"that was driven out, and will get them praise and fame “in every land, where they have been put to shame." And such "lame ones" and "driven-out ones" were not the Independents only, and Presbyterians, a few years since, by the Popish and Prelatical Party in these Nations; but such are and have been the Protestants in all lands,-- persecuted, and faring alike with you, in all the Reformed Churches. And therefore, knowing your charity to be as large as all the Flock of Christ who are of the same Hope and Faith of the Gospel with you; I thought fit to commend these few words to you;-being well assured it is written in your heart, So to do with this that I shall stand-by you in the maintaining of all your just privileges to the uttermost.

And committing you to the blessing of the Lord, I rest, your loving friend, OLIVER P.*

LETTER CCXVI.

CARDINAL MAZARIN, the governing Minister of France in those days, is full of compliance for the Lord Protector; whom, both for the sake of France and for the Cardinal's sake, it is very requisite to keep in good humour. On France's score, there is Treaty with France, and War with its enemy Spain ; on the Cardinal's are obscure Court-intrigues, Queen-mothers, and one knows not what not in brief, the subtle Cardinal has found, after trial of the opposite course too, that friendship, or even at times obedient-servantship to Cromwell, will be essentially advantageous to him.

Some obscure quarrel has fallen-out between Charles Stuart and the Duke of York his Brother. Quarrel complicated with open politics, with Spanish War and Royalist Revolt, on Oliver's side; with secret Queen-mothers, and back-stairs diplomacies, on the Cardinal's :—of which there flit, in the dreariest manner, this and the other enigmatic vestige in the night-realm of Thurloe, and which is partly the subject of this present Letter. A 1 Zephaniah, iii. 19, 20. * Thurloe, v. 714: in Secretary Thurloe's hand. iv. 506; v. 753; &c. &c.

Letter unique in two respects. It is the only one we have of Oliver Cromwell, the English Puritan King, to Giulio Mazarini, the Sicilian-French Cardinal, and King of Shreds and Patches ;3 who are a very singular pair of Correspondents brought together by the Destinies! It is also the one glimpse we have from Oliver himself of the subterranean Spy-world, in which, by a hard necessity, so many of his thoughts had to dwell. Oliver, we find, cannot quite grant Toleration to the Catholics; but he is well satisfied with this 'our weightiest affair,'-not without weight to me at least, who sit expecting Royalist Insurrections backed by Spanish Invasions, and have Assassins plotting for my life at present 'on the word of a Christian King !'

Concerning the affair' itself, and the personages engaged in it, let us be content that they should continue spectral for us, and dwell in the subterranean Night-realm which belongs to them. The 'Person' employed from England, if anybody should be curious about him, is one Colonel Bamfield, once a flaming Presbyterian Royalist, who smuggled the Duke of York out of this Country in woman's clothes; and now lives as an Oliverian Spy, very busy making mischief for the Duke of York. Berkley' is the Sir John Berkley who rode with Charles First to the Isle of Wight long since ; the Duke of York's Tutor at present Of ‘Lockhart,' Oliver's Ambassador in France, we shall perhaps hear again. The others,-let them continue spectral to us. Let us conceive, never so faintly, that their affair' is to maintain in the Duke of York some Anti-Spanish notion; notion of his having a separate English interest, independent of his Brother's, perhaps superior to it; wild notion, of one or the other sort, which will keep the quarrel wide ::—as accordingly we find it did for many months,5 whatever notion it was. We can then read with intelligence sufficient for us.

'To his Eminency Cardinal Mazarin.'

'Whitehall,' 26th December 1656.

The obligations, and many instances of

affection, which I have received from your Eminency, do

3 Three insignificant official Notes to him, in Appendix, Nos. 27, 28.

4 Antea, vol. i. p. 265.

5 Thurloe, iv. v. vi.: see also Biog. Brit. (2d edition), ii. 154.

engage 'me' to make returns suitable to your merits. But although I have this set home upon my spirit, I may not (shall I tell you, I cannot?) at this juncture of time, and as the face of my affairs now stands, answer to your call for Toleration."

I say, I cannot, as to a public Declaration of my sense in that point; although I believe that under my Government your Eminency, in the behalf of Catholics, has less reason for complaint as to rigour upon men's consciences. than under the Parliament. For I have of some, and those very many, had compassion; making a difference. Truly I have (and I may speak it with cheerfulness in the presence of God, who is a witness within me to the truth of what I affirm) made a difference; and, as Jude speaks, "plucked many out of the fire,”—the raging fire of persecution, which did tyrannise over their consciences, and encroached by an arbitrariness of power upon their estates. And herein it is my purpose, as soon as I can remove impediments, and some weights that press me down, to make a farther progress, and discharge my promise to your Eminency in relation to that.

And now I shall come to return your Eminency thanks for your judicious choice of that Person to whom you have intrusted our weightiest Affair: an Affair wherein your Eminency is concerned, though not in an equal degree and measure with myself. I must confess that I had some doubts of its success, till Providence cleared them to me by the effects. I was, truly, and to speak ingenuously, not without doubtings; and shall not be ashamed to give your Eminency the grounds I had for much doubting. I did fear that Berkley would not have been able to go through and carry-on that work; and that either the Duke would have

6 To the Catholics here.

7 Verses 22, 23: a most remarkable Epistle, to which his Highness often enough solemnly refers, as we have seen.

8

cooled in his suit, or condescended to his Brother. I doubted also that those Instructions which I sent over with 2909 were not clear enough as to expressions; some affairs here denying me leisure at that time to be so particular as, ' in regard' to some circumstances, I would.-If I am not mistaken in his 'the Duke's' character, as I received it from your Eminency, that fire which is kindled between them will not ask bellows to blow it, and keep it burning. But what I think farther necessary in this matter I will send 'to' your Eminency by Lockhart.

And now I shall boast to your Eminency my security upon a well-builded confidence in the Lord: for I distrust not but if this breach 'be' widened a little more, and this difference fomented, with a little caution in respect of the persons to be added to it,—I distrust not but that Party, which is already forsaken of God as to an outward dispensation of mercies, and noisome to their countrymen, will grow lower in the opinion of all the world.

If I have troubled your Eminency too long in this, you may impute it to the resentment of joy which I have for the issue of this Affair; and 'I' will conclude with giving you assurance that I will never be backward in demonstrating, as becomes your brother and confederate, that I am, your servant,

OLIVER P.*

His suit, I understand, was for leave to continue in France; an Anti-Spanish notion.

9 Cipher for some Man's Name, now undecipherable; to all appearance Bamfield. *Thurloe, v. 735 In the possession of a 'Mr. Theophilus Rowe of Hampstead in Middlesex,' says Birch. Where did Rowe get it? Is it in the original hand, or only a copy? Birch is silent even as to the latter point. The style sufficiently declares it to be a genuine Letter.

SPEECH VI.

SINDERCOMB.

THE Spanish Invasion and Royalist Insurrection once more came to no effect: on mature judgment of the case, it seemed necessary to have Oliver Protector assassinated first; and that, as usual, could not be got done. Colonel Sexby, the frantic Anabaptist, he and others have been very busy; riding among his Highness's escort' in Hyde Park and elsewhere, with fleet horses, formidable 'weapons, with 'gate-hinges ready filed through,' if the deed could have been done;—but it never could. Sexby went over to Flanders again, for fresh consultations; left the assassination-affair in other hands, with 1,600l. of ready money, 'on the faith of a Christian King.' Quartermaster Sindercomb takes Sexby's place in this great enterprise; finds, he too, that there is nothing but failure in it.

Miles Sindercomb, now a cashiered Quartermaster living about Town, was once a zealous Deptford lad, who enlisted to fight for Liberty, at the beginning of these Wars. He fought strongly on the side of Liberty, being an earnest fierce young fellow ;—then gradually got astray into Levelling courses, and wandered ever deeper there, till daylight forsook him, and it became quite dark. He was one of the desperate misguided Corporals, or Quartermasters, doomed to be shot at Burford, seven years ago: but he escaped overnight, and was not shot there; took service in Scotland; got again to be Quartermaster; was in the Overton Plot, for seizing Monk and marching into England, lately: whereupon Monk cashiered him: and he came to Town; lodged himself here, in a sulky threadbare manner,—in Alsatia or elsewhere. A gloomy man and ExQuartermaster; has become one of Sexby's people, on the faith of a Christian King;' nothing now left of him but the fierceness, groping some path for itself in the utter dark. Henry Toope, one of his Highness's Lifeguard, gives us, or will give us, an inkling of Sindercomb; and we know something of his courses and inventions, which are many. He rode in Hyde Park, among his Highness's escort, with Sexby; but the deed could not then be done. Leave me the 1,600l., said he; and I will find a way to do it. Sexby left it him, and went abroad.