The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (445 page)

The republicans, both by the turn of their disposition, and by the nature of the instruments, which they employed, were better qualified for acts of force and vigour than for the slow and deliberate work of legislation. Notwithstanding the late wars and PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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bloodshed, and the present factions, the power of England had never, in any period, appeared so formidable to the neighbouring kingdoms as it did at this time, in the hands of the commonwealth. A numerous army served equally to retain every one in implicit subjection to established authority, and to strike a terror into foreign nations.

The power of peace and war was lodged in the same hands with that of imposing taxes; and no difference of views, among the several members of the legislature, could any longer be apprehended. The present impositions, though much superior to what had ever formerly been experienced, were in reality moderate, and what a nation, so opulent, could easily bear. The military genius of the people had, by the civil contests, been rouzed from its former lethargy; and excellent officers were formed in every branch of service. The confusion, into which all things had been thrown, had given opportunity to men of low stations to break through their obscurity, and to raise themselves by their courage to commands, which they were well qualified to exercise, but to which their birth could never have entitled them. And while so great a power was lodged in such active hands, no wonder the republic was successful in all its enterprizes.

Blake, a man of great courage and a generous disposition, the same person who had defended Lyme and Taunton with such unshaken obstinacy against the late king, was made an admiral; and though he had hitherto been accustomed only to land service, into which too he had not entered till past fifty years of age, he soon raised the naval glory of the nation to a greater height than it had ever attained in any former period. A fleet was put under his command, and he received orders to pursue prince Rupert, to whom the king had entrusted that squadron, which had deserted to him. Rupert took shelter in Kinsale; and escaping thence, fled towards the coast of Portugal. Blake pursued, and chased him into the Tagus, where he intended to make an attack upon him. But the king of Portugal, moved by the favour, which, throughout all Europe, attended the royal cause, refused Blake admittance, and aided prince Rupert in making his escape. To be revenged of this partiality, the English admiral made prize of twenty Portuguese ships richly laden; and he threatened still farther vengeance. The king of Portugal, dreading so dangerous a foe to his newly acquired dominion, and sensible of the unequal contest, in which he was engaged, made all possible submissions to the haughty republic, and was at last admitted to negociate the renewal of his alliance with England. Prince Rupert, having lost a great part of his squadron on the coast of Spain, made sail towards the West Indies. His brother, prince Maurice, was there ship-wrecked in a hurricane. Every where, this squadron subsisted by privateering, sometimes on English, sometimes on Spanish vessels. And Rupert at last returned to France, where he disposed of the remnants of his fleet, together with his prizes.

All the settlements in America, except New England, which had been planted entirely by the puritans, adhered to the royal party, even after the settlement of the republic; and Sir George Ayscue was sent with a squadron to reduce them. Bermudas, Antigua, Virginia were soon subdued. Barbadoes, commanded by lord Willoughby of Parham, made some resistance; but was at last obliged to submit.

With equal ease were Jersey, Guernsey, Scilly, and the isle of Man brought under subjection to the republic; and the sea, which had been much infested by privateers PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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from these islands, was rendered safe to the English commerce. The countess of Derby defended the isle of Man; and with great reluctance yielded to the necessity of surrendering to the enemy. This lady, a daughter of the illustrious house of Trimoille in France, had, during the civil war, displayed a manly courage by her obstinate defence of Latham-House against the parliamentary forces; and she retained the glory of being the last person in the three kingdoms and in all their dependant dominions, who submitted to the victorious commonwealth.
NOTE [B]

Ireland and Scotland were now entirely subjected and reduced to tranquillity. Ireton, the new deputy of Ireland, at the head of a numerous army 30,000 strong, prosecuted the work of subduing the revolted Irish; and he defeated them in many rencounters, which, though of themselves of no great moment, proved fatal to their declining cause. He punished without mercy all the prisoners who had any hand in the massacres. Sir Phelim Oneale, among the rest, was, some time after, brought to the gibbet, and suffered an ignominious death, which he had so well merited by his inhuman cruelties. Limeric, a considerable town, still remained in the hands of the Irish; and Ireton, after a vigorous siege, made himself master of it. He was here infected with the plague, and shortly after died; a memorable personage, much celebrated for his vigilance, industry, capacity, even for the strict execution of justice in that unlimited command, which he possessed in Ireland. He was observed to be inflexible in all his purposes; and it was believed by many, that he was animated with a sincere and passionate love of liberty, and never could have been induced by any motive, to submit to the smallest appearance of regal government. Cromwel appeared to be much affected by his death; and the republicans, who reposed great confidence in him, were inconsoleable. To shew their regard for his merit and services, they bestowed an estate of two thousand pounds a year on his family, and honoured him with a magnificent funeral at the public charge. Though the established government was but the mere shadow of a commonwealth, yet was it beginning by proper arts to encourage that public spirit, which no other species of civil polity is ever able fully to inspire.

The command of the army in Ireland devolved on lieutenant-general Ludlow. The civil government of the island was entrusted to commissioners. Ludlow continued to push the advantages against the Irish, and every where obtained an easy victory. That unhappy people, disgusted with the king on account of those violent declarations against them and their religion, which had been extorted by the Scots, applied to the king of Spain, to the duke of Lorraine; and found assistance no where. Clanricarde, unable to assist the prevailing power, made submissions to the parliament, and retired into England, where he soon after died. He was a steady catholic; but a man much respected by all parties.

The successes, which attended Monk in Scotland, were no less decisive. That able general laid siege to Stirling castle; and though it was well provided for defence, it was soon surrendered to him. He there became master of all the records of the kingdom; and he sent them to England. The earl of Leven, the earl of Crawford, lord Ogilvy, and other noblemen, having met near Perth, in order to concert measures for raising a new army, were suddenly set upon by colonel Alured, and most of them taken prisoners. Sir Philip Musgrave, with some Scots, being engaged at Dumfries in PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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a like enterprize, met with a like fate. Dundee was a town well fortified, supplied with a good garrison under Lumisden, and full of all the rich furniture, the plate, and money of the kingdom, which had been sent thither as to a place of safety. Monk appeared before it; and having made a breach, gave a general assault. He carried the town; and following the example and instructions of Cromwel, put all the inhabitants to the sword, in order to strike a general terror into the kingdom. Warned by this example, Aberdeen, St. Andrew’s, Inverness, and other towns and forts yielded, of their own accord, to the enemy. Argyle made his submissions to the English commonwealth; and excepting a few royalists, who remained some time in the mountains, under the earl of Glencairn, lord Balcarras, and general Middleton, that kingdom, which had hitherto, through all ages, by means of its situation, poverty, and valour, maintained its independance, was reduced to total subjection.

The English parliament sent Sir Harry Vane, St. John, and other commissioners to settle Scotland. These men, who possessed little of the true spirit of liberty, knew how to maintain the appearance of it; and they required the voluntary consent of all the counties and towns of this conquered kingdom, before they would unite them into the same commonwealth with England. The clergy protested; because, they said, this incorporating union would draw along with it a subordination of the church to the state in the things of Christ.
d
English judges, joined to some Scottish, were appointed to determine all causes; justice was strictly administered; order and peace maintained; and the Scots, freed from the tyranny of the ecclesiastics, were not much dissatisfied with the present government.
NOTE [C]
The prudent conduct of Monk, a man who possessed a capacity for the arts both of peace and war, served much to reconcile the minds of men, and to allay their prejudices.

By the total reduction and pacification of the British dominions, 1652. Dutch war.

the parliament had leisure to look abroad, and to exert their vigour in foreign enterprizes. The Dutch were the first that felt the weight of their arms.

During the life of Frederic Henry, prince of Orange, the Dutch republic had maintained a neutrality in the civil wars of England, and had never interposed, except by her good offices, between the contending parties. When William, who had married an English princess, succeeded to his father’s commands and authority,
f
the states, both before and after the execution of the late king, were accused of taking steps more favourable to the royal cause, and of betraying a great prejudice against that of the parliament. It was long before the envoy of the English commonwealth could obtain an audience of the states general. The murderers of Dorislaus were not pursued with such vigour as the parliament expected. And much regard had been payed to the king, and many good offices performed to him, both by the public, and by men of all ranks, in the united provinces.

After the death of William, prince of Orange,g
which was attended with the depression of his party and the triumph of the Dutch republicans, the parliament thought, that the time was now favourable for cementing a closer confederacy with the states. St. John, chief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained the idea of forming a kind of coalition between the two republics, which would have PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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rendered their interests totally inseparable; but fearing that so extraordinary a project would not be relished, he contented himself with dropping some hints of it, and openly went no farther than to propose a strict defensive alliance between England and the united provinces, such as has now, for near seventy years, taken place between these friendly powers.
h
But the states, who were unwilling to form a nearer confederacy with a government, whose measures were so obnoxious, and whose situation seemed so precarious, offered only to renew the former alliances with England. And the haughty St. John, disgusted with this disappointment, as well as incensed at many affronts, which had been offered him with impunity, by the retainers of the Palatine and Orange families, and indeed by the populace in general, returned into England, and endeavoured to foment a quarrel between the republics.

The movements of great states are often directed by as slender springs as those of individuals. Though war with so considerable a naval power as the Dutch, who were in peace with all their other neighbours, might seem dangerous to the yet unsettled commonwealth, there were several motives, which at this time induced the English parliament to embrace hostile measures. Many of the members thought that a foreign war would serve as a pretence for continuing the same parliament, and delaying the new model of a representative, with which the nation had so long been flattered.

Others hoped, that the war would furnish a reason for maintaining, some time longer,

that numerous standing army, which was so much complained of.i
On the other hand, some, who dreaded the encreasing power of Cromwel, expected, that the great expence of naval armaments, would prove a motive for diminishing the military establishment. To divert the attention of the public from domestic quarrels towards foreign transactions, seemed, in the present disposition of men’s minds, to be good policy. The superior power of the English commonwealth, together with its advantages of situation, promised success; and the parliamentary leaders hoped to gain many rich prizes from the Dutch, to distress and sink their flourishing commerce, and by victories to throw a lustre on their own establishment, which was so new and unpopular. All these views, enforced by the violent spirit of St. John, who had great influence over Cromwel, determined the parliament to change the purposed alliance into a furious war against the united provinces.

To cover these hostile intentions, the parliament, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, embraced such measures as, they knew, would give disgust to the states. They framed the famous act of navigation; which prohibited all nations from importing into England in their bottoms any commodity, which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country. By this law, though the terms, in which it was conceived, were general, the Dutch were principally affected; because their country produces few commodities, and they subsist chiefly by being the general carriers and factors of Europe. Letters of reprisal were granted to several merchants, who complained of injuries, which, they pretended, they had received from the states; and above eighty Dutch ships fell into their hands, and were made prizes. The cruelties committed on the English at Amboyna, which were certainly enormous, but which seemed to be buried in oblivion by a thirty years’ silence, were again made the ground of complaint. And the allowing the murderers of Dorislaus to escape, and the conniving at the insults to which St. John had been exposed, were represented as symptoms of an unfriendly, if not a hostile disposition, in the states.