by hidden or nearly
imminent enemies, you yet, with your valiant but far from large
forces, stand out with such firmness and strength of mind, such
counsel and prowess of generalship, that the sum and weight of the
whole business seems to rest, and the issue of this war to depend,
mainly on your will." The Protector goes on to say that, in such
circumstances, he would consider it unworthy of himself not to
testify in a special manner his sympathy with the Elector and
regard for him. He apologizes for delay hitherto in treating with
the Elector's agent in London, JOHN FREDERICK SCHLEZER, on the
matters about which he had been sent; and he closes with fervent
good wishes.--Evidently, the recognition of the importance of the
Elector, and anxiety as to the part he might take in the war now
involving Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and part of Germany, had been
growing stronger in Cromwell's mind within the last few weeks. From
the language of the letter one would infer either that Cromwell did
not yet fully know of that treaty of Nov. 1656 by which the Polish
King had bought off the Elector from the Swedish alliance by ceding
to him the full sovereignty of East Prussia, or else that since
then the Elector had been oscillating back to the
alliance.--SCHLEZER had been in London since 1655, and had lodged
at Hartlib's house in the end of that year.[1]

[Footnote 1: Letter of Hartlib's in Worthington's Diary and
Correspondence, edited by Crossley (I, 66).]

Ten Latin State-letters nearly all at once, implying as they do
consultations with Thurloe, if not also interviews with the Protector
and the Council, argue a pretty considerable demand upon Milton at
this date for help again in the Foreign Secretaryship.

It would seem, however, that it had occurred to the Protector and the
Council that they were again troubling Mr. Milton too much or left
too dependent on him, and that, with the increase of foreign business
now in prospect in consequence of the Swedo-Danish war and its
complications, it would be well to have an assistant to him, such as
Meadows had been. Accordingly, at a meeting of the Council on Tuesday
Sept. 8, 1657, Cromwell himself present, with Lawrence, Fleetwood,
Lord Lisle, Strickland, Pickering, Sydenham, Wolseley, and Thurloe,
there was this minute: "Ordered by his Highness the Lord Protector,
by and with the advice of the Council, that MR. STERRY do, in the
absence of Mr.