in a private capacity, to have reaped the fruit and benefit, together with my brethren, of our hard labours and hazards: the enjoyment, to wit, of peace and liberty, and the privileges of a Christian and a man, in some equality with others, according as it should please the Lord to dispense unto me. And when I say God had put an end to our wars, or at least brought them to a very hopeful issue, very near an end,—after Worcester fight,—I came up to London to pay my service and duty to the Parliament which then sat, hoping that all minds would have been disposed to answer what seemed to be the mind of God, namely, to give peace and rest to his people, and especially to those who had bled more than others in the carrying on of the military affairs,—I was much disappointed of my expectation. For the issue did not prove so. Whatever may be boasted or misrepresented, it was not so, not so!
"I can say in the simplicity of my soul, I love not, I love not,—I declined it in my former speech,—I say, I love not to rake into sores, or to discover nakednesses! The thing I drive at is this: I say to you, I hoped to have had leave to retire to a private life. I begged to be dismissed of my charge; I begged it again and again; and God be judge between me and all men if I lie in this matter! That I lie not in matter of fact, is known to very many; but whether I tell a lie in my heart, as labouring to represent to you what was not upon my heart, I say the Lord be judge. Let uncharitable men, who measure others by themselves, judge as they please. As to the matter of fact, I say it is true. As to the ingenuity and integrity of my heart in that desire—I do appeal, as before, upon the truth of that also. But I could not obtain what my soul longed for. And the plain truth is, I did afterwards apprehend some more of opinion, (such the differences of their judgment from mine,) that it could not well be.
"I confess I am in some strait to say what I could say, and what is true, of what then followed. I pressed the Parliament, as a member, to period themselves; once and again, and again, and ten, nay twenty times over. I told them, for I knew it better than any one man in the parliament could know it, because of my manner of life, which had led me every where up and down the nation, thereby giving me to see and know the temper and spirits of all men, and of the best of men—that the nation loathed their sitting. I knew it. And so far as I could discern, when they were dissolved, there was not so much as the barking of a dog, or any general or visible repining at it.
"And that there was high cause for their dissolution, is most evident: not only in regard there was a just fear of that parliament's perpetuating themselves, but because it actually was their design. Had not their heels been trod upon by importunities from abroad, even to threats, I believe there never would have been any thoughts of rising, or of going out of that room, to the world's end. I myself was sounded, and by no mean persons tempted; and proposals were made me to that very end: that the parliament might be thus perpetuated; that the vacant places might be supplied by new elections, and so continue from generation to generation."
He proceeds to object to the measure which the Parliament was really about to pass, that it would have established an uninterrupted succession of Parliaments, that there would have been "a legislative power always sitting," which would thereby have encroached upon the executive power. The speech then enlarges on the general assent of the people, of the army, of the judges, of the civic powers, to the instrument of government, to the Protectorate, and on the implied assent which they themselves had given by accepting their commissions under it.
"And this being so, though I told you in my last speech that you were a free Parliament, yet I thought it was understood withal that I was the Protector, and the authority that called you! That I was in possession of the government by a good right from God and man. And I believe, that if the learnedest men in this nation were called to show a precedent equally clear of a government so many ways approved of, they would not in all their search find it. And if the fact be so, why should we sport with it? With a business so serious!… For you to disown or not to own it; for you to act with parliamentary authority especially, in the disowning of it, contrary to the very fundamental things, yea against the very root itself of this establishment, to sit and not own the authority by which you sit—is that which I believe astonisheth more men than myself; and doth as dangerously disappoint and discompose the nation, as any thing that could have been invented by the greatest enemy to our peace and welfare."
After drawing the distinction between fundamentals, which may not be shaken, and circumstantials, which it is in the power of Parliament to alter and modify, he continues:—
"I would it had not been needful for me to call you hither to expostulate these things with you, and in such a manner as this! But necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities, are the greatest cozenage which man can put upon the providence of God, and make pretences to break known rules by. But it is as legal, as carnal, and as stupid to think that there are no necessities which are manifest and real, because necessities may be abused or feigned. I have to say, the wilful throwing away of this government, such as it is, so owned by God, so approved by men, so witnessed to, as was mentioned above, were a thing which—and in reference to the good of these nations and of posterity—I can sooner be willing to be rolled into my grave and buried with infamy, than I can give my consent unto!
"You have been called hither to save a nation—nations. You had the best people, indeed, of the Christian world put into your trust, when you came hither. You had the affairs of these nations delivered over to you in peace and quiet; you were, and we all are, put into an undisturbed possession, nobody making title to us: Through the blessing of God, our enemies were hopeless and scattered. We had peace at home; peace with almost all our neighbours round about. To have our peace and interest, whereof those were our hopes the other day, thus shaken, and put under such a confusion; and ourselves rendered hereby almost the scorn and contempt of those strangers who are amongst us to negotiate their masters' affairs!… Who shall answer for these things to God or to men? To men, to the people who sent you hither? who looked for refreshment from you; who looked for nothing but peace and quietness, and rest and settlement? When we come to give an account to them, we shall have it to say, 'Oh, we quarrelled for the Liberty of England; we contested, and went to confusion for that!—Wherein, I pray you, for the Liberty of England? I appeal to the Lord, that the desires and endeavours we have had—nay, the things will speak for themselves,—the liberty of England, the liberty of the people, the avoiding of tyrannous impositions either upon men as men, or Christians as Christians,—is made so safe by this act of settlement, that it will speak for itself."
The Protector then tells them that, "seeing the authority which called them is so little valued and so much slighted, he had caused a stop to be put to their entrance into the Parliament-house," until a certain "somewhat," which would be found "in the lobby without the Parliament-door"—an adhesion to the government in its fundamentals—should be signed.
This extract, as will be readily supposed, would lead to a far too favourable opinion of Cromwell's oratory, if understood as a specimen of his usual manner of speaking; but our readers will probably confess, that they did not expect that the speeches of Cromwell would have yielded such an extract.
Oliver has, it will be observed, a singularly modest way of speaking of his political remedies and projects. In referring, on a later occasion, to his major-generals, he says, "Truly when that insurrection was, we did find out a little poor invention, which I hear has been much regretted. I say there was a little thing invented, which was the erecting of your major-generals, to have a little inspection upon the people thus divided, thus discontented, thus dissatisfied." On the present occasion, the "somewhat which was to be found at the lobby of the Parliament-door," was, after a little demur, accepted and signed by all but a certain number of declared republicans. The parliament afterwards fell from the discussion of a whole constitution, to debates apparently as warm, and as endless, upon poor Biddle the Quaker, and other kindred subjects. Thus their allotted session of five months passed; at the end of which time Cromwell dissolved them.
"I do not know what you have been doing," he tells them in his speech on this occasion. "I do not know whether you have been alive or dead. I have not once heard from
