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arms and ammunition, provisions bad and scanty, and entrusted to two incapable commanders.1 At Hispaniola the expedition met with a disgraceful repulse, but they succeeded with little difficulty in seizing upon Jamaica, which still remains to us the sole legacy of the foreign policy of Cromwell. The treachery of the action was not condemned by public opinion in England so strongly as it might have been, though several naval officers were so shocked that they would no longer serve under Cromwell's government. The victories of Blake filled the enemies of England with fear as they had done in the days of the commonwealth, though he did not meet with the same ready support. In repeated letters to the protector he complains of bad provisions, ships become foul and unseaworthy, and sickly crews. By lending a small contingent to France against Spain, Cromwell triumphed in the field of European politics with no great exertion of military force, while he pleased English vanity by the acquisition of Dunkirk. He did his best to accelerate the downfall of Spain and promote the rise of France; in short, he helped the work which, continued as it was by his successor, Charles II., caused William III. and Marlborough so much pains to undo. Nevertheless, his foreign policy answered the purpose. The great figure of the protector was regarded with awe and admiration throughout Europe. Even his enemies. allowed that, though ambitious for power, he knew how to exercise it. His court was dignified and

1 Mr Bisset, in his Essays on Historical Truth, London, 1871, on the Government of the Commonwealth and the Government of Cromwell, has shown the causes of the inferiority.

English home rule party dared not thus offend their Irish allies. Mr Gladstone, then retired from public life, was delighted with Justin Macarthy's speech on the occasion, observing that Cromwell was no friend to liberty.

Cromwell was the first ruler of England to recognise the importance of the colonies. He was anxious that some of the settlers in Massachusetts should shift to his new conquest of Jamaica, which they excused themselves from doing. He always favoured New England. The colonists in Virginia, where royalist sentiment was strong, complained that owing to the protector's forbidding them to trade with foreign countries, they could neither procure sufficient supplies for themselves, nor dispose of all their produce in the mother country.

CHAPTER XXI

"A Retired Man's Meditations." The Healing Question. Vane imprisoned and persecuted. Cromwell's Third Parliament. His Anxieties and Nervous Troubles. His Death. Choice of a Successor.

AFTER the expulsion of the Long Parliament, Sir Henry had quietly betaken himself to Raby Castle, where he had a rest which could scarcely have been unwelcome after the strain and toil of so many years. He now gave up his mind to those mystical musings recorded in a book entitled A Retired Man's Meditations, which will be noticed farther on. On his father's death, in 1654, as the elder son, Sir Henry fell heir to Raby Castle, and Belleau in Lincolnshire. The northern estate had suffered much during the civil war, and as he had while in office paid little attention to his private affairs there were debts and incumbrances to clear off.

In the hopes of advancing his project of making himself king, Cromwell issued a proclamation calling upon the people to hold a fast, and apply themselves to the Lord to discover the Achan, who had so long obstructed the settlement of these distracted kingdoms, declaring that he and others associated in the government earnestly longed for light, that they might discern their errors and faults, and that they were ready with a mind open to conviction to receive counsel and

direction in whatever methods providence might adopt. Sir Henry took advantage of the invitation and wrote a treatise entitled: "A Healing Question propounded and resolved upon occasion of the late publique and seasonable Call to Humiliation in order to Love and Union amongst the Honest Party, with a desire to apply Balsam to the Wound before it become incurable,” by Henry Vane, Knight. A title containing a prophecy only too well fulfilled. A copy of the work was sent through General Fleetwood to Cromwell. Being returned without comment it was published in March 1655. The treatise is so carefully constructed, one part supporting the texture of the whole, that a few extracts give no adequate idea of the wisdom and prescience shown in its composition.

It is addressed to "the honest party," those who took up arms in defence of public liberty. Vane reminded them that the cause has still the same goodness in it as ever, not to be less valued now than when neither blood nor treasure were thought too dear to carry it on and hold it up from sinking. The persons concerned were still the same. In the management of the war it pleased God, the righteous judge, to make them complete conquerors over their common enemy, thus strengthening their just claim to be governed by national councils and successive representations of their own election and setting

up.

This they thought they had been in possession of; but a great interruption had happened to their expectations, something rising up that seems rather

1 This treatise may be found in Somers' Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts, second edition, volume vi., p. 308, and in the appendix to Forster's British Statesman, Sir Henry Vane, vol. iv,

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accommodated to the private and selfish interest of a particular part than truly adequate to the common good. "Hence it is," the writer goes on, "if these breaches be not timely healed, and the offences (before they take too deep root) removed, they will certainly work more to the advantage of the common enemy than any of their own unwearied endeavours and dangerous contrivances in foreign parts put all together."

He claims that the whole party of honest men, by the success of their arms, have a right to set up meet persons in supreme judicature and authority, and to shape and form all subordinate actings and administrations of rule and government, so as shall best answer the public welfare and safety of the whole.

In this he eloquently observes, "All the particulars of our civil right and freedom are comprehended, conserved in, and derived from their proper root; in which whilst they grow, they will ever thrive, flourish, and increase; whereas, on the contrary, if there be ever so many fair branches of liberty planted on the root of a private and selfish interest, they will not long prosper, but must, within a little time, wither and degenerate into the nature of that whereinto they are planted."

With fervid eloquence Vane proclaims the right and blessing of freedom in matters of religion, as he had done eighteen years before in Massachusetts: "The magistrates should content themselves with what is plain in their commission in giving protection and punishment in matters of outward practice, converse, and dealing in the things of this life between man and man." "Why shouldest thou," he asks, "set at