t a reconciliation between the House and
the King. When Charles was a prisoner at the Isle of Wight, it is well
known that the Parliament were anxious to come to some terms of
reconcilement, and the concessions which he then made were voted to be
"a sufficient ground for the future settlement of the kingdom." Why did
Cromwell interfere at this juncture between the two parties, in such a
way as entirely to destroy both? His best public ground is his hostility
to presbyterianism. And what was the presbytery, that to him it should
be so distasteful, and an object of so great animosity? Its forms of
worship, the doctrines preached by its divines, were exactly those he
himself practised and approved. There were no altars here, no surplices,
no traditions, no sympathies with Rome, no stealthy approximations to
her detested idolatries. But there was a claim put forward to
ecclesiastical supremacy, to ordain, and authorise, and control public
preachers, which he could not tolerate; and if no other motive had
existed, he was ready to oppose every settlement, at every risk, having
for its object to establish a claim of this description.

We will open the Letters and Speeches of Cromwell at this period of the
history, and present our readers with a specimen of his epistolary
style, and one which will go far to show how little his mind was
influenced, even at this great crisis, by any thing which we should
describe as political reasoning. Cromwell was a great _administrator_,
but he had no vocation for speculative politics, and little attachment
to forms of government. Framers of constitutions are not in repute at
present; they have not covered themselves with applause, rather with
confusion; and this defect in Cromwell's mind will probably be looked
upon with great indulgence. Nevertheless, people who go to war to
demolish an existing government, ought to have taken thought for a
substitute; on _them_ it is incumbent to have a political creed, and a
constitution to set up. At this very moment when the question is no
less, than whether the king should be put to death, and monarchy rooted
out of the land--ay, and the Parliament coerced, in order to effect
these objects--our Puritan general reasons--like a Puritan and nothing
better.

The following letter was addressed to Colonel Hammond, then governor of
the Isle of Wight. The colonel had been distressed by his scruples at
the extreme course the army was disposed to take, and had s