e place was taken in a few days, and, in terms of the Treaty,
given into the possession of General Reynolds for the English. A
little while afterwards, a large Spanish force under Don John of
Austria, the Duke of York serving in it with four regiments of
English and Irish refugees, attempted a recapture of the place; but,
by the desperate fighting of the garrison and Montague's assisting
fire from his ships, the attempt was foiled. The Protector had thus
obtained at least one place of footing on the Continent; and, with
English valour to assist the military genius of Turenne, there was
prospect, late in 1657, of still more success in the Spanish
Netherlands. Lockhart was again in London for consultation with
Cromwell Oct. 15, and Montague was back Oct. 24, on which day he took
his oath and place in the Council.[1]

[Footnote 1: Carlyle, III. 306-315 (including two Letters of Cromwell
to Lockhart); Godwin, IV. 543-544; Guizot, II. 379-381;
_Cromwelliana_, 168; Council Order Books, Oct. 24, 1657.]

Various other matters of foreign concern occupied the Protector and
his Council in the first months of the new Protectorate. There is an
order in the Council Books, July 28, 1657, for the despatch of L1000
more to the Piedmontese Protestants, and for certain sums to be paid
to Genevese and other ministers for trouble they had taken in that
matter; and, as late as Nov. 25, there is an order for another
despatch of L1500. There were, indeed, to be farther collections for
the Piedmontese sufferers, and new interposition in their behalf with
the Duke of Savoy. Nay, by this time, the generosity of his Highness
in the Piedmontese business had led to applications from distressed
Protestants in other parts of Europe. Thus, Nov. 4, his Highness
being himself present in the Council, and having communicated "a
petition from the pastors of several churches of the Reformed
Religion in Higher Poland, Bohemia, &c., now scattered abroad through
persecution in those parts, desiring some relief, and also a petition
from Adam Samuel Hartmann and Paul Cyril, delegates from these
exiles, together with a narrative of their condition and sufferings,"
it was ordered that the matter should be referred to the Committee
for the Piedmontese Protestants and preparations made for another
collection of money. All the while, of course, there had been the
more usual and regular diplomatic business between the Protector and
the various agencies of foreign pow