'suspense by the expectation from day to day of new commotions "to be stirred up by their countrymen following the faith of the "Pope, and this while they have hardly emerged from that war "which, plainly on account of Religion, was blown and kindled by "the Spaniard, who gave their enemies leaders and supplied the "money; how for the inhabitants of the Alpine Valleys the designs "of the Spaniards are again contriving the same slaughter and "destruction which they most cruelly inflicted on them last year; "how the German Protestants are most grievously troubled under "the rule of the Kaiser, and retain their paternal homes with "difficulty; how the King of Sweden, whom God, as we hope, has "raised up as a valiant champion of the Orthodox Religion, is "carrying on with the whole strength of his kingdom a doubtful "and most severe war with the most powerful enemies of the "Reformed Faith; how your own Provinces are threatened by the "ominous league lately struck up among your Papist neighbours, "of whom a Spaniard is the Prince; how we here, finally, are "engaged in a war declared against the Spanish King." What an aggravation of this condition of things if there should be an actual conflict between their High Mightinesses and Sweden! Will not their High Mightinesses lay all this to heart, and come to a friendly arrangement with Charles Gustavus? The Protector hardly understands the causes of the disagreement; but, if he can be of any use between the two powers, he will spare no exertion. He is about to send an embassy to the Swedish King, and will convey to him also the sentiments of this letter.-That the preparation of this Letter to the States-General had been very careful appears from the following minute relating to it in the Council OrderBooks for Tuesday Aug. 19:-"Mr. Secretary [Thurloe] reports 'the draft of a letter to the States-General of the United Provinces ; "which was read, and committed to Sir Charles Wolseley, with the "assistance of the Secretary, to amend the same, in pursuance of "the present debate, and report it again to the Council." Cromwell was himself present at this meeting of the Council, with Lawrence, Lambert, Wolseley, Strickland, Rous, Jones, Skippon, and Pickering. The draft read was most probably the English that was to be turned into Latin by Milton: but this does not preclude the idea that the document itself was substantially Milton's. Thurloe can hardly have drafted such a document. He may have gone to Milton first. (LXXXVI.) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, Aug. 1656-The Protector has received his Portuguese Majesty's Ratification of the Peace negotiated in London by his Extraordinary Ambassador Count Sa in 1654, and also of the secret and preliminary articles of the same; and he has received letters from Philip Meadows, his agent at Lisbon, informing him that the counterpart Ratification on the English side had been duly delivered to his Majesty. There being now therefore a firm and settled Peace between the two nations, VOL. V. T dating formally from June 1656, the Protector salutes his Majesty with all cordiality. As to his Majesty's letters of June 24th, mentioning some clauses of the League a slight alteration of which would be convenient for Portugal, the Protector is willing to have these carefully considered, but suggests that the whole Treaty may be perilled by tampering with any part of it. (LXXXVII.) TO THE COUNT OF ODEMIRA, Aug. 1656:-This is a letter to the Prime Minister of Portugal, to accompany the foregoing to the King. The Protector acknowledges the Count's zeal and diligence in promoting the Peace now concluded, and takes the opportunity of pressing upon him, rather than again upon the King, relentless inquiry into the late attempt to assassinate Meadows. (LXXXVIII.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, Aug. 1656:A letter very much in the strain of that just sent to the StatesGeneral of the United Provinces. Although, knowing what a champion the Protestant Faith has in his Swedish Majesty, the Protector cannot but rejoice in the news of his successes, there is one drawback. It is the accompanying news of the misunderstanding between his Majesty and the Dutch, now come to such a pass, he hears, that open conflict is likely, especially in the Baltic. The Protector is in the dark as to the causes, but ventures to press on his Majesty the views he had been pressing, but a few days ago, upon the Dutch. Let him think of the perils of Protestantism; let him think of Piedmont, of Austria, of Switzerland! "Who is "ignorant that the counsels of the Spaniards and of the Roman "Pontiff have, for two years past, filled all those places with con"flagrations, slaughters, and troubles to the orthodox? If to these "evils, so many already, there shall be added an outbreak of bad "feeling among Protestant brethren themselves, and especially be"tween two powers in whose valour, resources, and constancy lies "the greatest safeguard of the Reformed Churches, so far as human means avail, the Reformed Religion itself must be endangered "and brought to an extreme crisis. On the other hand, were all "of the Protestant name to cultivate perpetual peace with that "brotherly unanimity which becomes them, there will be no reason "at all to be very much afraid of inconvenience to us from all that the arts or force of our enemies can do." O that his Majesty may see his way to a pacific settlement of his differences with the Dutch! The Protector will gladly do anything to secure that result. 66 (LXXXIX.) TO THE STATES OF HOLLAND, Sept. 1656:William Cooper, a London minister, has represented to the Protector that his father-in-law, John le Maire of Amsterdam, invented, about thirty-three years ago, a certain device by which much revenue was brought in to the States of Holland, without any burden to the people. It was the settling of a certain small seal or stamp to be used in the Provinces ("id autem erat parvi sigilli in Provinciis constitutio"). For the working this invention he had taken into partnership one John van den Brook; and the States of Holland had promised the partners 3000 guilders yearly, equal to about £300 English, for the use of the thing. Not a farthing, however, had they ever received, though the States had benefited so much; and now, as they are both tired out, they have transferred their right to William Cooper, who means to prosecute the claim. The States are prayed to look into the matter, and to pay Cooper the promised annual pension, with arrears. (XC.) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, Sept. 1656:-His Highness is sorry to trouble his Majesty so often; but the grievances of English subjects must be attended to. Now a London merchant, called Robert Brown, who had bought 4000 hides, part of the cargo of a Dieppe ship, legally taken before the League between France and Britain, had sold about 200 of them to a currier in Dieppe, but, instead of receiving the money, had found it attached and stopped in his factor's hands. He could have no redress from the French court of law to which the suit had been referred; and the Protector now desires his Majesty to bring the matter before his own Council. If acts done before the League are to be called in question, Leagues will be meaningless; and it would be well to make an example or two of persons causing trouble of this kind. Six of these thirteen State-Letters, it ought to be observed, belong to the single month of August 1656. They form Milton's largest contribution of work of this kind in any one month since the very beginning of his Secretaryship, with the exception of his burst of letters on the news of the Piedmontese Massacre in May 1655. Nor ought it to escape notice that some of the letters of Aug. 1656 are particularly important, and that two of them are manifestos of that passionate Protestantism of the Protector which had prompted his bold stand in the matter of the Piedmontese Persecution, and which had matured itself politically since then into the scheme of an express League or Union of all the Protestant Powers of Europe. It cannot be by mere accident that, when Cromwell wanted letters written in the highest strain of his most characteristic passion, they should have always been supplied by Milton. Whatever might be done by the office people that Thurloe had about him, it must have been understood that, for things of this sort, there was always to be recourse to the Latin Secretary Extraordinary. 66 A little item of recent Council-business of which Milton may have heard with some interest appears as follows in the Council Order-Books under date Aug. 7, 1656:-" Upon "consideration of the humble petition of Peter Du Moulin, "the son, Doctor of Divinity, and a certificate thereunto subscribed, being presented to his Highness, and by his "Highness referred to the Council, Ordered . . . That the "said Dr. Peter Du Moulin, the petitioner, be permitted to "exercise his ministerial abilities, the late Proclamation [of "Nov. 24, 1655: see ante pp. 61-62], or any orders or in"structions given to the Major-Generals and Commissioners "in the several counties, notwithstanding." And so even the author of the Regii Sanguinis Clamor was now an indulged man, and might look forward to being a Vicar or a Rector, or something higher still, in Cromwell's Established Church. Can his secret have possibly been then known? Can the Council have known that the man who petitioned the Protector for indulgence, and to whom they now advised the Protector to grant it, was the author of the most vehement and bitter book that had ever been written on the Royalist side, the man who had abused the Commonwealth men as "robbers, traitors, parricides" and "plebeian scoundrels," who had written of Cromwell "Verily an egg is not liker an egg than Cromwell is like Mahomet," and who had capped all his other politenesses about Milton by calling him "more vile than Cromwell, damned than Ravaillac "?1 1 Dr. Peter Du Moulin did become a Vicar in Cromwell's Established Church. He was inducted into the Vicarage of Bradwell, in Bucks, Oct. 24, 1657, but quitted it in a few days, apparently for something better (Wood's Fasti, II. 195: Note by Cole). SECTION III: FROM SEPTEMBER 1656 TO JUNE 1657, OR THROUGH THE FIRST SESSION OF OLIVER'S SECOND PARLIAMENT. ANOTHER LETTER FROM MILTON TO MR. RICHARD JONES: LETTERS BY MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. XCI.—c.): NOT much altogether is recoverable of Milton's life through that section of the Protectorate which coincides with the first Session of the Second Parliament (Sept. 17, 1656—June 26, 1657). What is recoverable will connect itself with (1) Three Private Epistles of his dated in these nine months, and (2) The series of his State-letters in the same period. To Richard Jones, alias young Ranelagh, still at Oxford with Oldenburg, Milton, four days after the meeting of the Parliament, addressed another letter in that tone of Mentorship which he seems to have thought most suitable for the youth : "To the Noble youth, RICHARD JONES. "Preparing again and again to reply to your last letter, I was first prevented, as you know, by some sudden pieces of business, of such a kind as are apt to be mine; then I heard you were off on an excursion to some places in your neighbourhood; and now your most excellent mother, on her way to Ireland-whose |