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list of their names, as historically worthy, known or unknown to the reader, here.*

out.

Soon after this Letter, in the month of October, 1655,' there was seen a strange sight at Bristol in the West. A Procession of Eight Persons; one, a man on horseback, riding single; the others, men and women, partly riding double, partly on foot, in the muddiest highway, in the wettest weather; singing, all but the single-rider, at whose bridle splash and walk two women: "Hosannah! Holy, holy! Lord God of Sabaoth!" and other things, ' in a buzzing tone,' which the impartial hearer could not make The single-rider is a raw-boned male figure, with lank hair reaching below his cheeks ;' hat drawn close over his brows; 'nose rising slightly in the middle;' of abstruse 'down look,' and large dangerous jaws strictly closed: he sings not; sits there covered, and is sung to by the others bare. Amid pouring deluges, and mud knee-deep: so that the rain ran in at their necks, and they vented it at their hose and breeches:' a spectacle to the West of England and Posterity! Singing as above; answering no question except in song. From Bedminster to Ratcliff Gate, along the streets, to the High Cross of Bristol: at the High Cross they are laid hold of by the Authorities ;-turr

* General Desborow has the Counties: Gloucester, Wilts, Dorset, Somer set, Devon, Cornwall.

Colonel Kelsey: Kent and Surrey.

Colonel Goffe: Sussex, Hants, Berks.
Major-General Skippon: London.

Colonel Barkstead (Governor of the Tower): Middlesex and Westmin ster.

Lord-Deputy Fleetwood (who never returns to Ireland): Oxford, Bucks, Herts; Cambridge, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk,-for these four last he can appoint a substitute (Colonel Haynes).

General Whalley: Lincoln, Notts, Derby, Warwick, Leicester.
Major Boteler: Northampton, Bedford, Rutland, Huntingdon.

Colonel Berry (Richard Baxter's friend, once a Clerk in the Iron-works)
Hereford, Salop, North Wales.

General (Sea-General) Dawkins: Monmouth and South Wales.
Colonel Worseley: Cheshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire.

The Lord Lambert: York, Durham, Cumberland, Westmoreland, North umberland,—can appoin: substitutes (Colonel Robert Lilburn, Colo nel Charles Howard).

out to be James Nayler and Company. James Nayler, from Andersloe' or Ardsley in Yorkshire,' heretofore a Trooper under Lambert; now a Quaker and something more. Infatuated Nayler and Company; given up to Enthusiasm,-to Animal-Magnetism, to Chaos and Bedlam in some shape or other! Who will need to be coerced by the Major-Generals, I think;-to be forwarded to London, and there sifted and cross-questioned.* Is not the Spiritualism of England developing itself in strange forms? The Hydra, royalist and sansculottic, has many heads.

George Fox, some time before this, had made his way to the Protector himself; to represent to him the undeserved sufferings of Friends, and what a faithful people they were, though sansculottic, or wearing suits sometimes merely of perennial leather. George's huge Journal, to our regret, has no dates; but his Interview with the Protector, once in these late months, is authentic, still visible to the mind. George, being seized in Leicestershire, 'carried up to the Mews,' and otherwise tribulated by subaltern authorities, contrived to make the Protector hear some direct voice of him, appoint some hour to see him. 'It was on a morning' George went; was admitted to the Protector's bedchamber, 'where one Harvey, who had been a little among Friends,' but had not proved entirely obedient, was dressing him. "Peace be in this House!" George Fox was moved to say.' Peace, O George. I exhorted him,' writes George, 'to keep in the Fear of God, whereby he might receive wisdom from God,' which would be a useful guidance for any Sovereign Person. In fact, I had much discourse' with him; explaining what I and Friends had been led to think 'concerning Christ and His Apostles' of old time, and His Priests and Ministers of new; concern- . ing Life and concerning Death;-concerning this unfathomable Universe in general, and the Light in it that is from Above, and the Darkness in it that is from Below: to all which the Protector 'carried himself with much moderation.' Yes, George; this Protector has a sympathy with the Perennial; and feels it across the Temporary: no hulls, leathern or other, can entirely hide it from the sense of him. 'As I spake, he several times said,

* Examination of them (in Harleian Miscellany, vi., 424–39).

"That is very good," and, "That is true." -Other persons coming in, persons of quality so called, I drew back; lingered; and then was for retiring: 'he caught me by the hand,' and with moist-beaming eyes, said "Come again to my house! If thou and I were but an hour of the day together, we should be nearer one to the other. I wish no more harm to thee than I do to my own soul.” —“Hearken to God's voice !" said George in conclusion : "Whosoever hearkens to it, his heart is not hardened;" his heart remains true, open to the Wisdoms, to the Noblenesses; with him it shall be well!-Captain Drury' wished me to stay among the Lifeguard gentlemen, and dine with them; but I declined, not being free hereto.*

* Fox's Journal (Leeds 1836), i., 265.

LETTERS CXLI.-CXLIII.

JAMAICA.

It went

WE said already the grand Sea-Armament, which sailed from Portsmouth at Christmas, 1654, had proved unsuccessful. westward; opened its Sealed Instructions at a certain latitude; found that they were instructions to attack Hispaniola, to attack the Spanish Power in the West Indies; it did attack Hispaniola, and lamentably failed; attacked the Spanish Power in the West Indies, and has hitherto realized almost nothing,-a mere waste Island of Jamaica, to all appearance little worth the keeping at such cost. It is hitherto the unsuccessfulest enterprise Oliver Cromwell ever had concern with. Desborow fitted it out at Ports mouth, while the Lord Protector was busy with his First refrac tory Pedant Parliament; there are faults imputed to Desborow but the grand fault the Lord Protector imputes to himself, Tha. he chose or sanctioned the choice of Generals improper to command it. Sea-General Penn, Land-General Venables, they were unfortunate, they were incompetent; fell into disagreements, intc distempers of the bowels; had critical Civil Commissioners with them, too, who did not mend the matter. Venables lay'six weeks in bed,' very ill of sad West-India maladies; for the rest, a covetous lazy dog, who cared nothing for the business, but wanted to be home at his Irish Government again. Penn is Father of Penn the Pennsylvanian Quaker; a man somewhat quick of temper, 'like to break his heart' when affairs went wrong; unfit to right them again. As we said, the two Generals came voluntarily home, in the end of last August, leaving the wreck of their forces in Jamaica; and were straightway lodged in the Tower for quitting their post.

A great Armament of Thirty, nay of Sixty ships; of Fourthousand soldiers, two regiments of whom were veterans, the rest a somewhat sad miscellany of broken Royalists, unruly Level

:

lers, and the like, who would volunteer,-whom Venables aug. mented at Barbadoes, with a still more unruly set, to Nine-thousand this great Armament the Lord Protector has strenuously hurled, as a sudden fiery bolt, into the dark Domdaniel of Spanish Iniquity in the far West; and it has exploded there, almost without effect. The Armament saw Hispaniola, and Hispaniola with fear and wonder saw it, on the 14th of April, 1655: but the Armament, a sad miscellany of distempered unruly persons, durst not land where Drake had landed,' and at once take the Town and Island: the Armament hovered hither and thither; and at last agreed to land some sixty miles off; marched therefrom through thick-tangled woods, under tropical heats, till it was nearly dead with mere marching; was then set upon by ambuscadoes; fought miserably ill, the unruly persons of it, or would not fight at all; fled back to its ships a mass of miserable disorganic ruin; and 'dying there at the rate of two-hundred a day,' made for Jamaica.*

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Jamaica, a poor unpopulous Island, was quickly taken, as rich Hispaniola might have been, and the Spaniards were driven away: but to men in biliary humor it seemed hardly worth the taking or the keeping. Immense droves of wild cattle, cows and horses, run about Jamaica ;' dusky Spaniards dwell in hatos, unswept shealings; 80,000 hogs are killed every year for the sake of their lard, which is sold under the name of hog's-butter at Carthagena:' but what can we do with all that! The poor Armament continuing to die as if by murrain, and all things looking worse and worse to poor biliary Generals, Sea-General Penn set sail for home, whom Land-General Venables swiftly followed; leaving Vice-Admiral Goodson,'' Major-General Fortescue,' or almost whosoever liked, to manage in their absence, and their ruined moribund forces to die as they could;-and are now lodged in the Tower, as they deserved to be. The Lord Protector, and virtually England with him, had hoped to see the dark empire of bloody Antichristian Spain a little shaken in the West; some reparation got for its inhuman massacrings and long-con

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Journal of the English Army in the West Indies: by an Eye-witness (in Harl. Miscell., vi., 372-390.) A lucid and reasonable Narrative.

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