Chapter XVIII: Section II: From January 1654-5 to September 1656, or Through the (6)

(LXXXII.) To the King of Portugal, _Aug._ 1656:--Mr. Philip
Meadows has been in Lisbon since March, busy in the duties of his
mission, and sending letters and reports home. There was still
danger, however, in being an agent for the English Commonwealth in
a Roman Catholic country; and Meadows had nearly shared the fate of
Dorislaus and Ascham. On the 11th of May, as he was returning at
night to his lodgings in Lisbon, carried in a litter, he was
attacked by two horsemen, who "discharged two pistols into the
litter and shot him through the left hand."[1] The wound was not
serious; but the King of Portugal was naturally in great concern.
He offered a large reward for the discovery of the criminals; and,
in a Latin letter to Cromwell, dated "Alcantara, May 26, N.S.," he
professed his desire to have them punished, whether they were
English refugees or native Portuguese.[2] The present Letter by
Milton is the Protector's reply. Though there has been some
interval since the receipt of his Majesty's letter, his Highness
has not yet heard that the criminals have been apprehended; and he
insists that there shall be a vigorous prosecution of the search
and recommends that it should be put into the hands of "some
persons of honesty and sincerity, well-wishers to both nations."

[Footnote 1: Thurloe to Pell, June 26, Vaughan's _Protectorate_, I. 432.]

[Footnote 2: See Letter itself in Thurloe, V. 28.]

(LXXXIII.) To Louis XIV. of France, _Aug._ 1656:--Again about
a ship, but this time in a peremptory strain.--Richard Baker and
Co. of London have complained to the Protector that a ship of
theirs, called _The Endeavour_, William Jopp master, laden at
Teneriffe with 300 pipes of rich Canary wine, had, in November
last, been seized by four French privateer vessels under command of
a Giles de la Roche, who had carried ship, cargo, and most of the
crew away to the East Indies, after landing fourteen of the crew on
the Guinea coast. For this daring act he had pleaded no excuse,
except that his own fleet wanted provisions and that he believed
the owners of his fleet would make good the loss. The Protector
now demands that £16,000 be paid to Messrs. Baker and Co., and also
that Giles de la Roche be punished. It concerns his French
Majesty's honour to see to this, after that recent League with the
English Commonwealth to which his royal oath is pledged. Otherwise
all faith in Leagues will be at an end.

(LXXXIV.) TO CARDINAL, MAZARIN, _Aug._ 1656:--On the same
subject as the last. While writing to the King about such an
outrage, the Protector cannot refrain from imparting the matter
also to his Eminence, as "the sole and only person whose singular
prudence governs the most important affairs of the French and the
chief business of the kingdom, with equal fidelity, counsel, and
vigilance."

(LXXXV.) TO THE STATES-GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES,
_Aug._ 1656. A Letter of some length, and very important. "We
doubt not," It begins, "but all will bear us this testimony--that
no considerations have ever been stronger with us in contracting
foreign alliances than, the duty of defending the Truth of
Religion, and that we have never accounted anything more sacred
than the union and reconciliation of those who are either the
friends and defenders of Protestants, or at least not their
enemies." With what grief, then, does his Highness hear of new
dissensions breaking out among Protestant powers, and especially of
signs of a rupture between the United Provinces and Sweden! Should
there be war between those two great Protestant powers, how the
common enemy will rejoice! "To the Spaniard the prospect has
already brought such an access of spirit and confidence that he
has not hesitated, through his Ambassador residing with you, to
obtrude most audaciously his counsels upon you, and that about the
chief concerns of your Republic: daring even partly to terrify you
by throwing in threats of a renewal of war, partly to solicit you
by setting forth a false show of expediency, to the end that,
abandoning by his advice your old and most faithful friends, the
French, the English, and the Swedes, you would be pleased to form a
close alliance with your former enemy and tyrant, pacified now
forsooth, and, what is most to be feared, quite fawning." The
Protector earnestly adjures their High Mightinesses the States to
be on their guard. "We are not ignorant that you, in your wisdom,
often revolve in your minds the question of the present state of
Europe in general, and especially the condition of the Protestants:
how the Cantons of the Swiss following the orthodox faith are kept
in suspense by the expectation from day to day of new commotions
to be stirred up by their countrymen following the faith of the
Pope, and this while they have hardly emerged from that war which,
plainly on account of Religion, was blown and kindled by the
Spaniard, who gave their enemies leaders and supplied the money;
how for the inhabitants of the Alpine Valleys the designs of the
Spaniards are again contriving the same slaughter and destruction
which they most cruelly inflicted on them last year; how the German
Protestants are most grievously troubled under the rule of the
Kaiser, and retain their paternal homes with difficulty; how the
King of Sweden, whom God, as we hope, has raised up as a valiant
champion of the Orthodox Religion, is carrying on with the whole
strength of his kingdom a doubtful and most severe war with the
most powerful enemies of the Reformed Faith; how your own Provinces
are threatened by the ominous league lately struck up among your
Papist neighbours, of whom a Spaniard is the Prince; how we here,
finally, are engaged in a war declared against the Spanish King."
What an aggravation of this condition of things if there should be
an actual conflict between their High Mightinesses and Sweden! Will
not their High Mightinesses lay all this to heart, and come to a
friendly arrangement with Charles Gustavus? The Protector hardly
understands the causes of the disagreement; but, if he can be of
any use between the two powers, he will spare no exertion. He is
about to send an embassy to the Swedish King, and will convey to
him also the sentiments of this letter.--That the preparation of
this Letter to the States-General had been very careful appears
from the following minute relating to it in the Council Order-Books
for Tuesday Aug. 19:--"Mr. Secretary [Thurloe] reports the draft of
a letter to the States-General of the United Provinces; which was
read, and committed to Sir Charles Wolseley, with the assistance of
the Secretary, to amend the same, in pursuance of the present
debate, and report it again to the Council." Cromwell was himself
present at this meeting of the Council, with Lawrence, Lambert,
Wolseley, Strickland, Rous, Jones, Skippon, and Pickering. The
draft read was most probably the English that was to be turned into
Latin by Milton: but this does not preclude the idea that the
document itself was substantially Milton's. Thurloe can hardly have
drafted _such_ a document. He may have gone to Milton first.

(LXXXVI.) To The King of Portugal, _Aug._ 1656:--The Protector
has received his Portuguese Majesty's Ratification of the Peace
negotiated in London by his Extraordinary Ambassador Count Sa in
1654, and also of the secret and preliminary articles of the same;
and he has received letters from Philip Meadows, his agent at
Lisbon, informing him that the counterpart Ratification on the
English side had been duly delivered to his Majesty. There being
now therefore a firm and settled Peace between the two nations,
dating formally from June 1656, the Protector salutes his Majesty
with all cordiality. As to his Majesty's letters of June 24th,
mentioning some clauses of the League a slight alteration of which
would be convenient for Portugal, the Protector is willing to have
these carefully considered, but suggests that the whole Treaty may
be perilled by tampering with any part of it.

(LXXXVII.) To THE COUNT OF ODEMIRA, _Aug._ 1656:--This is a
letter to the Prime Minister of Portugal, to accompany the
foregoing to the King. The Protector acknowledges the Count's zeal
and diligence in promoting the Peace now concluded, and takes the
opportunity of pressing upon him, rather than again upon the King,
relentless inquiry into the late attempt to assassinate Meadows.

(LXXXVIII.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _Aug._ 1656:--A
letter very much in the strain of that just sent to the
States-General of the United Provinces. Although, knowing what a
champion the Protestant Faith has in his Swedish Majesty, the
Protector cannot but rejoice in the news of his successes, there is
one drawback. It is the accompanying news of the misunderstanding
between his Majesty and the Dutch, now come to such a pass, he
hears, that open conflict is likely, especially in the Baltic. The
Protector is in the dark as to the causes, but ventures to press on
his Majesty the views he had been pressing, but a few days ago,
upon the Dutch. Let him think of the perils of Protestantism; let
him think of Piedmont, of Austria, of Switzerland! "Who is ignorant
that the counsels of the Spaniards and of the Roman Pontiff have,
for two years past, filled all those places with conflagrations,
slaughters, and troubles to the orthodox? If to these evils, so
many already, there shall be added an outbreak of bad feeling among
Protestant brethren themselves, and especially between two powers
in whose valour, resources, and constancy lies the greatest
safeguard of the Reformed Churches, so far as human means avail,
the Reformed Religion itself must be endangered and brought to an
extreme crisis. On the other hand, were all of the Protestant name
to cultivate perpetual peace with that brotherly unanimity which
becomes them, there will be no reason at all to be very much afraid
of inconvenience to us from all that the arts or force of our
enemies can do." O that his Majesty may see his way to a pacific
settlement of his differences with the Dutch! The Protector will
gladly do anything to secure that result.

(LXXXIX.) TO THE STATES OF HOLLAND, _Sept._ 1856:--William
Cooper, a London minister, has represented to the Protector that
his father-in-law, John le Maire of Amsterdam, invented, about
thirty-three years ago, a certain device by which much revenue was
brought in to the States of Holland, without any burden to the
people. It was the settling of a certain small seal or stamp to be
used in the Provinces ("_id autem erat parvi sigilli in
Provinciis constitutio_"). For the working this invention he had
taken into partnership one John van den Brook; and the States of
Holland had promised the partners 3000 guilders yearly, equal to
about £300 English, for the use of the thing. Not a farthing,
however, had they ever received, though the States had benefited so
much; and now, as they are both tired out, they have transferred
their right to William Cooper, who means to prosecute the claim.
The States are prayed to look into the matter, and to pay Cooper
the promised annual pension, with arrears.

(XC.) To LOUIS XIV. of FRANCE, _Sept._ 1656:--His Highness is
sorry to trouble his Majesty so often; but the grievances of
English subjects must be attended to. Now a London merchant, called
Robert Brown, who had bought 4000 hides, part of the cargo of a
Dieppe ship, legally taken before the League between France and
Britain, had sold about 200 of them to a currier in Dieppe, but;
instead of receiving the money, had found it attached and stopped
in his factor's hands. He could have no redress from the French
court of law to which the suit had been referred; and the Protector
now desires his Majesty to bring the matter before his own Council.
If acts done before the League are to be called in question,
Leagues will be meaningless; and it would be well to make an
example or two of persons causing trouble of this kind.

Six of these thirteen State-Letters, it ought to be observed, belong to the single month of August 1656. They form Milton's largest contribution of work of this kind in any one month since the very beginning of his Secretaryship, with the exception of his burst of letters on the news of the Piedmontese Massacre in May 1655. Nor ought it to escape notice that some of the letters of Aug. 1656 are particularly important, and that two of them are manifestos of that passionate Protestantism of the Protector which had prompted his bold stand in the matter of the Piedmontese Persecution, and which had matured itself politically since then into the scheme of an express League or Union of all the Protestant Powers of Europe. It cannot be by mere accident that, when Cromwell wanted letters written in the highest strain of his most characteristic passion, they should have always been supplied by Milton. Whatever might be done by the office people that Thurloe had about him, it must have been understood that, for things of this sort, there was always to be recourse to the Latin Secretary Extraordinary.

A little item of recent Council-business of which Milton may have heard with some interest appears as follows in the Council Order-Books under date Aug. 7, 1656:--"Upon consideration of the humble petition of Peter Du Moulin, the son, Doctor of Divinity, and a certificate thereunto subscribed, being presented to his Highness, and by his Highness referred to the Council, _Ordered_ ... That the said Dr. Peter Du Moulin, the petitioner, be permitted to exercise his ministerial abilities, the late Proclamation [of Nov. 24, 1655: see ante pp. 61-62], or any orders or instructions given to the Major-Generals and Commissioners in the several counties, notwithstanding." And so even the author of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ was now an indulged man, and might look forward to being a Vicar or a Rector, or something higher still, in Cromwell's Established Church. _Can_ his secret have possibly been then known? _Can_ the Council have known that the man who petitioned the Protector for indulgence, and to whom they now advised the Protector to grant it, was the author of the most vehement and bitter book that had ever been written on the Royalist side, the man who had abused the Commonwealth men as "robbers, traitors, parricides" and "plebeian scoundrels," who had written of Cromwell "Verily an egg is not liker an egg than Cromwell is like Mahomet," and who had capped all his other politenesses about Milton by calling him "more vile than Cromwell, damned than Ravaillac"?[1]

[Footnote 1: Dr. Peter du Moulin did become a Vicar in Cromwell's Established Church. He was inducted into the Vicarage of Bradwell, in Bucks, Oct. 24, 1657, but quitted it in a few days, apparently for something better (Wood's Fasti, II. 195: Note by Cole).]