ong line of monarchs, now at last subdued and reduced
to slavery by one who, a few years before, was no better than a private
gentleman, whose name was not known in the nation, and who was little
regarded even in that low sphere to which he had always been confined.

The indignation entertained by the people against an authority founded
on such manifest usurpation, was not so violent as might naturally be
expected. Congratulatory addresses, the first of the kind, were made
to Cromwell by the fleet, by the army, even by many of the chief
corporations and counties of England; but especially by the several
congregations of saints dispersed throughout the kingdom.[*]

* See Milton's State Papers.

The royalists, though they could not love the man who had imbrued his
hands in the blood of their sovereign, expected more lenity from him
than from the jealous and imperious republicans, who had hitherto
governed. The Presbyterians were pleased to see those men by whom
they had been outwitted and expelled, now in their turn expelled and
outwitted by their own servant; and they applauded him for this last act
of violence upon the parliament. These two parties composed the bulk
of the nation, and kept the people in some tolerable temper. All men,
likewise, harassed with wars and factions, were glad to see any prospect
of settlement. And they deemed it less ignominious to submit to a
person of such admirable talents and capacity, than to a few ignoble,
enthusiastic hypocrites, who, under the name of a republic, had reduced
them to a cruel subjection.

The republicans, being dethroned by Cromwell, were the party whose
resentment he had the greatest reason to apprehend. That party, besides
the Independents, contained two sets of men who are seemingly of the
most opposite principles, but who were then united by a similitude
of genius and of character. The first and most numerous were the
Millenarians, or Fifth Monarchy men, who insisted that, dominion being
founded in grace, all distinction in magistracy must be abolished,
except what arose from piety and holiness; who expected suddenly the
second coming of Christ upon earth; and who pretended, that the saints
in the mean while, that is, themselves, were alone entitled to govern.
The second were the Deists, who had no other object than political
liberty, who denied entirely the truth of revelation, and insinuated,
that all the various sects, so heated against each other, were a