be assured [the expression in the singular: _de me scitote_]
that your safety and prosperity are no less my care and anxiety
than if this fire had broken out in this our own Commonwealth, or
than if those axes of the Schwytz Cantoners had been sharpened, and
their swords drawn (as they veritably are, for all the Reformed are
concerned), for our own necks. No sooner, therefore, have we been
informed of the state of your affairs, and the obdurate temper of
your enemies, than, taking counsel with some very honourable
persons, and some ministers of the Church of highest esteem for
their piety, on the subject of the assistance it might be possible
to send you consistently with our own present requirements, we have
come to those resolutions which our agent Pell will communicate to
you. For the rest, we cease not to commend to the favour of
Almighty God all your plans, and the protection of this most
righteous cause of yours, whether in peace or in war."--From a
private letter of Thurloe's to Pell, of the same date as this
official one, we learn that the persons consulted by Cromwell on
the occasion were the Committee for the Piedmontese Collection
(ante pp. 40-41), his Highness regarding the Piedmontese business
and the Swiss business as radically identical, and desiring to
prepare the public mind for exertions, if necessary, in behalf of
Swiss Protestantism as extraordinary as those that had been made
for the Piedmontese. The conferences on the subject were very
earnest, with the result that his Highness instructed Pell to offer
the Cantons of Zuerich and Bern a subsidy of L20,000, at the rate of
L5000 a month, on security for repayment--the first L5000, however,
to be sent immediately, without waiting for such security.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Thurloe's Letter in Vaughan's _Protectorate_,
I, 334-337.]

(LXIX.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _Feb._ 1655-6:[1]--This
letter also is very important, though less in itself than in its
circumstances; and it requires introduction.--Charles X., or
Charles Gustavus (Karl Gustav), the successor of Queen Christina on
the Swedish throne, was proving himself a man of energy. Chancellor
Oxenstiern, so long the leading statesman of Sweden, had died in
Aug. 1654, just after the accession of Charles; and under the new
King, with the younger Oxenstiern for his Chancellor, Sweden had
entered on a career of war, which was to