l often be sufficient to cast the balance, and render a
determination, which in itself may be uneligible, very prudent, or even
absolutely necessary to the actor.

A dream or prophecy, Lord Clarendon mentions, which, he affirms, (and
he must have known the truth,) was universally talked of almost from
the beginning of the civil wars, and long before Cromwell was so
considerable a person as to bestow upon it any degree of probability. In
this prophecy, it was foretold that Cromwell should be the greatest man
in England, and would nearly, but never would fully, mount the throne.
Such a prepossession probably arose from the heated imagination either
of himself or of his followers; and as it might be one cause of the
great progress which he had already made, it is not an unlikely
reason which may be assigned for his refusing at this time any further
elevation.

The parliament, when the regal dignity was rejected by Cromwell, found
themselves obliged to retain the name of a commonwealth and protector;
and as the government was hitherto a manifest usurpation, it was thought
proper to sanctify it by a seeming choice of the people and their
representatives. Instead of the "instrument of government," which was
the work of the general officers alone, "an humble petition and advice"
was framed, and offered to the protector, by the parliament. This
was represented as the great basis cf the republican establishment,
regulating and limiting the powers of each member of the constitution,
and securing the liberty of the people to the most remote posterity. By
this deed, the authority of protector was in some particulars enlarged;
in others, it was considerably diminished. He had the power of
nominating his successor; he had a perpetual revenue assigned him, a
million a year for the pay of the fleet and army, three hundred thousand
pounds for the support of civil government; and he had authority to name
another house, who should enjoy their seats during life, and exercise
some functions of the former house of peers. But he abandoned the power,
assumed in the intervals of parliament, of framing laws with the consent
of his council; and he agreed, that no members of either house should
be excluded but by the consent of that house of which they were members.
The other articles were in the main the same as in the instrument of
government. The instrument of government Cromwell had formerly extolled
as the most perfect work of human inventio