oldiers. And We, therefore, have
thought fit, to lay the burthen of Maintaining those forces, upon those
who have been engaged in the late Wars against the State.' And Cromwell
declares, in conclusion, that 'We can with comfort appeal to God,
whether this way of proceeding with 'the Royalists' hath been the matter
of Our Choice, or that which We have sought occasion for; or whether
contrary to Our own inclinations, We have not been constrained and
necessitated hereunto, and without the doing whereof, We should have
been wanting to Our Duty to God and these Nations.'

Such words uttered by a man who, with utmost fervour, has claimed for
himself, that 'I have learned too much of God, to dally with Him, and to
make bold with Him in these things,' ought surely to be believed; and if
there be any one who is still unconvinced that Cromwell, of his own
'choice,' enticed the Earl of Rochester and his associates across the
Channel, and admitted them into England, that they might constrain and
necessitate him to appoint those Major-Generals, 'we can with comfort
appeal' to that 'Declaration' and ask such a believer in Cromwell to
follow us in a comparison between what he really did, with what he
declared he did, 'for securing the Peace of the Commonwealth upon the
occasion of the late Insurrection.'

In order that his subjects might appreciate the skill and vigilance, by
which the 'contrivements' of the 'cruel and bloody enemy had been
thwarted, Cromwell commenced the account of his execution of his duty as
England's Protecter by a general description of the projects of the
Royalists in March 1655. He asserted that they intended to surprise and
seize London, and all the principal ports and cities throughout England,
and that they reckoned on the support of more than 30,000 armed men.
This description of the projects and resources of the Royalists may be
at once, and contemptuously set aside: it was founded upon lies supplied
by such men as Manning, the spy, or Bamfield, the informer. Cromwell's
words were contradicted by the abortive and petty nature of the
insurrection, by the obvious refusal of all England to join in the
enterprise, and by the conduct of the Protector himself. For he would
not have placed England at the mercy of the Earl of Rochester and his
companions, had he thought that they could call 30,000 men to arms, or
that every important town from London to York, was in danger. Having
thus dealt out fiction by whole