friend of mine that he
was the author of that Epistle: nay there is nothing more certain
than that Morus either assumed or acknowledged the authorship of
the same.' ... I add yet a third extract. It is from another letter
from the Hague:--'A man of the first rank in the Hague has told me
that he has in his possession a copy of the _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_ with Morus's own letter.'"

Farther on Milton re-adverts to the same topic, in a passage which it
is also well to quote:

"You say you 'will produce not rumours merely, not conversations
merely, but letters, in proof that I had been warned not to assail
an innocent man.' Let us then inspect the letter you publish, which
was written to you by 'that highly distinguished man, Lord
Nieuport, ambassador of the Dutch Confederation,'--a letter, it is
evident, which you bring forward to be read, not for any force of
proof in it, for it has none, but merely in ostentation. He--and it
shows the singular kindliness of 'the highly distinguished man'
(for what but goodness in him should make him take so much trouble
on your most unworthy account?)--goes to Mr. Secretary Thurloe. He
communicates your letter to Mr. Secretary. When he saw that he had
no success, he sends to me two honourable persons, friends of mine,
with that same letter of yours. What do they do? They read me that
letter of Morus, and they request, and say that Ambassador Nieuport
also requests, that I will trust to your letter in which you deny
being the author of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_. I answered
that what they asked was not fair--that neither was Morus's word
worth so much, nor was it customary to believe, in contradiction to
common report and other ascertained evidence, the mere letter of an
accused person and an adversary denying what was alleged against
him. They, having nothing more to say on the other side, give up
the debate.... When afterwards the Ambassador wanted to persuade
Mr. Secretary Thurloe, he had still no argument to produce but the
same copy of your letter; whence it is quite clear that those
'reasons' brought to me 'for which he desired' me to be so good as
not to publish my book had nothing to do with reasons of State. Do
not then corrupt the Ambassador's letter. Nothing there of 'hostile
spirit,' nothing of the 'inopportune time;' all he writes is that
he 'is sorry I had chosen, notwithstanding his request, to show