ard's Parliament, it is to be
remembered, met on the 27th of January.

(CXXXVIII.) To CHARLES GUSTAVUS, KING OF SWEDEN, _Jan._ 27,
1658-9 (i.e. the day of the meeting of the Parliament):--Samuel
Piggott, merchant of London, has complained to the Protector that
two ships of his--the _Post_, Tiddy Jacob master, and the
_Water-dog_, Garbrand Peters master--are detained somewhere in
the Baltic by his Majesty's forces. They had sailed from London to
France; thence to Amsterdam, where one had taken in ballast only,
but the other a cargo of herrings, belonging in part to one Peter
Heinsberg, a Dutchman; and, so laden, they had been bound for his
Majesty's port of Stettin. Probably the Dutch ownership of part of
the herring cargo was the cause of the detention of the ships; but
Piggott was the lawful owner of the ships themselves and of the
rest of the goods. His Majesty is prayed to restore them, and so
save the poor man from ruin.

(CXXXIX.) To THE HIGH AND MIGHTY, THE STATES OF WEST FRIESLAND,
_Jan._ 27, 1658-9:--A widow, named Mary Grinder, complains
that Thomas Killigrew, a commander in the service of the States,
has for eighteen years owed her a considerable sum of money, the
compulsory payment of which he is trying now to evade by
petitioning their Highnesses not to allow any suit against him in
their Courts for debts due in England. "If I only mention to your
Highnesses that she, whom this man tries to deprive of nearly all
her fortunes, is a widow, that she is poor, the mother of many
little children, I will not do you the injustice of supposing that
with you, to whom I am confident the divine commandments, and
especially those about not oppressing widows and the fatherless,
are well known, any more serious argument will be needed against
your granting this privilege of fraud to the man's petition."--The
Thomas Killigrew here concerned may have been one of several
well-known Killigrews, then refugee Royalists. Hence perhaps the
earnestness of the letter.

(CXL.) To LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE, _Feb._ 18, 1658-9:--"We have
heard, and not without grief, that some Protestant churches in
Provence were so scandalously interrupted by a certain
ill-tempered bigot that the matter was thought worthy of severe
notice by the magistrates of Grenoble, to whom the cognisance of
the case belonged by law; but that a convention of the clergy, held
shortly afterwa