all. Pray for me, that the Lord would direct, and keep me His servant. I bless the Lord I am not my own ;— but my condition to flesh and blood is very hard. Pray for me; I do for you all. Commend me to all friends. I rest,

Your loving father,

Courage, my brave Oliver!

OLIVER P.*

Thou hast but some three

years more of it, and then the coils and puddles of this Earth, and of its poor unthankful doggery of a population, are all behind thee; and Carrion Heath, and Chancellor Hyde, and Charles Stuart the Christian King, can work their will; for thou hast done with it, thou art above it in the serene azure forevermore!

Fleetwood, I observe, did come over: in January next we find the Lord Deputy' busy here in London with Bulstrode, and others of the Treasury, on high matters of State. He did not return to Ireland; got into Major-Generalings, into matters of State, on this side the Channel; and so ended his Deputyship;-dropping without violence, like fruit fully ripe; the management of Ireland having gradually all shifted into Henry Cromwell's hand in the interim.

LETTER CC.

HERE, fluttering loose on the dim confines of Limbo and the Night-realm, is a small Note of Oliver's, issuing one knows not whence, but recognisable as his, which we must snatch * Thurloe, iii. 572. Whitlocke, p. 618 (7 Jan. 1655-6).

and save. A private and thrice-private Note, for Secretary Thurloe; curiously disclosing to us, as one or two other traits elsewhere do, that, with all his natural courtesies, noble simplicities and affabilities, this Lord Protector knew on occasion the word-of-command too, and what the meaning of a Lord Protector, King, or Chief Magistrate in the Commonwealth of England was.

-pro

Margery Beacham,' Wife of William Beacham, Mariner, lives, the somnolent Editors do not apprise us where, bably in London or some of the Out Ports; certainly in considerable indigence at present. Her poor Husband, in the course of many services to the Commonwealth by sea and land,' has quite lost the use of his right arm; has a poor Pension of Forty shillings allowed him from Chatham;' has Margery, and one poor Boy Randolph, 'tractable to learn,' but who can get no schooling out of such an income. Wherefore, as seems but reasonable, Margery petitions his Highness that the said Randolph might be admitted 'a Scholar of Sutton's Hospital, commonly called the Charterhouse,' in London.1

His Highness, who knows the services of William Beacham, and even a secret service' of his not mentioned in the Petition or Certificates, straightway decides that the Boy Beacham is clearly a case for Sutton's Bounty, and that the Commissioners of the same shall give it him. But now it seems the Chief Commissioner, whose name in this Note stands Blank Blank, is not so prompt in the thing; will consider it, will &c. Consider it? His Highness dockets the Petition, We refer this to the Commissioners for Sutton's Hospital: 28th July, 1655;' and instructs Thurloe to inform Blank Blank that he had much better not consider it, but do it! Which there is no doubt Blank Blank now saw at once to be the real method of the business.

1 Her Petition printed, without date, in Scatcherd, &c. ubi infra.

'To Mr. Secretary Thurloe.'

'Whitehall,' 28th July, 1655.

You receive from me, this 28th instant,

a Petition from Margery Beacham, desiring the admission of her Son into the Charterhouse; whose Husband1 was employed one day in an important secret service, which he did effectually, to our great benefit and the Commonwealth's.

I have wrote under it a common Reference to the Commissioners; but I mean a great deal more: That it shall be done, without their debate or consideration of the matter. And so do you privately hint to

I have not the particular shining bauble for crowds to gaze at or kneel to, but - To be short, I know how to deny Petitions; and, whatever I think proper, for outward form, to "refer" to any Officer or Office, I expect that such my compliance with custom shall be looked upon as an indication of my will and pleasure to have the thing done.

Thy true friend,

OLIVER P.*

1who' in the hasty Original, as if Margery's self or Son were meant. *Scatcherd's History of Morley (Leeds, 1830), p. 332. Printed there, and in Annual Register (for 1758, p. 268), and elsewhere; without commentary, or indication Whence or How,-with several impertinent interpolations which are excluded here. In the Annual Register, vague reference is made to a Book called Collection of Letters, &c. ' compiled by Leonard Howard, D.D.,' who seems to be the first publisher of this Note; author, I suppose, of the impertinent interpolations, which vary in different copies, but being exactly indicated in all, are easily thrown out again as here. In Howard's Book (a disorganic Quarto, London, 1753; one volume published, a second promised but nowhere discoverable),

LETTER CCI.

WE fear there is little chance of the Plate Fleet this year; bad rumours come from the West Indies too, of our grand Armament and Expedition thither. The Puritan Sea-king meanwhile keeps the waters; watches the coasts of Spain ;-which, however, are growing formidable at present.

The Person bound for Lisbon' is Mr. Meadows, one of Secretary Thurloe's Under-secretaries;. concerning whom and whose business there will be farther speech by and by. Of the Commissioners of the Admiralty' we name only Colonel Montague of Hinchinbrook, who is getting very deep in these matters, and may himself be Admiral one day.

To the General of the Fleet, General Blake, at Sea.' SIR,

'Whitehall,' 30th July, 1655.

We have received yours of the 4th, as also that of the 6th instant, both at once; the latter signifying the great preparations which are making against you.

Some intelligence of that nature is also come to us from another hand. Which hath occasioned us to send away this Despatch unto you, immediately upon the receipt of yours, to let you know That we do not judge it safe for you, whilst things are in this condition, to send away any part of the Fleet, as you were directed by our Instructions of the 13th of June; and therefore, which is credibly described to me as one of the most confused farragos ever printed,' search for this Note has been made, twice, to no purpose; and with little hope of elucidation there, had the Note been found. By internal evidence a genuine Note; and legible as we have it.

1 Antea, Letter CXCVIII.

notwithstanding those Orders, you are to keep the whole Fleet with you, until you have executed the Secret Instructions, or find the opportunity is over for the doing thereof.

We think it likewise requisite that you keep with you the two Frigates which conveyed the victuals to you; as also the Nantwich, which was sent to you with a Person bound for Lisbon with our instructions to that King. And for the defects of the Fleet, the Commissioners of the Admiralty will take care thereof; and be you confident that nothing shall be omitted which can be done here for your supply and encouragement. I beseech the Lord to be present with you. I rest, Your very loving friend,

OLIVER P.*

Copied in Secretary Thurloe's hand;' who has added the following Note: With this Letter was sent the intelligence of the twenty ships coming across the Straits, and of the thirty-one ships and eight fire-ships-[word lost]-in Cadiz ;' -dangerous ships and fire-ships, which belong all now to the vanished generations: and have sailed, one knows not whence, one knows not whither!

COMPLIMENT.

PRECISELY in those same summer days there has come a brilliant Swedish gentleman, as Extraordinary Ambassador to this In Blake's Letter, antea ;-they concern the 'Silver Fleet' most Thurloe, iii. 688.

likely.