how our Men may be put into a position to be returned whom we hope we shall employ to a better purpose than to have them continue where they are.

to us;

I desire we may know what France saith, and will do, upon this point. We shall be ready still, as the Lord shall assist us, to perform what can be reasonably expected on our part. And you may also let the Cardinal know farther, That our intentions, as they have been, will be to do all the good offices we can to promote the Interest common to us. *

Apprehending it is of moment that this Business should come to you with speed and surety, we have sent it by an Express.

Your very loving friend,

LETTER CCXXIII.

OLIVER P. §

1

SAME date, same parties; an afterthought, by the same Express.

To Sir William Lockhart, our Ambassador in France."
Whitehall, 31st August 1657.

SIR, We desire, having written to you as we have, that the Design be Dunkirk rather than Gravelines; and much more that it be: - but one of them rather than fail.

We shall not be wanting, To send over, at the French charge, Two of our old regiments, and Twothousand foot more, if need be, if Dunkirk be the design.** Believing that if the Army be well entrenched, and if La Ferté's Foot be added to it, we shall be able to give liberty to the greatest part of the French

"thereof" in orig.

§ Thurloe, vi. 490.

** Gravelines is to belong to them; Dunkirk to us; Dunkirk will be much preferable.

Cavalry to have an eye to the Spaniard,
but convenient numbers to stand by the Foot.

leaving

And because this action will probably divert the Spaniard from assisting Charles Stuart in any attempt upon us, you may be assured that, if reality may with any reason be expected from the French, we shall do all reason on our part. But if indeed the French be so false to us as that they would not have us have any footing on that side the Water, then I desire, as in our other Letter to you, That all things may be done in order to the giving us satisfaction 'for our expense incurred,' and to the drawing-off of our Men.

And truly, Sir, I desire you to take boldness and freedom to yourself in your dealing with the French on these accounts.

Your loving friend.

OLIVER P.§

This Letter naturally had its effect: indeed there goes a witty sneer in France, "The Cardinal is more afraid of Oliver than of the Devil;' - he ought indeed to fear the Devil much more, but Oliver is the palpabler Entity of the two! Mardike was besieged straightway; girt by sea and land, and the great guns opened "on the 21st day of September" next: Mardike was taken before September ended; and due delivery to our General was had of Mardike. The place was in a weak state; but by sea and land all hands were now busy fortifying and securing it.

LETTER CCXXIV.

HERE has an old dim Letter lately turned up, communicated, for new editions, by the distinguished General Montague's Descendant, which evidently relates to this operation. Resuscitated from its dim Archives, it falls with ready

Thurloe, vi. 489.

fitness into rank here; kindling the old dead Books into pleasant momentary light and wakefulness at this point, and sufficiently illuminating itself also thereby. A curious meeting, one of those curious meetings, of old Letterpress now forgotten with old Manuscript never known till now, such as occasionally cheer the learned mind! - Of "Denokson," clearly some Dutch Vauban, or war timmermann on the great scale; of him, or of "Colonel Clerke," whom I take to be a Sea-Colonel mainly, the reader needs no commentary; and is to understand withal that their hasty work was got accomplished, and Mardike put in some kind of fencible condition.

For General Montague, on board the London, before Dunkirk:' These.

SIR,

Whitehall, 2d October 1657. This Bearer, Christian Denokson, I have sent to you, being a very good artist, especially in wooden works, to view the Great Fort and the Wooden Fort, in order to the further strengthening of them.

I hope he is very able to make the Wooden Fort as strong as it is capable to be made; which I judge very desirable to be done with all speed. I desire you will direct him in this view; and afterwards speak with him about it, that upon his return I may have a very particular account about what is fit to be done, and what Timber will be necessary to be provided. I have written also to Colonel Clerke, the Governor of the Fort, about it. I pray, when he has finished his view, that you will hasten him back.

I rest,

Your very affectionate friend.

OLIVER P. §

very

§ Original in the possession of the Earl of Sandwich, at Hinchinbrook (February 1849). Only the Signature is Oliver's; hand, as before, shaky.

An attempt to retake Mardike, by scalado or surprisal from the Dunkirk side, was made, some three weeks hence, by Don John with a great Spanish Force, among which his Ex-Royal Highness the Duke of York, with Four EnglishIrish emigrant Regiments he has now got raised for him on Spanish pay, was duly conspicuous; but it did not succeed; it amounted only to a night of unspeakable tumult; to much expenditure of shot on all sides, and of life on his Royal Highness's and Don John's side, Montague pouring deathfire on them from his ships too, and "four great flaming links at the corners of Mardike Tower" warning Montague not to aim thitherward; — and "the dead were carried-off in carts before sunrise."*

Let us add here, that Dunkirk, after gallant service shown by the Six-thousand, and brilliant fighting and victory on the sandhills, was also got, next summer;** Lockhart himself now commanding there, poor Reynolds having perished at sea. Dunkirk too remained an English Garrison, much prized by England; till, in very altered times, his now Restored Majesty saw good to sell it, and the loyallest men had to make their comparisons. On the whole we may say, this Expedition to the Netherlands was a successful one; the Six-thousand," immortal Six-thousand" as some call them,*** gained what they were sent for, and much glory over and above.

These Mardike-and-Dunkirk Letters are among the last Letters left to us of Oliver Cromwell's: -Oliver's great heroic Dayswork, and the small unheroic pious one of Oliver's Editor, is drawing to a close! But in the same hours, 31st August 1657, while Oliver wrote so to Lockhart, let us still spare a corner for recording it, John Lilburn, Freeborn John, or alas only the empty Case of John, was getting buried; still in a noisy manner! Noisy John, set free from many prisons, had been living about Eltham lately, in a state of Quakerism,

22d October (Heath's Chronicle, p. 527; Carte's Ormond, ii. 175). ** 13th June 1658, the fight; 15th June, the surrender; 24th, the delivery to Lockhart (Thurloe, vii. 155, 173, &c.). Clarendon, iii. 853-58.

*** Sir William Temple, Memoirs, Part iii. 154 (cited by Godwin, iv. 747.

or Quasi-Quakerism. Here is the clipping from the old Newspaper:

"Monday, 31st August 1657. Mr. John Lilburn, commonly "known by the name of Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn, dying "on Saturday at Eltham, was this morning removed thence to "London; and his corpse conveyed to the House called the "Mouth," old, still extant Bull-and-Mouth Inn, "at Aldersgate, "which is the usual meeting-place of the people called "Quakers, to whom, it seems, he had lately joined in opinion. "At this place, in the afternoon, there assembled medley of "people; among whom the Quakers were most eminent for "number: and within the house a controversy was, Whether "the ceremony of a hearse-cloth" (pall) "should be cast over "his coffin? But the major part, being Quakers, would not "assent; so the coffin was, about five o'clock in the evening, "brought forth into the street. At its coming out, there stood "a man on purpose to cast a velvet hearse-cloth over the "coffin; and he endeavoured to do it; but the crowd of Quakers "would not permit him; and having gotten the body upon "their shoulders, they carried it away without farther cere"mony; and the whole company conducted it into Moorfields, "and thence to the new Churchyard adjoining to Bedlam, "where it lieth interred."*

One noisy element, then, is out of this world: - another is fast going. Frantic-Anabaptist Sexby, over here once more on Insurrectionary business, scheming out a new Invasion of the Charles-Stuart Spaniards and English-Irish Regiments, and just lifting anchor for Flanders again, was seized "in the "Ship Hope, in a mean habit, disguised like a countryman, "and his face much altered by an overgrown beard;" — before the Ship Hope could get under weigh, about a month ago. ** Bushy-bearded Sexby, after due examination by his Highness, has been lodged in the Tower; where his mind falls into a very unsettled state. In October next he volunteers a

Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 168).

** 24th July (Newspapers, in Cromwelliana, p. 167).

事