retaryship had been L200 a year, his allowance for the
Portuguese agency was to be L800 a year or more. On the 21st of
February he had L300 advanced to him for his outfit; on the 28th he
was voted L100, being for two quarters of his Secretarial salary due
to him, with L50 more for the quarter then current but not completed;
and within a few days afterwards he was on his way to Lisbon.[2] His
departure, I should say--preceded perhaps by a week or two of
cessation from office duty in preparation for it--was the real cause
of the re-employment of Milton at this time in such routine work as
we have seen him engaged in. All or most of his former letters for
the Protector, it may have been noticed, e.g. those on the
Piedmontese business, had been on important occasions, such as might
justify resort to the Latin Secretary Extraordinary; but in the batch
written since Dec. 1655, when Meadows's Portuguese mission had been
resolved on, the ordinary and the extraordinary come together, and
Milton, in writing letters about ships, as well as in translating
draft articles, does work that would have been done by Meadows. And
this arrangement, we may add, was to continue henceforth. For,
despite the sneers of Count Bundt as to the poverty of the
Protector's official staff, the Protector and Council, we shall find,
were in no hurry to fill up the place left vacant by Meadows, but
were quite satisfied that Mr. Milton should go on doing his best
alone, with Thurloe to instruct him, and with the help of such
underlings in Latin as Thurloe could put at his disposal. My belief
is that Milton was pleased at this trust in his renewed ability for
ordinary business.

[Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 218; where it is mentioned that in Dec.
1655 Meadows communicated with Whitlocke on the subject of the Treaty
by Thurloe's orders.]

[Footnote 2: Council Order Books of dates. It is curious that
Whitlocke, noting the new appointment of Meadows, under March 1655-6,
enters it thus: "Mr. Meadows was going for _Denmark_, agent for
the Protector." Meadows did go to Denmark, but not till a good while
afterwards; and the blunder of _Denmark_ at this date for
_Portugal_ is one of the many proofs that Whitlocke's memorials
are not all strictly contemporary, but often combinations of
reminiscences and afterthoughts with the materials of an actual
diary.]

Among the matters that occupied the attention of the Protector's
Government about this time was the state