[Footnote 1: Thurloe, 399, 433, 509, 524. Carte's Letters, ii. 114. It appears from a letter of Colonel White, that the silver in pigs weighed something more than forty thousand pounds, to which were to be added some chests of wrought plate.—Thurloe, 542. Thurloe himself says all was plundered to about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, or three hundred thousand pounds sterling (557). The ducat was worth nine shillings.]
[Footnote 2: Carte's Letters, ii. 96, 103, 109. Ludlow, ii. 80-82. Clar. Hist. iii. 649. See also A Narrative of the Proceedings in the case of Mr. G. Coney, by S. Selwood, gent., 1655. The Jews had offered Cromwell a considerable sum for permission to settle and trade in England. Commissioners were appointed to confer with their agent Manasseh Ben Israel, and a council of divines was consulted respecting the lawfulness of the project. The opposition of the merchants and theologians induced him to pause; but Mr. Ellis has shown that he afterwards took them silently under his protection.—Council Book, 14th Nov., 1655. Thurloe, iv. 321, 388. Bates, 371. Ellis, iv. 2. Marten had made an ineffectual attempt in their favour at the commencement of the commonwealth.—Wood's Athen. Ox. iii. 1239.]
The result of the elections revealed to him the alarming secret, that the antipathy to his government was more deeply rooted, and more widely spread, than he had previously imagined. In Scotland and Ireland, indeed, the electors obsequiously chose the members recommended by the council; but these were conquered countries, bending under the yoke of military despotism. In England, the whole nation was in a ferment; pamphlets were clandestinely circulated,[a] calling on the electors to make a last struggle in defence of their liberties; and though Vane, Ludlow, and Rich were taken into custody;[1] though other republican leaders were excluded by criminal prosecutions, though the Cavaliers, the Catholics, and all who had neglected to aid the cause of the parliament, were disqualified from voting by "the instrument;" though a military force was employed in London to overawe the proceedings, and the whole influence of the government and of the army was openly exerted in the country, yet in several counties the court candidates were wholly, and in most, partially, rejected. But Cromwell was aware of the error which he had committed in the last parliament. He resolved that none of his avowed opponents should be allowed to take possession of their seats. The returns were laid before the council; the majors-general received orders to inquire into the political and religious characters of the elected; the reports of these officers
[Footnote 1: The proceedings on these occasions may be seen in Ludlow, ii. 115-123; and State Trials, v. 791.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. August 20.]
were carefully examined; and a list was made of nearly one hundred persons to be excluded under the pretext of immorality or delinquency.[1]
On the appointed day,[a] the protector, after divine service, addressed the new "representatives" in the Painted Chamber. His real object was to procure money; and with this view he sought to excite their alarm, and to inflame their religious antipathies. He enumerated the enemies of the nation. The first was the Spaniard, the natural adversary of England, because he was the slave of the pope, a child of darkness, and consequently hostile to the light, blinded by superstition, and anxious to put down the things of God; one with whom it was impossible to be at peace, and to whom, in relation to this country, might be applied the words of Scripture, "I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed." There was also Charles Stuart, who, with the aid of the Spaniard and the duke of Neuburg, had raised a formidable army for the invasion of the island. There were the papists and Cavaliers, who had already risen, and were again ready to rise in favour of Charles Stuart. There were the Levellers, who had sent an agent to the court of Madrid, and the Fifth-monarchy-men, who sought an union with the Levellers against him, "a reconciliation between Herod and Pilate, that Christ might be put to death." The remedies—though in this part of his speech he digressed so frequently as to appear loth to come to the remedies—were, to prosecute the war abroad, and strengthen the hands of the government at home; to lose no time in questions of inferior moment, or less urgent necessity, but to inquire into the state of the revenue, and to raise ample supplies.
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, v. 269, 317, 328, 329, 337, 341, 343, 349, 424.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. Sept 17.]
In conclusion, he explained the eighty-fifth psalm, exclaiming, "If pope and Spaniard, and devil, and all set themselves against us, though they should compass us about like bees, yet in the name of the Lord we shall destroy them. The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge."[1]