into the hands of the enemy. The French ministers soon found it necessary to change their measures. They treated Charles with such affected indifference, that he thought it more decent to withdraw, and prevent the indignity of being desired to leave the kingdom. He went first to Spaw, thence he retired to Cologne; where he lived two years, on a small pension, about 6000 pounds a year, payed him by the court of France, and on some contributions sent him by his friends in England. In the management of his family, he discovered a disposition to order and economy; and his temper, cheerful, careless, and sociable, was more than a sufficient compensation for that empire, of which his enemies had bereaved him. Sir Edward Hyde, created lord-chancellor, and the marquess of Ormond, were his chief friends and confidents.
If the French ministry had thought it prudent to bend under the English parliament, they deemed it still more necessary to pay deference to the protector, when he assumed the reins of government. Cardinal Mazarine, by whom all the councils of France were directed, was artful and vigilant, supple and patient, false and intriguing; desirous rather to prevail by dexterity than violence, and placing his honour more in the final success of his measures than in the splendor and magnanimity of the means, which he employed. Cromwel, by his imperious character, rather than by the advantage of his situation, acquired an ascendant over this man; and every proposal made by the protector, however unreasonable in itself and urged with whatever insolence, met with a ready compliance from the politic and timid cardinal. Bourdeaux was sent over to England as minister; and all circumstances of respect were payed to the daring usurper, who had imbrued his hands in the blood of his sovereign, a prince so nearly related to the royal family of France. With indefatigable patience did Bourdeaux conduct this negotiation, which Cromwel seemed entirely to neglect; and though privateers with English commissions committed daily depredations on the French commerce, Mazarine was content, in hopes of a fortunate issue, still to submit to these indignities.b
The court of Spain, less connected with the unfortunate royal family, and reduced to greater distress than the French monarchy, had been still more forward in her advances to the prosperous parliament and protector. Don Alonzo de Cardenas, the Spanish envoy, was the first public minister, who recognized the authority of the new republic; and in return for this civility, Ascham was sent envoy into Spain by the parliament. No sooner had this minister arrived in Madrid, than some of the banished royalists, inflamed by that inveterate hatred, which animated the English factions, broke into his chamber, and murdered him together with his secretary. Immediately, they took sanctuary in the churches; and, assisted by the general favour, which every where attended the royal cause, were enabled, most of them, to make their escape. Only one of the criminals suffered death; and the parliament seemed to rest satisfied with this atonement.
Spain, at this time, assailed every where by vigorous enemies from without, and labouring under many internal disorders, retained nothing of her former grandeur, except the haughty pride of her counsels, and the hatred and jealousy of her neighbours. Portugal had rebelled, and established her monarchy in the house of Braganza: Catalonia, complaining of violated privileges, had revolted to France: Naples was shaken with popular convulsions: The Low Countries were invaded with superior forces, and seemed ready to change their master: The Spanish infantry, anciently so formidable, had been annihilated by Condé in the fields of Rocroy: And though the same prince, banished France, sustained by his activity and valour, the falling fortunes of Spain, he could only hope to protract, not prevent, the ruin, with which that monarchy was visibly threatened.
Had Cromwel understood and regarded the interests of his country, he would have supported the declining condition of Spain against the dangerous ambition of France, and preserved that balance of power, on which the greatness and security of England so much depend. Had he studied only his own interests, he would have maintained an exact neutrality between those great monarchies; nor would he have hazarded his ill-acquired and unsettled power, by provoking foreign enemies, who might lend assistance to domestic faction, and overturn his tottering throne. But his magnanimity undervalued danger: His active disposition and avidity of extensive glory, made him incapable of repose: And as the policy of men is continually warped by their temper, no sooner was peace made with Holland, than he began to deliberate what new enemy he should invade with his victorious arms.
War with Spain.
The extensive empire and yet extreme weakness of Spain in the West Indies; the vigorous courage and great naval power of England; were circumstances, which, when compared, excited the ambition of the enterprizing protector, and made him hope, that he might, by some gainful conquest, render for ever illustrious that dominion, which he had assumed over his country. Should he fail of these durable acquisitions, the Indian treasures, which must every year cross the ocean to reach Spain, were, he thought, a sure prey to the English navy, and would support his military force, without his laying new burthens on the discontented people. From France a vigorous resistance must be expected: No plunder, no conquests could be hoped for: The progress of his arms, even if attended with success, must there be slow and gradual: And the advantages acquired, however real, would be less striking to the multitude, whom it was his interest to allure. The royal family, so closely connected with the French monarch, might receive great assistance from that neighbouring kingdom; and an army of French protestants, landed in England, would be able, he dreaded, to unite the most opposite factions against the present usurpation.c
These motives of policy were probably seconded by his bigotted prejudices; as no human mind ever contained so strange a mixture of sagacity and absurdity as that of this extraordinary personage. The Swedish alliance, though much contrary to the interests of England, he had contracted, merely from his zeal for protestantism;d and Sweden being closely connected with France, he could not hope to maintain that confederacy, in which he so much prided himself, should a rupture ensue between England and this latter kingdom.e The Hugonots, he expected, would meet with better treatment, while he engaged in a close union with their sovereign.f And as the Spaniards were much more papists than the French, were much more exposed to the old puritanical hatred,g and had even erected the bloody tribunal of the inquisition, whose rigours they had refused to mitigate on Cromwel’s solicitation;h he hoped that a holy and meritorious war with such idolaters could not fail of protection from heaven.i A preacher likewise, inspired, as was supposed, by a prophetic spirit, bid him go and prosper; calling him a stone cut out of the mountains without hands, that would break the pride of the Spaniard, crush Antichrist, and make way for the purity of the Gospel over the whole world.k
Actuated equally by these bigotted, these ambitious, and these interested motives, the protector equipped two considerable squadrons; and while he was making those preparations, the neighbouring states, ignorant of his intentions, remained in suspence, and looked with anxious expectation on what side the storm should discharge itself. One of these squadrons, consisting of thirty capital ships, was sent into the Mediterranean under Blake, whose fame was now spread over Europe. No English fleet, except during the Crusades, had ever before sailed in those seas; and from one extremity to the other, there was no naval force, Christian or Mahometan, able to resist them. The Roman pontiff, whose weakness and whose pride equally provoke attacks, dreaded invasion from a power, which professed the most inveterate enmity against him, and which so little regulated its movements by the usual motives of interest and prudence. Blake, casting anchor before Leghorn, demanded and obtained from the duke of Tuscany reparation for some losses, which the English commerce had formerly sustained from him. He next sailed to Algiers, and compelled the dey to make peace, and to restrain his pyratical subjects from farther violences on the English. He presented himself before Tunis; and having there made the same demands, the dey of that republic bade him look to the castles of Porto-Farino and Goletta, and do his utmost. Blake needed not to be rouzed by such a bravado: He drew his ships close up to the castles, and tore them in pieces with his artillery. He sent a numerous detachment of sailors in their long boats into the harbour, and burned every ship which lay there. This bold action, which its very temerity, perhaps, rendered safe, was executed with little loss, and filled all that part of the world with the renown of English valour.
Jamaica conquered.
The
