while sitting, and during the intervals, with the council of state; that he should summon a parliament once in three years, and allow it to sit five months, without adjournment, prorogation, or dissolution. The council of state, named in the instrument, consisted of fifteen persons, strongly attached to the protector; who in case of a vacancy, had the power of choosing one out of three presented by the remaining members. He had, therefore, 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, had 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 protectorship.

June 2.

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 hundred ships of war were 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 sail toward the close of the engagement, the English fleet lay 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

1 Whitelocke, Parl. Hist.

2 Whitelocke.

3 Burnet, vol. i.-Cowley's observations on this subject are more sprightly than sound. "The government was broken," says he; "Who broke it? It was 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 whole family, and then possess himself of the whole house; because it is better that he, than that only rats should live there!" (Discourse on the Gov. of Ol. Crom.) The reflections of Hobbes, on the necessity of the submission of the people in such emergency, are more pertinent. "The obligation 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 can protect them, can by no covenant be relinquished. The sovereignty 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 PROTECTION; which wheresoever a man seeth, nature applieth his obedience to that power, and his endeavour to maintain it." Leviathan, p. 114, fol. edit.

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 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; 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 July 31. sword drawn, was shot through the heart with a musket ball. That event at once decided the sovereignty of the ocean. The Dutch lost twenty-five ships, and were glad to purchase a A.D. peace by yielding to the English the honour of the flag, 1654. and making such other concessions as were required of them '.

This successful conclusion of the Dutch war, which strengthened Cromwell's authority both at home and abroad, encouraged him to summon a free parliament, according to a 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 sensible, that even this circumscribed freedom of election was incompatible with his usurped dominion. The new parliament began its deliberations with questioning his right to that authority which he had assumed over the nation. Cromwell saw his mistake, and endeavoured to correct it. Enraged at the refractory spirit of the commons, he sent for them to the Painted Chamber; where, after inveighing against their conduct, and endeavouring to show the absurdity of disputing the legality of that instrument by which they were convoked, he required them to sign a 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 enter. Most of the members, after some hesitation, submitted to this despotism; but, as they retained the same independent spirit which they had discovered at their first meeting,

1 Whitelocke-Clarendon.

2 Thurloc, vol. ii.

Cromwell resolved to put an end to their debates. He Jan. 22, accordingly dissolved the parliament, before the expi- 1655. ration of the term prescribed by that instrument of government which he had lately sworn to observe.

The discontent of the parliament communicated itself to the nation. Sir Henry Vane and the old republicans, who maintained the indissoluble authority 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 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. Grove, Penruddock, and other gentlemen, proclaimed the king at Salisbury; but they received no accession of force equal to their expectations, and were soon quelled. The chief conspirators were capitally punished, and many of their partisans were transported as slaves to Barbadoes 1.

The early suppression of this conspiracy more firmly established the protector's authority. It at once showed the turbulent spirit and the 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 the consent of his council, he issued an edict for 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 England into so many military jurisdictions. 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 absolute masters of the liberty and property of every English subject; and thus were the people 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

1 Whitelocke--Clarendon.

2 Parl. Hist. vol. xx.

European powers which it had never enjoyed since the days of Elizabeth. France and Spain 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 house of Bourbon'. But the protector's politics, though sound, were less extensive. An invasion from France, in favour of the royal family, or a rupture with that court, 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 superiority of his naval force. He therefore entered into a negotiation 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 close alliance was afterwards 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 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 sustained from that prince. Blake then 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 when he had there made the same demand, the barbarian ruler of that state 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; while he sent a detachment of sailors in long-boats into the harbour, and burned every ship that lay there. The coasts of the Mediterranean, from one extremity to

1 Hume, vol. vii.

the other, rang with the renown of English valour; and no power, Christian or Mohammedan, dared to oppose the victorious Blake.

The other fleet, commanded by admiral Penn, and which had three thousand soldiers on board, under the direction of general Venables, sailed for the West Indies; where Venables was reinforced with four thousand men from the islands of Barbadoes and St. Christopher. The object of the enterprise was the conquest of Hispaniola, the most valuable island in the American Archipelago. The commanders accordingly resolved to begin with the attack of St. Domingo, the capital, and at that time the only place of strength in the island. On the approach of the English fleet, the intimidated Spaniards abandoned their habitations, and took refuge in the woods; but observing that the troops were imprudently landed at a great distance from the town, and seemed unacquainted with the country, they recovered their spirits; and, falling upon the bewildered invaders, when exhausted with hunger, thirst, and a fatiguing march of two days, in that sultry climate, they put the whole English army to flight, killed six hundred men, and chased the rest to their ships'. To atone for this failure, Penn and Venables bent their course to Jamaica, which was surrendered to them without opposition: yet, on their return to England, the protector, in the first emotions of his disappointment, sent both to the Tower. But Cromwell, although ignorant of the importance of the conquest he had made, took care to support it with men and money'; and Jamaica became a valuable accession to the English monarchy.

No sooner was the king of Spain informed of these unprovoked hostilities than he declared war against England, and ordered all the ships and goods, belonging to the English merchants, to be seized throughout his dominions. The Spanish commerce, so profitable to England, was cut off; and a great number of vessels fell into the hands of the enemy. Nor were the losses of the Spaniards less considerable. An English squadron being A.D. sent to cruise off Cadiz for the plate fleet, took two gal- 1656. leons richly laden, and set on fire two others, which had run on shore. This success proved an incentive to a bolder, though a less profitable enterprise. Blake hearing that a Spanish fleet of sixteen sail had taken shelter among the Canaries, steered his

1 Burchet's Naval History.-Thurloe, vol. iii.

3 Thurloe, vol. iv.

2 Id. ibid.