League between France and
Britain, had sold about 200 of them to a currier in Dieppe, but;
instead of receiving the money, had found it attached and stopped
in his factor's hands. He could have no redress from the French
court of law to which the suit had been referred; and the Protector
now desires his Majesty to bring the matter before his own Council.
If acts done before the League are to be called in question,
Leagues will be meaningless; and it would be well to make an
example or two of persons causing trouble of this kind.

Six of these thirteen State-Letters, it ought to be observed, belong
to the single month of August 1656. They form Milton's largest
contribution of work of this kind in any one month since the very
beginning of his Secretaryship, with the exception of his burst of
letters on the news of the Piedmontese Massacre in May 1655. Nor
ought it to escape notice that some of the letters of Aug. 1656 are
particularly important, and that two of them are manifestos of that
passionate Protestantism of the Protector which had prompted his bold
stand in the matter of the Piedmontese Persecution, and which had
matured itself politically since then into the scheme of an express
League or Union of all the Protestant Powers of Europe. It cannot be
by mere accident that, when Cromwell wanted letters written in the
highest strain of his most characteristic passion, they should have
always been supplied by Milton. Whatever might be done by the office
people that Thurloe had about him, it must have been understood that,
for things of this sort, there was always to be recourse to the Latin
Secretary Extraordinary.

A little item of recent Council-business of which Milton may have
heard with some interest appears as follows in the Council
Order-Books under date Aug. 7, 1656:--"Upon consideration of the
humble petition of Peter Du Moulin, the son, Doctor of Divinity, and
a certificate thereunto subscribed, being presented to his Highness,
and by his Highness referred to the Council, _Ordered_ ... That
the said Dr. Peter Du Moulin, the petitioner, be permitted to
exercise his ministerial abilities, the late Proclamation [of Nov.
24, 1655: see ante pp. 61-62], or any orders or instructions given to
the Major-Generals and Commissioners in the several counties,
notwithstanding." And so even the author of the _Regii Sanguinis
Clamor_ was now an indulged man, and might look forward to being a
Vicar or a Re