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very welcome to me. I believe your expectation of my Son's coming is deferred. I wish he may see a happy delivery of his Wife first,1 for whom I frequently pray.

I hear my Son hath exceeded his allowance, and is in debt. Truly I cannot commend him therein; wisdom requiring his living within compass, and calling for it at his hands. And in my judgment, the reputation arising from thence would have been more real honour than what is attained the other way. I believe vain men will speak well of him that does ill.

I desire to be understood that I grudge him not laudable recreations, nor an honourable carriage of himself in them; nor is any matter of charge, like to fall to my share, a stick with me. Truly I can find in my heart to allow him not only a sufficiency but more, for his good. But if pleasure and self-satisfaction be made the business of a man's life, 'and' so much cost laid out upon it, so much time spent in it, as rather answers appetite than the will of God, or is comely before His Saints, I scruple to feed this humour; and God forbid that his being my Son should be his allowance to live not pleasingly to our Heavenly Father, who hath raised me out of the dust to be what I am!

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I desire your faithfulness (he being also your concernment as well as mine) to advise him to approve himself to the Lord in his course of life; and to search His statutes for a rule of conscience, and to seek grace from Christ to enable him to walk therein. This hath life in

1 Noble's registers are very defective! These Letters, too, were before the poor man's eyes.

2 stop.

it, and will come to somewhat: what is a poor creature without this? This will not abridge of lawful pleasures; but teach such a use of them as will have the peace of a good conscience going along with it. Sir, I write what is in my heart: I pray you communicate my mind herein to my Son, and be his remembrancer in these things. Truly I love him, he is dear to me; so is his Wife; and for their sakes do I thus write. They shall not want comfort nor encouragement from me, so far as I may afford it. But indeed I cannot think I do well to feed a voluptuous humour in my Son, if he should make pleasures the business of his life,—in a time when some precious Saints are bleeding, and breathing out their last, for the safety of the rest. Memorable is the speech of Uriah to David (Second Samuel, xi. 11).1

Sir, I beseech you believe I here say not this to save my purse; for I shall willingly do what is convenient to satisfy his occasions, as I have opportunity. But as I pray he may not walk in a course not pleasing to the Lord, so 'I' think it lieth upon me to give him, in love, the best counsel I may; and know not how better to convey it to him than by so good a hand as yours. Sir, I pray you acquaint him with these thoughts of mine. And remember my love to my Daughter; for whose sake I shall be induced to do any reasonable thing. I pray for her happy deliverance, frequently and earnestly.

''And Uriah said unto David, The Ark, and Israel, and Judah abide ' in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields: shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to ⚫ drink, and to lie with my wife? As thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, 'I will not do this thing.'

I am sorry to hear that my Bailiff1 in Hantshire should do to my Son as is intimated by your Letter. I assure you I shall not allow any such thing. If there be any suspicion of his abuse of the Wood, I desire it may be looked after, and inquired into; that so, if things appear true, he may be removed, although indeed I must needs say he had the repute of a godly man, by divers that knew him when I placed him there.

Sir, I desire my hearty affection may be presented to my Sister; to my Cousin Ann, and her Husband though unknown.-I praise the Lord I have obtained much mercy in respect of my health; the Lord give me a truly thankful heart. I desire your prayers; and rest,

Your very affectionate brother and servant,
OLIVER CROMWELL.*

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My Cousin Ann, then, is wedded! Her husband though unknown' is John Dunch; who, on his Father's decease, became John Dunch of Pusey;—to whom we owe this Letter, among the others.

LETTER CLXXIX.

To the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the Parliament of England: These.

SIR,

Burntisland, 29th July, 1651.

The greatest part of the Army is in

Fife; waiting what way God will farther lead us. It

1 'Baylye.'

*Harris, p. 513.

hath pleased God to give us in Burntisland;1 which is indeed very conducing to the carrying-on of our affairs. The Town is well seated; pretty strong; but marvellous capable of further improvement in that respect, without great charge. The Harbour, at a high spring, is near a fathom deeper than at Leith; and doth not lie commanded by any ground without the Town. We took three or four small men-of-war in it, and I believe thirty or forty guns.

Commissary-General Whalley marched along the sea-side in Fife, having some ships to go along the coast; and hath taken great store of great artillery, and divers ships. The Enemy's affairs are in some discomposure, as we hear. Surely the Lord will blow upon them.

'I rest,'

Your most humble servant,
OLIVER CROMWELL.*

LETTER CLXXX.

In effect, the crisis has now arrived. The Scotch King and Army finding their supplies cut off, and their defences rendered unavailing, by this flank-movement,-break up suddenly from Stirling;2 march direct towards England,—for a strokę at the heart of the Commonwealth itself. Their game now is,

1 Brunt Island' in orig.

* Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 107).
2 Last day of July' (Bates, ii. 120).

'At Girthhead, in the Parish

All or nothing. A desperate kind of play. Royalists, Presbyterian-Royalists and the large miscellany of Discontented Interests may perhaps join them there;-perhaps also not! They march by Biggar; enter England by Carlisle,1 on Wednesday, 6th of August, 1651. of Wamphray, in Annandale,' human Tradition, very faintly indeed, indicates some Roman Stones or Mile-stones, by the wayside, as the place where his Sacred Majesty passed the Tuesday night;-which are not quite so venerable now as formerly.2

To the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the Parliament of England: These.

SIR,

Leith, 4th August, 1651.

In pursuance of the Providence of God, and that blessing lately given to your forces in Fife; and finding that the Enemy, being masters of the Pass at Stirling, could not be gotten out there except by hindering his provisions at St. Johnston, -we, by general advice, thought fit to attempt St. Johnston; knowing that that would necessitate him to quit his Pass. Wherefore, leaving with Major-General Harrison about three-thousand horse and dragoons, besides those which are with Colonel Rich, Colonel Saunders, and Colonel Barton, upon the Borders, we marched to St. Johnston; and lying one day before it, we had it surrendered to us.

1 Whitlocke, p. 474.

2 Nicholas Carlisle's Topographical Dict. of Scotland, § Wamphray. 32 August, 1651 (Balfour, iv. 313): St. Johnston,' as we know, is Perth.

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