hateful and burdensome to the
people. He augmented their pay; though the public necessities sometimes
obliged him to run in arrears to them. Their interests, they were
sensible, were closely connected with those of their general and
protector. And he entirely commanded their affectionate regard, by his
abilities and success in almost every enterprise which he had hitherto
undertaken. But all military government is precarious; much more where
it stands in opposition to civil establishments; and still more where
it encounters religious prejudices. By the wild fanaticism which he had
nourished in the soldiers, he had seduced them into measures, for which,
if openly proposed to them, they would have entertained the utmost
aversion. But this same spirit rendered them more difficult to be
governed, and made their caprices terrible even to that hand which
directed their movements. So often taught, that the office of king was
a usurpation upon Christ, they were apt to suspect a protector not to
be altogether compatible with that divine authority. Harrison, though
raised to the highest dignity, and possessed of Cromwell's confidence,
became his most inveterate enemy as soon as the authority of a single
person was established, against which that usurper had always made such
violent protestations. Overton, Rich, Okey, officers of rank in the
army, were actuated with like principles, and Cromwell was obliged to
deprive them of their commissions. Their influence, which was before
thought unbounded among the troops, seemed from that moment to be
totally annihilated.

The more effectually to curb the enthusiastic and seditious spirit
of the troops, Cromwell established a kind of militia in the several
counties. Companies of infantry and cavalry were enlisted under proper
officers, regular pay distributed among them, and a resource by that
means provided both against the insurrections of the royalists and
mutiny of the army.

Religion can never be deemed a point of small consequence in civil
government: but during this period, it may be regarded as the great
spring of men's actions and determinations. Though transported himself
with the most frantic whimseys, Cromwell had adopted a scheme for
regulating this principle in others, which was sagacious and political.
Being resolved to maintain a national church, yet determined neither
to admit Episcopacy nor Presbytery, he established a number of
commissioners, under the name of tryers,