horse; and, while the infantry and cavalry were thus wedged together in inextricable confusion, the Spanish marksmen kept up a most destructive fire from behind the trees lining the road. After a long effort, the wood was cleared by a body of seamen who served among the infantry, and darkness put an end to the action, in which not fewer than a thousand men had fallen. In the morning the English retired to their last encampment, about ten miles from the town.
Here Venables called a council of officers, who, having previously sought the Lord, determined[a] to "purge" the army. Some of the runaways were hanged; the officer who commanded the advance was broken, and sent on board the hospital ship to wait on the sick; the loose women who had followed the army were apprehended and punished; and a solemn fast was proclaimed and observed. But no fasting, praying, or purging could restore the spirits of men humbled by defeat, enfeebled by disease, and reduced to the necessity of feeding on the horses belonging to the cavalry. The attempt was abandoned; but, on their return, the two commanders made a descent on the island of Jamaica. The Spanish settlers, about five hundred, fled to the mountains; a capitulation[c] followed; and the island was ceded to England. Could its flourishing condition in a subsequent period have been foreseen, this conquest might have consoled the nation for the loss at Hispaniola, and the disgrace of the attempt. But at that time Jamaica was deemed an inconsiderable acquisition; the failure of the expedition encouraged men to condemn the grounds on which it had been undertaken; and Cromwell, mortified and ashamed, vented his displeasure
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. April 28.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. May 3.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1654. May 10.]
on Penn and Venables, the two commanders, whom, on their arrival, he committed[a] to the Tower.[1]
To many it seemed a solecism in politics, that, when the protector determined to break with Spain, he did not attempt to sell his services to the great enemy of Spain, the king of France. For reasons which have never been explained, he took no advantage of this circumstance; instead of urging, he seemed anxious to retard, the conclusion of the treaty with that power; after each concession he brought forward new and more provoking demands; and, as if he sought to prevail by intimidation, commissioned Blake to ruin the French commerce, and to attack the French fleet in the Mediterranean. By Louis these insults were keenly felt; but his pride yielded to his interest; expedients were found to satisfy all the claims of the protector; and at length the time for the signature of the treaty was fixed, when an event occurred to furnish new pretexts for delay, that event, which by Protestants has been called the massacre, by Catholics the rebellion, of the Vaudois.
About the middle of the thirteenth century the peculiar doctrines of the "poor men of Lyons" penetrated
[Footnote 1: Carte's Letters, ii. 46-52. Thurloe, iii. 504, 509, 689, 755; iv. 28. Bates, 367. Penn and Venables having resigned their commissions, were discharged.—Council Book, 1655, Oct. 26, 31. It appears from the papers in Thurloe that Cromwell paid great attention to the prosperity of the West Indian colonies, as affording facilities to future attempts on the American continent. To increase the population, he had, as the reader is already aware, forcibly taken up a thousand young girls in Ireland, and sent them to Jamaica; in 1656, while Sagredo was in London, he ordered all females of disorderly lives to be arrested and shipped for Barbadoes for the like purpose. Twelve hundred were sent in three ships. Ho veduto prima del mio partire piu squadre di soldati andar per Londra cercando donne di allegra vita, imbarcandone 1,200 sopre tre vascelli per tragittarle all' isola, a fine di far propagazione.—Sagredro, MS.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. August 31.]
into the valleys of Piedmont, where they were cherished in obscurity till the time of the Reformation, and were then exchanged in a great measure, first for Lutheranism, and then for the creed publicly taught at Geneva. The duke of Savoy by successive grants confirmed to the natives the free exercise of their religion, on condition that they should confine themselves within their ancient limits;[1] but complaints were made that several among the men of Angrogna had abused their privileges to form settlements and establish their worship in the plains; and the court of Turin, wearied with the conflicting statements of the opposite parties, referred[a] the decision of the dispute to the civilian Andrea Gastaldo.[2] After a long and patient hearing, he pronounced a definitive judgment, that Lucerna and some other places lay without the original boundaries, and that the intruders should withdraw under the penalties of forfeiture and death. At the same time, however, permission was given to them to sell for their own profit the lands which they had planted, though by law these lands had become the property of the sovereign.[3]
The Vaudois were a race of hardy, stubborn, half-civilized mountaineers, whose passions were readily kindled, and whose resolves were as violent as they were sudden. At first they submitted sullenly to the