here very immovable.

We are scornfully called the Rump of a Parliament by certain people: but we have an invincible Oliver to fight for us: we can afford to wait here, and consider to all lengths; and by one name we shall smell as sweet as by another.

I have only to add at present, that on the morrow of my Lord General's reappearance in Parliament, this sleeping question was resuscitated;* new activity infused into it; some show of progress made; nay, at the end of three months, after much labor and struggle, it was got decided, by a neck-and-neck division,† That the present is a fit time for fixing a limit beyond which this Parliament shall not sit. Fix a limit therefore; give us the nonplus-ultra of you. Next Parliament-day we do fix a limit, Three years hence, 3d November, 1654; three years of rope still left us: a somewhat wide limit; which, under conceivable contingencies, may perhaps be tightened a little. My honorable friends, you ought really to get on with despatch of this business; and know, of a surety that not being, any of you, Kings by birth, nor very indubitably by attainment, you will actually have to go, and even in case of extremity to be shoved and sent!

LETTER CXXV.

At this point the law of dates requires that we introduce Letter Hundred-and-twenty-fifth; though it is as a mere mathematical point, marking its own whereabouts in Oliver's History; and imparts little or nothing that is new to us.

Reverend John Cotton is a man still held in some remembrance among our New England Friends. A painful Preacher, oracular of high Gospels to New England; who in his day was well seen to be connected with the Supreme Powers of this Universe, the word of him being as a live-coal to the hearts of many. He died some years afterwards;-was thought, especially on his deathbed,

• Commons Journals, 17 September, 1651.

† 49 to 47; Commons Journa's, 14 November, 1651: Lord General and Lord Chief Justice,' Cromwell and St. John, are Tellers for the Yea

to have manifested gifts even of Prophecy,*—a thing not incorceivable to the human mind that well considers Prophecy and John Cotton. We should say farther, that the Parliament, that Oliver among and before them, had taken solemn anxious thought concerning Propagating of the Gospel in New England; and, among other measures, passed an Act to that end;† not unworthy of attention, were our hurry less. It is probably in special reference to this that Cotton has been addressing Oliver,-founding too on their general relationship as Soldier of the Gospel and Priest of the Gospel, high brother and humble one; appointed, both of them, to fight for it to the death, each with such weapons as were given him.

For my esteemed Friend, Mr. Cotton, Pastor of the Church at Boston, in New England: These.

'London,' 2d October, 1651.

WORTHY SIR, AND MY CHRISTian Friend,

I received yours a few days since. It was welcome to me because signed by you, whom I love and honor in the Lord: but more 'so' to see some of the same grounds of our Actings stirring in you that are in us, to quiet us in our work, and support us therein. Which hath had great difficulty in Scotland; by reason we have had to do with some who were, I very think, Godly, but through weakness and the subtlety of Satan, 'were' involved against the Interests of the Lord and His People.

With what tenderness we have proceeded with such, and that in sincerity, our Papers (which I suppose you have seen) will in part manifest; and I give you some comfortable assurance of 'the same.' The Lord hath marvellously appeared even against them. And now again when all the power was devolved into the Scottish King and the Malignant Party, they invading England, the Lord rained upon them such snares as the Enclosed will show. Only the Narrative is short in this, That of their whole Army, when the Narrative was framed, not five men were returned.

Surely, Sir, the Lord is greatly to be feared and to be praised! We

Thurloe, i., 565;-in 1653.
From Preston downward.

† Scobell (27 July, 1649), ii., 66.

§ Probably the Official Narrative of Worcester Battle; published abou a week ago, as Preamble to the Act appointing a Day of Thanksgiving; 26t September, 1651; reprinted in Parliamentary History, xx, 59-65.

How shall we behave our.

reed your prayers in this as much as ever. selves after such mercies? What is the Lord a-doing? What Prophecies are now fulfilling ?* Who is a God like ours? To know His will, to do His will are both of Him.

I took this liberty from business, to salute you thus in a word. Truly I am ready to serve you and the rest of your Brethren and Churches with you. I am a poor weak creature, and not worthy the name of a worm; yet accepted to serve the Lord and His People Indeed, my dear Friend, between you and me, you know not me,-my weakness, my inordinate passions, my unskilfulness, and every-way unfitness to my work. Yet, yet the Lord, who will have mercy on whom He will, does as you see! Pray for me. Salute all Christian friends though unknown.

I rest,

Your affectionate friend to serve you,

OLIVER CROMWELL.†

About this time, for there is no date to it but an evidently vague and erroneous one, was held the famous Conference of Grandees, called by request of Cromwell; of which Bulstrode has given record. Conference held one day' at Speaker Lenthall's house in Chancery Lane, to decide among the leading Grandees of the Parliament and Army, How this Nation is to be settled,— the Long Parliament having now resolved on actually dismissing itself by and by. The question is really complex: one would gladly know what the leading Grandees did think of it; even what they found good to say upon it! Unhappily, our learned Bulstrode's report of this Conference is very dim, very languid: nay Bulstrode, as we have found elsewhere, has a kind of dramaturgic turn in him, indeed an occasional poetic friskiness; most unexpected, as if the hippopotamus should show a tendency to dance; which painfully deducts from one's confidence in Bulstrode's entire accuracy on such occasions! Here and there the multitudinous Paper Masses of learned Bulstrode do seem to smack a little of the date when he redacted them,-posterior to the Everblessed Restoration, not prior to it. We shall, nevertheless, excerpt this dramaturgic Report of Conference: the reader will be willing to examine, with his own eyes, even as in a glass darkly,

See Psalm Hundreth-and-tenth.

From the New York Evangelist, of February, 1845

any feature of that time; and he can remember always that a learned Bulstrode's fat terrene mind, imaging a heroic Cromwell and his affairs, is a very dark glass indeed!

The Speakers in this Conference,-Desborow, Oliver's Brotherin-law; Whalley, Oliver's Cousin; fanatical Harrison, tough St. John, my learned Lord Keeper or Commissioner Whitlocke him. self, are mostly known to us. Learned Widdrington, the mellifluous orator, once Lord Commissioner too, and like to be again, though at present 'excused from it owing to scruples,' will by and by become better known to us. A mellifluous, unhealthy, seemingly somewhat scrupulous and timorous man.' He is of the race of that Widdrington whom we still lament in doleful dumps,-but does not fight upon the stumps like him. There were 'many other Gentlemen' who merely listened.

*

'Upon the defeat at Worcester,' says Bulstrode vaguely,† Cromwell desired a Meeting with divers Members of Parliament,and some chief Officers of the Army, at the Speaker's house. And a great many being there, he proposed to them, that now the old King being dead, and his Son being defeated, he held it necessary to come to a Settlement of the Nation. And in order thereunto, had requested this meeting; that they together might consider and advise, what was fit to be done, and to be presented to the Parliament.

'SPEAKER. My Lord, this Company were very ready to attend your Excellence, and the business you are pleased to propound to us is very necessary to be considered. God hath given marvellous success to our Forces under your command; and if we do not improve those mercies to some Settlement, such as may be to God's honor, and the good of this Commonwealth, we shall be very much blameworthy.

'HARRISON, I think that which my Lord General hath propounded, is, to advise as to a Settlement both of our Civil and Spiritual Liberties; and so, that the mercies which the Lord hath given-in to us may not be cast away. How this may be done is the great question.

Wood, in voce.

Whitlocke, p. 491; the date, 10 December, 1651, is that of the Paper merely, and as applied to the Conference itself cannot be correct.

WHITLOCKE. It is a great question indeed, and not suddenly to be resolved! Yet it were pity that a meeting of so many able and worthy persons as I see here, should be fruitless.-I should humbly offer, in the first place, whether it be not requisite to be understood in what way this Settlement is desired? Whether of an absolute Republic, or with any mixture of Monarchy.

'CROMWELL. My Lord Commissioner Whitlocke hath put us upon the right point: and indeed it is my meaning, that we should consider, whether a Republic, or a mixed Monarchical Government will be best to be settled? And if anything Monarchical, then, in whom that power shall be placed?

'SIR THOMAS WIDDRINGTON. I think a mixed Monarchical Government will be most suitable to the Laws and People of this Nation. And if any Monarchical, I suppose we shall hold it most just to place that power in one of the Sons of the late King.

'COLONEL FLEETWOOD. I think that the question, whether an absolute Republic, or a mixed Monarchy, be best to be settled in this Nation, will not be very easy to be determined!

'LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE ST. JOHN. It will be found, that the Government of this Nation, without something of Monarchical power, will be very difficult to be so settled as not to shake the foundation of our Laws, and the Liberties of the People.

'SPEAKER. It will breed a strange confusion to settle a Government of this Nation without something of Monarchy.

'COLONEL DESBOROW. I beseech you, my Lord, why may not this, as well as other Nations, be governed in the way of a Republic?

'WHITLOCKE. The Laws of England are so interwoven with the power and practice of Monarchy, that to settle a Government without something of Monarchy in it, would make so great an alteration in the Proceedings of our Law, that you will scarce have time to rectify it, nor can we well foresee the inconveniences which will arise thereby.

'COLONEL WHALLEY. I do not well understand matters of Law: but it seems to me the best way, Not to have anything of Monarchical power in the Settlement of our Government. And

* Between this and November, 1654.