ed, to be yours at
least in as far as your patronage, pity, and shelter can make them
so. There are even reasons of state which might exhort you not to
drive back Vaudois fleeing to you for refuge; but I would not, such
a great King as you are, think of you as moved to the defence of
those lying under calamity by other considerations than the promise
of your ancestors, piety, and kingly benignity and greatness of
soul. So the praise and glory of a most beautiful deed will be
yours unalloyed and entire, and through all your life you will find
the Father of Mercy, and His Son, King Christ, whose name and
doctrine you will have vindicated from a wicked atrocity, more
favouring and propitious to yourself. May God Almighty, for His own
glory, the safeguard of so many innocent Christian human beings,
and your true honour, dispose your Majesty to this resolution!" The
letter was sent to Ambassador Lockhart, then commanding the English
auxiliaries at Dunkirk, with very precise instructions to deliver
it to his French Majesty, and to follow it up energetically by his
own counsels.[2] It may have been delivered to Louis XIV. at or
near Calais. It had, as we have seen, full effect. All in all, it
is one of the most eloquent of the Milton series; and Milton must
have exerted himself in the composition.

[Footnote 1: The exact day of the month is not given either in the
Printed Collection or in the Skinner Transcript; but it is
determined by a letter of Cromwell's to Ambassador Lockhart on the
same business. The two letters went together (see Carlyle, III.
357-365).]

[Footnote 2: Letter of Cromwell to Lockhart of date May 25, 1658,
printed by Mr. Carlyle, _loc. cit._, from the Ayscough MSS.]

(CXXI.) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _May_ 26,
1658:[1]--On the same great business as the last.--"Illustrious and
most honourable Lords, most dear Friends:--Concerning the Vaudois,
your most afflicted neighbours, what grievous and intolerable
things they have suffered from their Prince for Religion's sake,
besides that the mind almost shrinks from remembering them because
of the very atrocity of the facts, we have thought it superfluous
to write to you what must be much better known to yourselves. We
have also seen copies of the letters which your Envoys, who a good
while since were the advisers and witnesses of the Peace of
Pignerol, have written to the Duke of Savoy and