s as they occurred, and had
made several applications to him to obtain his consent. He adds, "Poor men,
under this arbitrary power, were driven like flocks of sheep by forty in a
morning, to the confiscation of goods and estates, without any man being
able to give a reason that two of them had deserved to forfeit a shilling.
I tell you the truth; and my soul, and many persons whose faces I see in
this place, were exceedingly grieved at these things, and knew not which
way to help it, but by their mournings, and giving their negatives when the
occasion served." I notice this passage, because since the discovery of the
sequestrators' papers it has been thought, from the regularity with which
their books were kept, and the seeming equity of their proceedings, as they
are entered, that little injustice was done.]

have power to change the government as settled in one single person and the
parliament." He would, therefore, have them to know, that four things were
fundamental: 1. That the supreme power should be vested in a single person
and parliament; 2. that the parliament should be successive, and not
perpetual; 3. that neither protector nor parliament alone should possess
the uncontrolled command of the military force; and 4. that liberty of
conscience should be fenced round with such barriers as might exclude both
profaneness and persecution. The other articles of the instrument were less
essential; they might be altered with circumstances; and he should always
be ready to agree to what was reasonable. But he would not permit them to
sit, and yet disown the authority by which they sat. For this purpose
he had prepared a recognition which he required them to sign. Those who
refused would be excluded the house; the rest would find admission, and
might exercise their legislative power without control, for his negative
remained in force no longer than twenty days. Let them limit his authority
if they pleased. He would cheerfully submit, provided he thought it for the
interest of the people.[1]

The members, on their return, found a guard of soldiers at the door of the
house, and a parchment for signatures lying on a table in the lobby. It
contained the recognition of which the protector had spoken; a pledge that
the subscribers would neither propose nor consent to alter the government,
as it was settled in one person and a parliament. It was immediately signed
by Lenthall, the speaker; his example was followed by the court p