the members for Devonshire, strongly
advocated the proposals of one SIR JOHN GREENVILLE, who came to the House
with a letter from Charles, dated from Breda, and with whom he had
previously been in secret communication. There had been plots and
counterplots, and a recall of the last members of the Long Parliament,
and an end of the Long Parliament, and risings of the Royalists that were
made too soon; and most men being tired out, and there being no one to
head the country now great Oliver was dead, it was readily agreed to
welcome Charles Stuart. Some of the wiser and better members said--what
was most true--that in the letter from Breda, he gave no real promise to
govern well, and that it would be best to make him pledge himself
beforehand as to what he should be bound to do for the benefit of the
kingdom. Monk said, however, it would be all right when he came, and he
could not come too soon.

So, everybody found out all in a moment that the country _must_ be
prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to condescend to reign over
it; and there was a prodigious firing off of guns, lighting of bonfires,
ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. The people drank the King's
health by thousands in the open streets, and everybody rejoiced. Down
came the Arms of the Commonwealth, up went the Royal Arms instead, and
out came the public money. Fifty thousand pounds for the King, ten
thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of York, five thousand pounds
for his brother the Duke of Gloucester. Prayers for these gracious
Stuarts were put up in all the churches; commissioners were sent to
Holland (which suddenly found out that Charles was a great man, and that
it loved him) to invite the King home; Monk and the Kentish grandees went
to Dover, to kneel down before him as he landed. He kissed and embraced
Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself and his brothers, came on
to London amid wonderful shoutings, and passed through the army at
Blackheath on the twenty-ninth of May (his birthday), in the year one
thousand six hundred and sixty. Greeted by splendid dinners under tents,
by flags and tapestry streaming from all the houses, by delighted crowds
in all the streets, by troops of noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses,
by City companies, train-bands, drummers, trumpeters, the great Lord
Mayor, and the majestic Aldermen, the King went on to Whitehall. On
entering it, he commemorated his Restoration with the joke that i