little reason to apprehend any opposition from them in the arbitrary exercise of his authority. An implicit submission to some first magistrate, it must be owned, was become absolutely necessary, in order to preserve the people from relapsing into civil slaughter; so that we may partly admit Cromwell's plea of the public good, as an apology for his usurpation; though we should not give entire credit to his declaration, that he would rather have taken a shepherd's staff than the protectorship45.

While Cromwell was thus completing his usurpation over his fellow subjects, he did not neglect the honour or the interests of the nation. Never did England appear more formidable than during his administration. A fleet of an hundred sail was fitted out, under the command of Monk and Dean. They met with the Dutch fleet, equally numerous near the coast of Flanders; and the officers and seamen on both sides, fired with emulation, and animated with the desire of remaining sole lords of the ocean, disputed the victory with the most fierce and obstinate courage. Though Dean was killed in the heat of the action, the Dutch were obliged to retire, with great loss, after a battle of two days: and as Blake had joined his countrymen with eighteen

45. Burnet, vol. i. Cowley's observations on this subject are more sprightly than sound. "The government was broke; "says he," who broke it? It w.s dissolved; who dissolved it? It was extinguished; who was it but “Cromwell, who not only put out the light, but cast away even the very "snuff of it? As if a man should murder a zubole family, and then possess him"self of the whole bouse, Lecause it is better be, than that only rats should "live there!" (Liscourse on the Gov. of Ol. Crom.) The reflections of Hobbes, on the necessity of the submission of the people in such emergency, are more to the purpose. “The obligador of subjects to the sovereign is understood to "last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to "protect them, for the right men have by nature to protect themselves, when “none else cin protect them, can by no covenent be relinquished. The sovereign"fy is the soul of the commonwealth, which once departed from the body, the "members do no more receive their motion from it. The end of obedience is "C PROTECTION; which, tuberesoever a man seeth it, nature applieth his obe"dience to that power, and his endeavour to maintain it," Levithan, p. 114, ful. edi.

sail, toward the close of the engagement, the English fleet Jay off the coast of Holland, and totally interrupted the commerce of the republic.

But the States made one effort more to retrieve the honour of their flag; and never, on any occasion, did their vigour. appear more conspicuous. They not only repaired and manned their fleet in a few weeks, but launched and rigged some ships of a larger size than any they had hitherto sent to sea. With this new armament Tromp issued forth, determined again to fight the victors, and to die rather than yield the contest. He soon met with the English fleet, commanded by Monk; both sides rushed into the combat ; and the battle raged from morning till night, without any sensible advantage in favour of either party. Next day the action was continued, and the setting sun beheld the contest undecided. the third morning the struggle was renewed; and victory seemed still doubtful, when Tromp, while gallantly animating his men, with his sword drawn, was shot through the heart with a musket ball. That event at once decided the sovereignty of the ocean. The Dutch lost thirty A. D. 1654. ships; and were glad to purchase a peace, by yielding to the English the honour of the flag, and making such other concessions as were required of them46.

This successful conclusion of the Dutch war, which strengthed Cromwell's authority both at home and abroad encouraged him to summon a free parliament, according to the stipulation in the instrument of government. He took the precaution, however, to exclude all the royalists who had borne arms for the king, and all their sons. Thirty members were returned from Scotland, and as many from Ireland. But the protector was soon made sensible, that even this circumscribed freedom of election was incompatible with his usurped dominion. The new parliament began its delibera

46. Whitlocke. Clarendon,

tions with questioning his right to that authority which he

Cromwell saw his mistake,
Enraged at the refractory

had assumed over the nation. and endeavoured to correct it. spirit of the commons, he sent for them to the painted chamber; where, after inveighing against their conduct, and endeavouring to shew the absurdity of disputing the legality of that instrument, by which they themselves were convoked, he required them to signa recognition of his authority, and an engagement not to propose or consent to any alteration in the government, as it was settled in a single person and a parliament. And he placed guards at the door of the lower house, who allowed none but subscribers to enter47. Most of the members, after some hesitation, submitted to this despotism; but retained, notwithstanding, the same independent spirit which they had discovered at their first meeting. Cromwell, therefore, found it necessary to put an end to their debates. He accordingly dissolved the parliament, before it had sat five months; the time prescribed by that instrument of government which he had lately sworn to observe.

A. D. 1655.

The discontents of the parliament communicated themselves to the nation; sir Henry Vane and the old republicans who maintained the indissoluble authoriry of the long parliament, encouraged the murmurs against the protector : and the royalists observing the general dissatisfaction, without considering the diversity of parties, thought every one had embraced the same views with themselves. They accordingly entered into a conspiracy throughout every part of England; and the most sanguine hopes were entertained of success. But Cromwell, having information of their purpose, was enabled effectually to defeat it. Many of them were immediately thrown into prison, and the rest were generally discouraged from rising. In one place only the conspiracy broke out into action. Jones, Penruddock, and

47. Thurloe, vol. ii.

other

other gentlemen of the west, proclaimed the king at Salisbury; but they received no accession of force equal to their expectations, and were soon suppressed. The chief conspirators were capitally punished: the lower class were sold for slaves, and transported to Barbadoes48.

The easy suppression of this conspiracy more firmly established the protector's authority. It at once shewed the turbulent spirit and impotence of his enemies, and afforded him a plausible pretext for all his tyrannical severities. He resolved no longer to keep any terms with the royalists. With consent of his council, he therefore issued an edict exacting the tenth penny from the whole party; and in order to raise that imposition, which commonly passed by the name of decimation, he constituted twelve major-generals, and divided the whole kingdom of England into so many military jurisdictions49. These officers, assisted by commissioners had power to subject whom they pleased to decimation, to levy all the taxes imposed by the protector and his council and to imprison any person who should be exposed to their jealousy or suspicion. They acted as if absolute masters of the liberty and property of every English subject; and all reasonable men were now made sensible, that the nation was cruelly subjected to a military and despotic government.

That government, however, directed by the vigorous spirit of Cromwell, gave England a degree of consequence among the European powers, which it had never enjoyed since the days of Elizabeth. France and Spain at the same time courted the alliance of the protector; and had Cromwell understood and regarded the interests of his country, it has been said, he would have endeavoured to preserve that balance of power, on which the welfare of England so much depends, by supporting the declining condition of Spain against the dangerous ambition and rising greatness of the

48. Whitlocke. Clarendon,

49. Parl. Hist. vol. xx. house

house of Bourbon5°. But the protector's politics, though sound, were less extensive. An invasion from France, in favour of the royal family, which he had reason to apprehend, on a rupture with that court, he foresaw might prove ruinous to his authority, in the present dissatisfied state of England. From Spain he had nothing of equal danger to fear, while he was tempted to begin hostilities, by the prospect of making himself master of her most valuable possessions in the West Indies, as well as of her plate fleets, by means of the superiorny of his naval force. He therefore entered into a negociation with Mazarine, who, as a sacrifice to the jealous pride of the usurper, gave the English princes notice to leave France. They retired to Cologne: and a closer alliance was afterward concluded between the rival powers; in consequence of which, England, as we have already seen, obtained possession of Dunkirk.

Having resolved on a war with Spain, Cromwell fitted out two formidable fleets, while the neighbouring states, ignorant of his intentions, remained in anxious suspense, no one being able to conjecture where the blow would fall. One of these fleets, consisting of thirty ships of the line, he sent into the Mediterranean, under the famous admiral Blake; who, casting anchor before Leghorn, demanded and obtained from the duke of Tuscany, reparation for some injuries which the English commerce had formerly sustain ed from that prince. Blake next sailed to Algiers, and compelled the Dey to restrain his piratical subjects from farther depredations on the English. He presented himself also before Tunis; and having there made the same demand, the Dey of that place desired him to look to the castles of Porto Farino and Goletta, and do his utmost. Blake, who needed little to be roused by such a defiance, drew his ships close up to the castles, and tore them in pieces with his artillery;

50. Hume, vol. vii.