126 CROMWELL'S POLICY IN IRELAND. [1640. hope, before long, to see Ireland no burden to England, but a profitable part of the Commonwealth." He sought to make it profitable by freeing it, in the first place, from ecclesiastical tyranny, and thus fitting it for civil freedom. In a most remarkable Declaration, which he composed in his winter-quarters, "in answer to certain late Declarations and Acts, framed by the Irish Popish prelates and clergy in a Conventicle at Clonmacnoise," he makes a furious onslaught upon the principle which, he says, begins to be exploded, "that people are for kings and churches, and saints are for the pope or churchmen." He goes on in this impassioned strain: "How dare you assume to call these men your flocks, whom you have plunged into so horrid a rebellion, by which you have made them and the country almost a ruinous heap? And whom you have fleeced, and polled, and peeled hitherto, and make it your business to do so still. You cannot feed them. You poison them with your false, abominable, and anti-christian doctrines and practices. You keep the word of God from them; and instead thereof give them your senseless orders and traditions." He tells them, when they allege against him, as a design to extirpate the catholic religion, his letter to the governor of Ross,-in which he says, "If by liberty of conscience you mean a liberty to exercise the Mass, that will not be allowed of,"—that by the rebellion of 1641 alone did they recover the public exercise of the Mass, which had not been heard of for eighty years. He will not have the Mass; but "as for the people, what thoughts they have in matters of religion in their own breasts I cannot reach; but shall think it my duty, if they walk honestly and peaceably, not to cause them in the least to suffer for the same; and shall endeavour to walk patiently, and in love towards them, to see if at any time it shall please God to give them another or a better mind." This is, indeed, a very limited toleration; but we must acknowledge that in those times it was the only practical toleration. He would not relax the old penal laws against one form of worship; but he would not apply new penal laws to force men into another form of worship against their consciences. The priests accused him of massacre, destruction, and banishment. He replies, "Give us an instance of one man since my coming into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished; concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice hath not been done, or endeavoured to be done." He rises into absolute eloquence when he sets forth the motives which have brought him and his army to Ireland: "We are come to ask an account of the innocent blood that hath been shed; and to endeavour to bring to an account,-by the blessing and presence of the Almighty, in whom alone is our hope and strength,—all who, by appearing in arms, seek to justify the same. We come to break the power of a company of lawless rebels, who having cast off the Authority of England, live as enemies to Human Society; whose principles, the world hath experience, are, to destroy and subjugate all men not complying with them. We come, by the assistance of God, to hold forth and maintain the lustre and glory of English Liberty in a Nation where we have an undoubted right to do it ;-wherein the People of Ireland (if they listen not to such seducers as you are) may equally participate in all benefits; to use their liberty and fortune equally with Englishmen, if they keep out of arms.' This document, which Mr. Carlyle terms "one of the remarkablest State Papers ever pub 127 1050.] CROMWELL RETURNS TO LONDON. Cromwell did not seek any long repose from his military labours. On the 15th of February, 1650, he writes to the Speaker, "having refreshed our men for some short time in our winter-quarters, and health being pretty well recovered, we thought fit to take the field." The House send the LordLieutenant their thanks for all he had done; and resolve that he "have the use of the Lodgings called the Cockpit, of the Spring Garden and St. James's House, and the command of St. James's Park." His return to London was desired; but he had work to do, and rather turned a deaf ear to the wishes of the Parliament. It is not necessary that we should follow his course of success during the spring of 1650. His boldest and most sagacious stroke of policy was that of proclaiming throughout the country that the men who had been in arms, and were now scattered and utterly destitute, had full liberty to serve abroad. The ministers in London of France and Spain availed themselves of this permission, and forty-five thousand men of Ireland were levied for the service of these powers. Clarendon speaks with bitterness of heart of this wise expedient for freeing the land from those who would have been the principal hindrance to its quiet settlement. The king's lieutenant, he says, could not, after all the promises and contracts of the confederate Roman Catholics, draw together a body of five thousand men; whilst "Cromwell himself found a way to send above forty thousand men out of that country for service of foreign princes; which might have been enough to have driven him from thence, and to have restored it to the king's entire obedience." Cromwell left Ireton as Deputy to complete the work which he had begun, and he arrived himself in London on the 31st of May, ready for other services to the Commonwealth. lished in Ireland since Strongbow, or even St. Patrick, appeared there," occupies sixteen pages of the Cromwell Letters, p. 103 to 119, vol. ii. Charles II. negotiates with the Scottish Parliament-His commission to Montrose-Montrose in Scotland-Execution of Montrose-Charles goes to Scotland-War with ScotlandCromwell General-Cromwell's Advance-His Danger-Position of the two Armies at Dunbar-Battle of Dunbar-Charles crowned at Scone-Perth taken by CromwellCharles and the Scotch Army in England-The Battle of Worcester-Escape and Adventures of Charles-Charles returns to France-Note-Whitelocke's Description of Cromwell's Army, in a Conversation with Christina, queen of Sweden. CHARLES II., essentially different in character from his father, had inherited that quality of his family which mainly led to the tragedies of Fotheringay and Whitehall. He was a double-dealer. When the affairs of Ireland became hopeless, he listened to the proposals of the Parliament of Scotland. He received an envoy from the Presbyterian authorities while at Jersey; and appointed them to meet him at Breda to conclude a treaty for his reception in Scotland. He was urged by his warmest friends to close with their offers, although there was no relaxation of the terms upon which the support of the great religious party, speaking the voice of the Scottish nation, was offered to him. Whilst he was thus negotiating with the Parliament, he gave Montrose a commission to levy troops in foreign countries, and wage war against the powers with whom he was bargaining. He wrote to the mortal enemy of the Covenanters, "I entreat you to go on vigorously, and with your wonted courage and care, in the prosecution of those trusts I |