inue. The four following letters all relate
to this glorious occasion, and date themselves between June 16,
when the French ambassadors arrived in London, and June 21, when
they took their departure. (1.) To Louis XIV. "Most serene and
potent King, most august Friend and Ally,--That your Majesty has
so speedily, by the illustrious embassy you have sent, repaid my
mission of respect with interest, besides that it is a proof of
your singular graciousness and magnanimity, comes as a
manifestation also of the degree of your regard for my honour and
dignity, not to myself only, but to the whole English People; on
which account, in their name, I duly return your Majesty my most
cordial thanks. Over the most happy victory which God gave to our
conjoint forces against the enemy [in the Battle near Dunkirk on
June 3, ten days before the surrender of the town: ante p. 340], I
rejoice along with you; and it is very gratifying to me that in
that battle our men were not wanting either to their duty to you,
or to the warlike glory of their ancestors, or to their own valour.
As for Dunkirk, your Majesty's hopes for the near surrender of
which are expressed in your letter, I have the additional joy of
being able so soon to write back that the surrender has now
actually taken place; and my hopes are that the Spaniard will
presently pay for his double treachery by the loss not of one city
only,--the effecting of which result by the capture of the other
town [Bergen, near Dunkirk, now also besieged] I would that your
Majesty may have it in your power to report as quickly. As to your
Majesty's farther promise that my interests shall be your care, in
that matter I have no mistrust, the promise coming from a King of
such worth and friendliness, and having the confirmation of the
word of his Ambassador, the most excellent and accomplished Duke de
Crequi. That Almighty God may be propitious to your Majesty and to
the French State, at home and in war, is my sincere wish." (2.) To
CARDINAL MAZARIN. As we have already seen in Cromwell's
correspondence with France, letters to the King and the Cardinal
then almost always went in pairs, for Louis XIV. was but beginning
his long career of _Grand Monarque_ at the age of twenty,
while the Cardinal, at the age of fifty-six, still retained that
ministerial ascendancy which he had exercised all through the
minority of Louis, and ind