340 spirited gentry. The cavaliers, in pollicy, who saw that while Cromwell reduc'd all the exercise of tiwnnicall power under another name, there was a doore open'd for the restoring of their party, fell much in with -Cromwell, and heightcn'd all his disorders. He at la>t - ex~rcis'd such an arbitrary power that the whole land grew weary of him, while he set up a companie of silly meane fellows, call'd maior-gencralls, as governors in _every count ry. These rul'd according to their wills, by no Jaw but what seem'cl good in their owne eies, imprisoning men, obstructing t he course of iustice be. tweene man and man, perverting ri ght t hrough partiallity, acquitting some:- that were guilty, and punishing some that were innocent as guilty. Then he exercis'd another proiect to rayse mony, by decimation of the estates of all the king's party, of which actions 'tis said Lambert was the instigator. At last he tooke upon him to make lords and knights, and wanted not many fooles, both of the armie and gentry, to accept of and strutt in his mock titles.k Then k The description given of the usurpation of Cromwc1l and his myrmidons, concise and contemptuous as it is, will be found perfectly just. W ith all his professions he did Jittle el se but deteriQrale that state of things in whi ch the parliament had left them: he patched up a much worse peace with the Dlltch than the parliament would have made : to g ratify or serve hi s personal views he a~s1sted the French against the-Spaniards, and for ever weakened that power which would now have supported this nation against so dangerous a ne ighbour. Ireland he depopulated by encourag ing the caval ier chiefs to emigrate with their adherents into foreign servi ces. At home he rendered the very names of religion and liberty contemptible, and paved the way for the return of the Stuarts. Mi·s. Hutchinson mentions nothing of a circumstance which perhaps she did not know, or if she did , passed it over as beneath notice : the following letter shews the nature of it. Thurloe's State Papers, vol. iv. p. 299, Major-general Whalley writes to the protector: u For the town of Nottingham, I have a grent influence upon it; they will not a choose any without my advi ce. The honest part of the county have of late, which u I much wonder at, nominated Col. Hutchiuson to me, as not knowing better to pitch a to make up the fourth man, he having satisfied some of them concerning his judgment u of the presen t government; but I hope what I have hinted to them will cause them "to think upon some other."
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