: its effect on all internal movements, is the War with the Dutch. The Dutch, ever since our Death-Warrant to Charles First, have looked askance at the New Commonwealth, which wished to stand well with them; and have accumulated offence on offence against it. Ambassador Dorislaus was assassinated in their country; Charles Second was entertained there; evasive slow answers were given to tough St. John, who went over as new Ambassador to which St. John responding with great directness, in a proud, brief and very emphatic manner, took his leave, and came home again. Came home again; and passed the celebrated Navigation Act,* forbidding that any goods should be imported into England except either in English ships or in ships of the country where the goods were produced. Thereby terribly maiming the 'Carrying Trade of the Dutch;' and indeed, as the issue proved, depressing the Dutch Maritime Interest not a little, and proportionally elevating that of England. Embassies in consequence, from their irritated High Mightinesses; sea-fightings in consequence; and much negotiating, apologising, and bickering mounting ever higher;-which at length, at the date above given, issues in declared War. Dutch War: cannonadings and fierce sea-fight in the narrow seas; land-soldiers drafted to fight on shipboard; and land-officers, Blake, Dean, Monk, who became very famous sea-officers; Blake a thrice-famous one ;— poor Dean lost his life in this business. They doggedly beat the Dutch, and again beat them: their best Van Tromps and De Ruyters could not stand these terrible Puritan Sailors and Gunners. The Dutch gradually grew tame. The public mind, occupied with sea-fights and sea-victories, finds again that the New Representative must be patiently waited for; that this is not a time for turning out the old Representative, which has so many affairs on its hands. But the Dutch War brings another consequence in the train of it: renewed severity against Delinquents. The necessities of cash for this War are great: indeed the grand business of Parlia. ment at present seems to be that of Finance,-finding of sinews * Introduced, 5 August, 1651; passed 9 October, 1651: given in Scobell, li., 176. for such a War. Any remnants of Royal lands, of Dean-andChapter lands,-sell them by rigorous auction: the very lead of the Cathedrals one is tempted to sell; nay almost the Cathedrals themselves,* if any one would buy them. The necessities of the Finance Department are extreme. Money, money: our Blakes and Monks, in deadly wrestle with the Dutch, must have money! Estates of Delinquents, one of the readiest resources from of oid, cannot, in these circumstances, be forgotten. Search out Delinquents; in every County make stringent inquest after them! Many, in past years, have made light settlements with lax Committee-men; neighbors, not without pity for them. Many of minor sort have been overlooked altogether. Bring them up, every Delinquent of them; up hither to the Rhadamanthus-bar of Goldsmiths' Hall and Haberdashers' Hall; sift them, search them; riddle the last due sixpence out of them. The Commons Journals of these months have formidable ell-long Lists of Delinquents; List after List; who shall, on rigorous terms, be ordered to compound. Poor unknown Royalist Squires, from various quarters of England; whose names and surnames excite now no notion in us except that of No. 1 and No. 2: my Lord General has seen them 'crowding by thirties and forties in a morning '† about these Haberdasher-Grocer Halls of Doom, with haggard expression of countenance; soliciting, from what austere official person they can get a word of, if not mercy, yet at least swift judgment. In a way which affected my Lord General's feelings. We have now the third year of peace in our borders: is this what you call Settlement of the Nation? LETTER CXXVI. THE following Letter to my honored Friend Mr. Hungerford the Elder,' which at any rate by order of time introduces itself here, has probably some reference to these Delinquent Businesses. There were three Hungerfords in Parliament, all Wiltshire peo. * Parliamentary History, xx., 90. † Speech, postea. ple; two of them Puritans, but purged out by Pride: Henry, Esq., 'recruiter' for Bedwin since 1646; Sir Edward, recruiter for Chippenham in like manner. The third, Anthony Hungerford, original Member for Malmesbury, declared for the King in 1642; was of course disabled, and is and continues a Delinquent. One might guess, but nobody can know, that this Note was perhaps addressed to the first of these Hungerfords, in reference to the affairs of the last. Or as probably, it might refer to Sir Edward's affairs; who is now deceased, and has a Widow soliciting.* A hasty Note, on some 'business now unknown, about which an unknown' gentleman' has been making inquiry and negotia. tion; for the answer fo which an unknown servant' of some 'Mr. Hungerford the Elder' is waiting in the hall of Oliver's House, the Cockpit, I believe, at this date in such faintly luminous state, revealing little save its own existence, must this small Document be left. For my honored Friend, Mr. Hungerford the Elder, at his London,' 30th July, 1652, SIR, I am very sorry my occasions will not permit me to return to you as I would. I have not yet fully spoken with the Gentleman I sent to wait upon you; when I shall do it, I shall be enabled to be more particular. Being unwilling to detain your servant any longer,-with my service to your Lady and Family, I take my leave, and rest, Your affectionate servant, OLIVER CROMWELL.‡ It is a sad reflection with my Lord General, in this Hungerford and other businesses, that the mere justice of any matter will so little avail a man in Parliament; you can make no way till you have got up some party on the subject there!§ In fact, red-tape has, to a lamentable extent, tied up the souls of men in this Parliament of the Commonwealth of England. They are becoming hacks of office; a savor of Godliness still on their lips † reply. * Commons Journals, vii., 260 (18 February, 1652–3). Collinson's History of Somersetshire, iii., 357 (Note). Speech, postea. but seemingly not much deeper with some of them. I begin to have a suspicion they are no Parliament! If the Commonwealth of England had not still her Army Parliament, rigorous devout Council of Officers, men in right-life-and-death earnest, who have spent their blood in this Cause, who in case of need can assemble and act again,—what would become of the Commonwealth of England? Earnest persons, from this quarter and that, make petition to the Lord General and Officers, That they would be pleased to take the matter in hand, and see right done. To which the Lord General and Officers answer always: Wait, be patient; the Parliament itself will yet do it. : What the 'state of the Gospel in Wales' is, in Wales or elsewhere, I cannot with any accuracy ascertain; but see well that this Parliament has shown no zeal that way; has shackled rather, and tied up with its sorrowful red-tape the movements of men that had any zeal.* Lamentable enough. The light of the Everlasting Truth was kindled; and you do not fan the sacred flame, you consider it a thing which may be left to itself! Unhappy and for what did we fight then, and wrestle with our souls and our bodies as in strong agony; besieging Heaven with our prayers, and Earth and its Strengths, from Naseby on to Worcester, with our pikes and cannon? Was it to put an offi cial Junto of some Three-score Persons into the high saddle in England; and say, Ride ye? They would need to be Threescore beautifuller men! Our blood shed like water, our brethren's bones whitening a hundred fields; Tredah Storm, Dunbar death-agony, and God's voice from the battle-whirlwind: did they mean no more but you !-My Lord General urges us always to be patient: Patience, the Parliament itself will yet do it. That is what we shall see! On the whole, it must be seriously owned by every reader, this present Fag-end of a Parliament of England has failed altogether to realize the high dream of those old Puritan hearts. 'Incumbrance,' it appears, cannot in the abstract be defined: but if you would know in the concrete what it is, look there! The thing we fought for, and gained as if by miracle, it is ours this long while, and yet not ours; within grasp of us, it lies there unattainable, enchanted under Parliamentary formulas. Enemies are swept away; extinguished as in the brightness of the Lord and no Divine Kingdom, and no clear incipiency of such, has yet in any measure come !-These are sorrowful reflections. For, alas, such high dream is difficult to realize! Not the Stu art Dynasty alone that opposes it; all the Dynasties of the Devil, the whole perversions of this poor Earth, without us and within us, oppose it.-Yea, answers with a sigh the heart of my Lord General: Yea, it is difficult, and thrice difficult ;—and yet wo to us, if we do not with our whole soul try it, make some clear beginning of it; if we sit defining incumbrances' instead of bending every muscle to the wheel that is encumbered! Who art thou that standest still; that having put-to thy hand, turnest back? In these years of miracle in England, were there not great things, as if by divine voices, audibly promised? 'The Lord said unto my Lord!'-And is it all to end here? In Juntos of three-score; in Grocers-Hall Committees, in red-tape, and official shakings of the head? My Lord General, are there no voices, dumb voices from the depths of poor England's heart, that address themselves to you, even you? My Lord General hears voices; and would fain distinguish and discriminate them. Which, in all these, is the God's voice? That were the one to follow. My Lord General, I think has many meditations, of a very mixed, and some of a very at struse nature, in these months. August 13th, 1652. This day came a 'Petition from the Off cers of my Lord General's Army,' which a little alarmed us Petition craving for some real reform of the Law; some real at tempt towards setting up a Gospel Ministry in England; real anc general ousting of scandalous, incompetent and plainly diabolic persons from all offices of Church and State; real beginning, in short, of a reign of Gospel Truth in this England; and for one thing, a swift progress in that most slow-going Bill for a New Re presentative; an actual ending of this present Fag-end of a Parliament, which has now sat very long! So, in most respectful language, prays this Petition* of the Officers. Petition prefaced, * Whitlocke, p, 516. |