hat
France might be compelled to refuse aid and harbour to Charles Stuart and
his followers; and to contract the obligation of maintaining jointly with
Spain the protector in the government of the three kingdoms. Cromwell
listened, but gave no answer; he appointed commissioners to discuss the
proposal, but forbade them to make any promise, or to hold out any hope
of his acquiescence. When Don Alonzo communicated to them the draft of a
treaty which he had all but concluded with the deputies appointed by the
late parliament, he was

[Footnote 1: Dumont, 79. Thurloe, vol. ii. iii. Vaughan, i. 9, 11. La
Deduction, or Defence of the States in Holland, in Le Clerc, i. 345, and
Basnage, i. 342.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653.]

asked whether the king of Spain would consent to a free trade to the West
Indies, would omit the clause respecting the Inquisition, reduce to an
equality the duties on foreign merchandise, and give to the English
merchant the pre-emption of the Spanish wool. He replied, that his master
would as soon lose his eyes as suffer the interference of any foreign power
on the two first questions; as to the others, satisfactory adjustments
might easily be made; This was sufficient for the present. Cromwell
affected to consider the treaty at an end; though the real fact was, that
he meditated a very different project in his own mind, and was careful not
to be precluded by premature arrangements.[1]

The French ambassador, though he commenced his negotiation under less
propitious auspices, had the address or good fortune to conduct it to
a more favourable issue. That the royal family of France, from its
relationship to that of England, was ill-disposed towards the commonwealth,
there could be no doubt; but its inclinations were controlled by the
internal feuds which distracted, and the external war which demanded, the
attention of the government. The first proof of hostility was supposed to
be given before the death of the king, by a royal _arret_[a] prohibiting
the importation into France of English woollens and silks; and this was
afterwards met by an order of parliament[b] equally prohibiting the
importation into England of French woollens, silks, and wines. The alleged
infraction of these commercial

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 705, 759, 760. Dumont, v. part ii. p. 106. The
clause respecting the Inquisition was one which secured the English
traders from being molested by that court, on condition that they gave no