of his agency with the two Scandinavian powers, no
longer such an inspiring office as it had been under the
Protectorate, had asked the Rump more than once to recall him. He
had remained in the Baltic to as late as October, but was now back in
London, anxious about his own future and about his arrears of salary.
If the present Government should succeed, there might possibly be a
revival of the Cromwellian policy of co-operation with Charles
Gustavus, and then the services of Meadows might be again in request;
but meanwhile Algernon Sidney and the other plenipotentiaries sent by
the Rump into the Baltic, though checking the heroic Swede and
scorned by him in return, might represent the only policy yet
possible. Downing, though also much exercised by the rapid turns of
affairs, and thinking of scoundrel-like means for securing himself,
does not seem to have been so dissatisfied with his position at the
Hague as Meadows was with his in the Baltic. He had come to London
early in November; a sub-committee of the Committee of Safety had
been appointed to receive his report on present relations with the
United Provinces; and he was waiting for re-credentials. The Dutch
Ambassador Nieuport, we may add, was still in London, as also the
French Ambassador M. de Bordeaux, and other inferior foreign
residents, but all meanwhile as mere on-lookers.--One inquires with
most interest about Ambassador Lockhart. Since August, he had been at
or near St. Jean de Luz, on the borders between France and Spain,
charged, as Ambassador for the Rump, with the business of
endeavouring to have the English Commonwealth included in the great
Treaty then going on between Mazarin and the Spanish minister Don
Luis de Haro, so that, when peace had been definitely concluded
between France and Spain, there might be peace also between Spain and
the Commonwealth. There he had been received, with the utmost respect
by Mazarin and with all courtesy by Don Luis de Haro, both of them
friendly enough to the purpose of his mission for reasons of their
own. It was found, however, that the Peace between France and Spain
was a matter of sufficient complication and difficulty in itself; and
so, though it was not finally concluded and signed till the end of
November, when it took the name of _The Treaty of the Pyrenees_,
and secured, among many other things, the marriage of Louis XIV. with
the Spanish Infanta, Lockhart, knowing all to be settled, had taken
his farewell.