GENERAL MONK AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

A document has recently come into my possession which may perhaps be deemed worth preserving in the pages of "N. & Q." It is a letter from the University of Cambridge to General Monk, and, from the various corrections which occur in it, it has every appearance of being the original draft. Unfortunately it is not dated; but there can, I presume, be little doubt of its having been written shortly before the assembling of the parliament in April, 1660, which led to the Restoration, and in which Monk sat as member for the county of Devon. The words erased in the original are here placed between parentheses, and those substituted are given in Italics:

My Lord,

As it hath pleased God to make your Excell^cie eminently instrumental for the raising up of three gasping and dying nations, into the faire hopes and prospect of peace and settlement, so hath He engraven you (r name) in characters of gratitude upon the hearts of all (true) to whom (cordially wish) the welfare of this church and state (are) is deare and pretious. (Out) From this principle it is that our University of Cambridge hath, with great alacrity and unanimity, made choyse of your Excellency with whom to deposite the(ire) managing of theire concernments in the succeeding Parl^t, w^ch, if your Excell^cy shall please to admitt into a favourable (interpretation) acceptance, (you will thereby) you will thereby (add) put a further obligation of gratitude upon us all; w^ch none shalbe more ready to expresse than he who is

Your Excell^cies most humble serv^t,

W. D.

[Endorsed]
To the L^d General Monk.

Who was "W. D."? Was he the then Vice-Chancellor?

Leicestriensis.