struck at first a great terror into the nation, was a singular felicity to the protector; who could not, without danger, have brought together any considerable body of his mutinous army, in order to suppress it. The very insurrection itself he regarded as a fortunate event; since it proved the reality of those conspiracies, which his enemies, on every occasion, represented as mere fictions, invented to colour his tyrannical severities. He resolved to keep no longer any terms with the royalists, who, though they were not perhaps the most implacable of his enemies, were those whom he could oppress under the most plausible pretences, and who met with least countenance and protection from his adherents. He issued an edict with the consent of his council, for exacting the tenth penny from that whole party; in order, as he pretended, to make them pay the expences, to which their mutinous disposition continually exposed the public. Without regard to compositions, articles of capitulation, or acts of indemnity, all the royalists, however harassed with former oppressions, were obliged anew to redeem themselves by great sums of money; and many of them were reduced by these multiplied disasters to extreme poverty. Whoever was known to be disaffected, or even lay under any suspicion, though no guilt could be proved against him, was exposed to the new exaction.
In order to raise this imposition, which commonly passed by the name of decimation, the protector instituted twelve major-generals; and divided the whole kingdom of England into so many military jurisdictions.y These men, 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; nor was there any appeal from them but to the protector himself and his council. Under colour of these powers, which were sufficiently exorbitant, the major-generals exercised an authority still more arbitrary, and acted as if absolute masters of the property and person of every subject. All reasonable men now concluded, that the very masque of liberty was thrown aside, and that the nation was for ever subjected to military and despotic government, exercised not in the legal manner of European nations, but according to the maxims of eastern tyranny. Not only the supreme magistrate owed his authority to illegal force and usurpation: He had parcelled out the people into so many subdivisions of slavery, and had delegated to his inferior ministers the same unlimited authority, which he himself had so violently assumed.
State of Europe.
A government, totally military and despotic, is almost sure, after some time, to fall into impotence and languor: But when it immediately succeeds a legal constitution, it may, at first, to foreign nations appear very vigorous and active, and may exert with more unanimity that power, spirit, and riches, which had been acquired under a better form. It seems now proper, after so long an interval, to look abroad to the general state of Europe, and to consider the measures, which England, at this time, embraced in its negotiations with the neighbouring princes. The moderate temper and unwarlike genius of the two last princes, the extreme difficulties under which they laboured at home, and the great security which they enjoyed from foreign enemies, had rendered them negligent of the transactions on the continent; and England, during their reigns, had been, in a manner, overlooked in the general system of Europe. The bold and restless genius of the protector led him to extend his alliances and enterprizes to every part of Christendom; and partly from the ascendant of his magnanimous spirit, partly from the situation of foreign kingdoms, the weight of England, even under its most legal and bravest princes, was never more sensibly felt than during this unjust and violent usurpation.
A war of thirty years, the most signal and most destructive that had appeared in modern annals, was at last finished in Germany;z and by the treaty of Westphalia, were composed those fatal quarrels, which had been excited by the palatine’s precipitate acceptance of the crown of Bohemia. The young palatine was restored to part of his dignities and of his dominions.a The rights, privileges, and authority of the several members of the Germanic body were fixed and ascertained: Sovereign princes and free states were in some degree reduced to obedience under laws: And by the valour of the heroic Gustavus, the enterprizes of the active Richelieu, the intrigues of the artful Mazarine, was in part effected, after an infinite expence of blood and treasure, what had been fondly expected and loudly demanded from the feeble efforts of the pacific James, seconded by the scanty supplies of his jealous parliaments.
Sweden, which had acquired by conquest large dominions in the north of Germany, was engaged in enterprizes, which promised her, from her success and valour, still more extensive acquisitions on the side both of Poland and of Denmark. Charles X. who had mounted the throne of that kingdom after the voluntary resignation of Christina, being stimulated by the fame of Gustavus as well as by his own martial disposition, carried his conquering arms to the south of the Baltic, and gained the celebrated battle of Warsaw, which had been obstinately disputed during the space of three days. The protector, at the time his alliance was courted by every power in Europe, anxiously courted the alliance of Sweden; and he was fond of forming a confederacy with a protestant power of such renown, even though it threatened the whole north with conquest and subjection.
The transactions of the parliament and protector with France had been various and complicated. The emissaries of Richelieu had furnished fuel to the flame of rebellion, when it first broke out in Scotland; but after the conflagration had diffused itself, the French court, observing the materials to be of themselves sufficiently combustible, found it unnecessary any longer to animate the British malcontents to an opposition of their sovereign. On the contrary, they offered their mediation for composing these intestine disorders; and their ambassadors, from decency, pretended to act in concert with the court of England, and to receive directions from a prince, with whom their master was connected with so near an affinity. Meanwhile, Richelieu died, and soon after him, the French king, Louis XIII. leaving his son an infant four years old, and his widow, Anne of Austria, regent of the kingdom. Cardinal Mazarine succeeded Richelieu in the ministry; and the same general plan of policy, though by men of such opposite characters, was still continued in the French counsels. The establishment of royal authority, the reduction of the Austrian family, were pursued with ardor and success; and every year brought an accession of force and grandeur to the French monarchy. Not only battles were won, towns and fortresses taken; the genius too of the nation seemed gradually to improve, and to compose itself to the spirit of dutiful obedience and of steddy enterprize. A Condé, a Turenne were formed; and the troops, animated by their valour, and guided by their discipline, acquired every day a greater ascendant over the Spaniards. All of a sudden, from some intrigues of the court, and some discontents in the courts of judicature, intestine commotions were excited, and every thing relapsed into confusion. But these rebellions of the French, neither ennobled by the spirit of liberty, nor disgraced by the fanatical extravagances, which distinguished the British civil wars, were conducted with little bloodshed, and made but a small impression on the minds of the people. Though seconded by the force of Spain, and conducted by the prince of Condé, the malcontents, in a little time, were either expelled or subdued; and the French monarchy, having lost a few of its conquests, returned, with fresh vigour, to the acquisition of new dominion.
The queen of England and her son, Charles, during these commotions, passed most of their time at Paris; and notwithstanding their near connexion of blood, received but few civilities, and still less support, from the French court. Had the queen regent been ever so much inclined to assist the English prince, the disorders of her own affairs, would, for a long time, have rendered such intentions impracticable. The banished queen had a moderate pension assigned her; but it was so ill payed, and her credit ran so low, that, one morning, when the cardinal de Retz waited on her, she informed him, that her daughter, the princess Henrietta, was obliged to lie abed, for want of a fire to warm her. To such a condition was reduced, in the midst of Paris, a queen of England, and daughter of Henry IV. of France!
The English parliament, however, having assumed the sovereignty of the state, resented the countenance, cold as it was, which the French court gave to the unfortunate monarch. On pretence of injuries, of which the English merchants complained, they issued letters of reprisal upon the French; and Blake went so far as to attack and seize a whole squadron of ships, which were carrying supplies to Dunkirk, then closely besieged by the Spaniards. That town, disappointed of these supplies,
