from above, and almost instructed by immediate inspiration. These and more than these are, no doubt, the objects which occupy your attention and engross your soul; as well as the means by which you may accomplish these important ends, and render our liberty at once more ample and more secure. And this you can, in my opinion, in no other way so readily effect, as by associating in your councils the companions of your dangers and your toils; men of exemplary modesty, integrity, and courage; whose hearts have not been hardened in cruelty and rendered insensible to pity by the sight of so much ravage and so much death, but whom it has rather inspired with the love of justice, with a respect for religion, and with the feeling of compassion, and who are more zealously interested in the preservation of liberty, in proportion as they have encountered more perils in its defence. They are not strangers or foreigners, a hireling rout scraped together from the dregs of the people, but for the most part, men of the better conditions in life, of families not disgraced if not ennobled, of fortunes either ample or moderate; and what if some among them are recommended by their poverty? for it was not the lust of ravage which brought them into the field; it was the calamitous aspect of the times, which, in the most critical circumstances, and often amid the most disastrous turns of fortune, roused them to attempt the deliverance of their country from the fangs of despotism. They were men prepared, not only to debate, but to fight; not only to argue in the senate, but to engage the enemy in the field. But unless we will continually cherish indefinite and illusory expectations, I sce not in whom we can place any confidence, if not in these men and such as these. We have the surest and most indubitable pledge of their fidelity in this, that they have already exposed themselves to death in the service of their country; of their piety in this, that they have been always wont to ascribe the whole glory of their successes to the favour of the Deity, whose help they have so suppliantly implored, and so conspicuously obtained; of their justice in this, that they even brought the king to trial, and when his guilt was proved, refused to save his life; of their moderation in our own uniform experience of its effects, and because, if by any outrage, they should disturb the peace which they have procured, they themselves will be the first to feel the miseries which it will occasion, the first to meet the havoc of the sword, and the first again to risk their lives for all those comforts and distinctions which they have so happily acquired; and lastly, of their fortitude in this, that there is no instance of any people who ever recovered their liberty with so much courage and success; and therefore let us not suppose, that there can be any persons who will be more zealous in preserving it. I now feel myself irresistibly compelled to commemorate the names of some of those who have most con spicuously signalized themselves in these times: and first thine, O Fleetwood! whom I have known from a boy, to the present blooming maturity of your military fame, to have been inferior to none in humanity, in gentleness, in benignity of disposition, whose intrepidity in the combat, and whose clemency in victory, have been acknowledged even by the enemy: next thine, O Lambert! who, with a mere handful of men, checked the progress, and sustained the attack, of the Duke of Hamilton, who was attended by the whole flower and vigour of the Scottish youth: next thine, O Desborough! and thine, O Hawley! who wast always conspicuous in the heat of the combat, and the thickest of the fight; thine, O Overton! who hast been most endeared to me now for so many years by the similitude of our studies, the suavity of your manners, and the more than fraternal sympathy of our hearts; you, who, in the memorable battle of Marston Moor, when our left wing was put to the rout, were beheld with admiration, making head against the enemy with your infantry and repelling his attack, amid the thickest of the carnage; and lastly you, who in the Scotch war, when under the auspices of Cromwell, occupied the coast of Fife, opened a passage beyond Stirling, and made the Scotch of the west, and of the north, and even the remotest Orkneys, confess your humanity, and submit to your power. Besides these, I will mention some as celebrated for their political wisdom and their civil virtues, whom you, Sir, have admitted into your councils, and who are known to me by friendship or by fame. Whitlocke, Pickering, Strickland, Sydenham, Sydney, (a name indissolubly attached to the interests of liberty,) Montacute, Laurence, both of highly cultivated minds |