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CHA P. English valour, and abandoned their ships, which were set on fire, and consumed with all their treaThe greatest danger still remained to the English. They lay under the fire of the castles and all the forts, which must in a little time have torn them in pieces. But the wind, suddenly shifting, carried them out of the bay; where they left the Spaniards in astonishment at the happy temerity of their audacious victors.

And death

Blake.

THIS was the last and greatest action of the galof admiral lant Blake. He was consumed with a dropsy and scurvy, and hastened home, that he might yield up his breath in his native country, which he had so much adorned by his valour. As he came within sight of land, he expired." Never man so zealous for a faction was so much respected and esteemed even by the opposite factions. He was by principle an inflexible republican; and the late usurpations, amidst all the trust and caresses which he received from the ruling powers, were thought to be very little grateful to him. It is still our duty, he said to the seamen, to fight for our country, into what hands soever the government may fall. Disinterested, generous, liberal; ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies; he forms one of the most perfect characters of the age, and the least stained with those errors and violences which were then so predominant. The protector ordered him a pompous funeral at the public charge: But the tears of his countrymen were the most honourable panegyric on his memory.

THE Conduct of the protector in foreign affairs, though imprudent and impolitic, was full of vigour and enterprise, and drew a consideration to his country, which, since the reign of Elizabeth, it seemed to have totally lost. The great mind of this successful usurper was intent on spreading the renown of the English nation; and while he struck mankind

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mankind with astonishment at his extraordinary CHA P. fortune, he seemed to ennoble, instead of debasing, that people whom he had reduced to subjection. It was his boast, that he would render the name of an Englishman as much feared and revered as ever was that of a Roman; and as his countrymen found some reality in these pretensions, their national vanity being gratified, made them bear with more patience all the indignities and calamities under which they laboured.

adminis

It must also be acknowledged, that the protector, Domestic in his civil and domestic administration, displayed tration of as great regard both to justice and clemency, as his Cromwel. usurped authority, derived from no law, and founded only on the sword, could possibly permit. All the chief offices in the courts of judicature were filled with men of integrity: Amidst the virulence of faction, the decrees of the judges were upright and impartial: And to every man but himself, and to himself, except where necessity required the contrary, the law was the great rule of conduct and behaviour. Vane and Lilburn, whose credit with the republicans and levellers he dreaded, were indeed for some time confined to prison: Cony, who refused to pay illegal taxes, was obliged by menaces to depart from his obstinacy: High courts of justice were erected to try those who had engaged in conspiracies and insurrections against the protector's authority, and whom he could not safely commit to the verdict, of juries. But these irregularities were deemed inevitable consequences of his illegal authority. And though often urged by his officers, as is pretended, to attempt a general massacre of the royalists, he always with horror rejected such sanguinary counsels.

In the army was laid the sole basis of the protector's power; and in managing it consisted the

* Clarendon, Life of Dr. Berwick, &c.

chief

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CHA P. chief art and delicacy of his government. The soldiers were held in exact discipline; a policy which 1656. both accustomed them to obedience, and made them less hateful and burthensome to the people. He augmented their pay; though the public necessities sometimes obliged him to run in arrears to them. Their interests, they were sensible, were closely connected with those of their general and protector. And he entirely commanded their affectionate regard, by his abilities and success in almost every enterprise which he had hitherto undertaken. But all military government is precarious; much more where it stands opposition to civil establishments; and still more where it encounters religious prejudices. By the wild fanaticism which he had nourished in the soldiers, he had seduced them into measures, for which, if openly proposed to them, they would have entertained the utmost aversion. But this same spirit rendered them more difficult to be governed, and made their caprices terrible even to that hand which directed their movements. often taught, that the office of king was an usurpation upon Christ, they were apt to suspect a protector not to be altogether compatible with that divine authority. Harrison, though raised to the highest dignity, and possessed of Cromwel's confidence, became his most inveterate enemy as soon as the authority of a single person was established, against which that usurper had always made such violent protestations. Overton, Rich, Okey, officers of rank in the army, were actuated with like principles, and Cromwel was obliged to deprive them of their commissions. Their influence, which was before thought unbounded among the troops, seemed from that moment to be totally annihilated.

So

THE more effectually to curb the enthusiastic and seditious spirit of the troops, Cromwel established a kind of militia in the several counties. Companies

of

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of infantry and cavalry were inlisted under proper C HA P. officers, regular pay distributed among them, and a resource by that means provided both against the insurrections of the royalists, and mutiny of the

army.

RELIGION can never be deemed a point of small consequence in civil government: But during this period, it may be regarded as the great spring of men's actions and determinations. Though transported, himself, with the most frantic whimsies, Cromwel had adopted a scheme for regulating this principle in others, which was sagacious and political. Being resolved to maintain a national church, yet determined neither to admit episcopacy nor presbytery, he established a number of commissioners, under the name of tryers, partly laymen, partly ecclesiastics, some presbyterians, some independents. These presented to all livings, which were formerly in the gift of the crown; they examined and admitted such persons as received holy orders; and they inspected the lives, doctrine, and behaviour of the clergy. Instead of supporting that union between learning and theology, which has so long been attempted in Europe, these tryers embraced the latter principle in its full purity, and made it the sole object of their examination. The candidates were no more perplexed with questions concerning their progress in Greek and Roman erudition; concerning their talent for profane arts and sciences: The chief object of scrutiny regarded their advances in grace, and fixing the critical moment of their conversion.

WITH the pretended saints of all denominations Cromwel was familiar and easy. Laying aside the state of protector, which, on other occasions, he well knew how to maintain, he insinuated to them, that nothing but necessity could ever oblige him to invest himself with it. He talked spiritually to them; he sighed, he wept, he canted, he prayed.

He

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CHA P. He even entered with them into an emulation of ghostly gifts; and these men, instead of grieving to be outdone in their own way, were proud that his highness, by his princely example, had dignified those practices in which they themselves were daily occupied.'

IF Cromwel might be said to adhere to any particular form of religion, they were the independents who could chiefly boast of his favour; and it may be affirmed, that such pastors of that sect, as were not passionately addicted to civil liberty, were all of them devoted to him.

THE presbyterian clergy also, saved from the ravages of the anabaptists and millenarians, and enjoying their establishments and tithes, were, not averse to his government; though he still entertained a great jealousy of that ambitious and restless spirit by which they were actuated. He granted an unbounded liberty of conscience to all but catholics and prelatists; and by that means he both attached the wild sectaries to his person, and employed them in curbing the domineering spirit of the presbyterians. "I am the only man," he was often heard to say,

"who has known how to subdue that " insolent sect, which can suffer none but itself." THE protestant zeal which possessed the presbyterians and independents, was highly gratified by the haughty manner in which the protector so successfully supported the persecuted protestants throughout all Europe. Even the duke of Savoy,

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'Cromwel followed, though but in part, the advice which he received from general Harrison, at the time when the intimacy and endearment most strongly subsisted betwixt them.-" Let the wait"ing upon Jehovah," said that military saint," be the greatest and most considerable business you have every day: Reckon it so, more than to eat, sleep, and council together. Run aside some"times from your company, and get a word with the Lord. Why "should not you have three or four precious souls always standing "at your elbow, with whom you might now and then turn into a " corner? I have found refreshment and mercy in such a way."

Milton's State Papers, p. 12.