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was it only the enemy whom you fubdued; but you have triumphed over that flame of ambition and that luft of glory, which are wont to make the best and the greatest of men their flaves. The purity of your virtues and the fplendour of your actions confecrate those sweets of ease which you enjoy; and which constitute the wished-for haven of the toils of man. Such was the ease which, when the heroes of antiquity poffeffed, after a life of exertion and glory, not greater than yours, the poets, in defpair of finding ideas or expreffions better fuited to the fubject, feigned that they were received into heaven, and invited to recline at the tables of the gods. But whether it were your health, which I principally believe, or any other motive which caufed you to retire, of this I am convinced, that nothing could have induced you to relinquifh the fervice of your country, if you had not known that in your fucceffor liberty would meet with a protector, and England with a stay to its fafety, and a pillar to its glory. For, while you, O Cromwell, are left among us, ne hardly fhews a proper confidence in the Supreme, who diftrufts the security of England; when he fees that you are in so special a manner the favoured object of the divine regard. But there was another department of the war, which was deftined for your exclusive exertions.

Without entering into any length of detail, I will, if poffible, defcribe fome of the most memorable actions, with as much brevity as you performed them with celerity. After the lofs of all Ireland, with the exception of one city, you in one battle immediately discomfited the forces of the rebels: and were bufily employed in fettling the country, when you were fuddenly recalled to the war in Scotland. Hence you proceeded with unwearied diligence against the Scots who were on the point of making an irruption into England with the king in their train: and in about the fpace of one year you entirely fubdued, and added to the English dominion, that kingdom which all our monarchs during a period of 800 years, had in vain struggled to fubject. In one battle you almost annihilated the remainder of their forces who, in a fit of defperation had made a fudden incurfion into England, then almost

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deftitute of garrifons, and got as far as Worcester; where you came up with them by forced marches, and captured almoft the whole of their nobility. A profound peace enfued; when we found, though indeed not then for the first time, that you was as wife in the cabinet as valiant in the field. It was your conftant endeavour in the fenate either to induce them to adhere to thofe treaties which they had entered into with the enemy, or fpeedily to adjuft others which promifed to be beneficial to the country. But when you faw that the business was artfully procraftinated, that every one was more intent on his own felfish intereft than on the public good, that the people complained of the disappointments which they had ex perienced, and the fallacious promifes by which they had been gulled, that they were the dupes of a few overbearing individuals, you put an end to their domination. A new parliament is fummoned: and the right of election given to those to whom it was expedient. They meet; but do nothing; and, after having wearied themselves by their mutual diffentions, and fully expofed their incapacity to the observation of the country, they confent to a voluntary diflolution. In this ftate of defolation, to which we were reduced, you, O Cromwell! alone remained to conduct the government, and to fave the country. We all willingly yield the palm of fovereignty to your unrivalled ability and virtue, except the few among us, who, either ambitious of honours which they have not the capacity to sustain, or who envy thofe which are conferred on one more worthy than themselves, or elfe who do not know that nothing in the world is more pleafing to God, more agreeable to reafon, more politically juft, or more generally useful, than that the fupreme power fhould be vefted in the beft and the wifeft of men. Such, O Cromwell, all acknowledge you to be; fuch are the fervices which you have rendered, as the leader of our councils, the general of our armies, and the father of your country. For this is the tender appellation by which all the good among us falute you from the very foul. Other. names you neither have nor could endure; and you defervedly reject that pomp of title which attracts the gaze and admiration of the multitude. For what is a title but Ff2

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a certain definite mode of dignity; but actions fuch as yours furpafs, not only the bounds of our admiration, but our titles; and like the points of pyramids, which are loft in the clouds, they foar above the poffibilities of titular commendation. But fince, though it be not fit, it may be expedient, that the highest pitch of virtue fhould be cir cumfcribed within the bounds of fome human appellation, you endured to receive, for the public good, a title moft like to that of the father of your country; not to exalt, but rather to bring you nearer to the level of ordinary men; the title of king was unworthy the tranfcendant majefty of your character. For if you had been captivated by a name over which, as a private man, you had so completely triumphed and crumbled into duft, you would have been doing the fame thing as if, after having fubdued fome idolatrous nation by the help of the true God, you should afterwards fall down and worship the gods which you had vanquished. Do you then, fir, continue your course with the fame unrivalled magnanimity; it fits well upon you to you our country owes its liberties, nor can you fuftain a character at once more momentous and more auguft than that of the author, the guardian and the preferver of our liberties: and hence you have not only eclipsed the achievemets of all our kings, but even those which have been fabled of our heroes. Often reflect what a dear pledge the beloved land of your nativity has entrusted to your care; and that liberty which the once expected only from the chofen flower of her talents and her virtues, fhe now expects from you only, and by you only hopes to obtain. Revere the fond expectations which we cherifh, the folicitudes of your anxious country; revere the looks and the wounds of your brave companions in arms who, under your banners, have fo ftrenuously fought for liberty; revere the fhades of thofe who perithed in the conteft; revere alfo the opinions and the hopes which foreign ftates entertain concerning us, who promise to themselves fo many advantages from that liberty, which we have fo bravely acquired, from the establishment of that new government, which has begun to fhed its fplendour on the world, which, if it be fuffered to vanish like a dream, would involve us in the deepest abyss of fhame ;

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and laftly revere yourself; and, after having endured fa many fufferings, and encountered fo many perils for the fake of liberty, do not fuffer it, now it is obtained, either to be violated by yourself, or in any one inftance impaired by others. You cannot be truly free unlefs we are free too; for fuch is the nature of things, that he, who en trenches on the liberty of others, is the firft to lose his own and become a flave. But, if you, who have hitherto been the patron and tutelary genius of liberty, if you, who are exceeded by no one in justice, in piety and goodnefs, fhould hereafter invade that liberty, which you have defended, your conduct must be fatally operative, not only against the caufe of liberty, but the general interefts of piety and virtue. Your integrity and virtue will appear to have evaporated, your faith in religion to have been finall; your character with pofterity will dwindle into infignificance, by which a most deftructive blow will be levelled against the happiness of mankind. The work which you have undertaken is of incalculable moment, which will thoroughly fift and expofe every principle and fenfation of your heart, which will fully difplay the vigour and genius of your character, which will evince whether you really poffefs thofe great qualities of piety, fidelity, juftice, and felf-denial, which made us believe that you were elevated by the fpecial direction of the Deity to the highest pinnacle of power. At once wifely and discreetly to hold the fceptre over three powerful nations, to perfuade people to relinquifh inveterate and corrupt for new and more beneficial maxims and inftitutions, to penetrate into the remoteft parts of the country, to have the mind present and operative in every quarter, to watch against furprise, to provide against danger, to reject the blandishments of pleasure and pomp of power;-thefe are exertions compared with which the labour of war is mere paftime; which will require every energy and employ every faculty that you poffefs; which demand a man fupported from above, and almost inftructed by immediate infpiration. These and more than these are, no doubt, the objects which occupy your attention and engross your foul; as well as the means by which you may accomplish thefe important ends, and render our liberty at once more

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ample and more fecure. And this you can, in my opinion, in no other way fo readily effect, as by affociating in your councils the companions of your dangers and your toils; men of exemplary modefty, integrity and courage; whose hearts have not been heardened in cruelty and rendered infenfible to pity by the fight of fo much ravage and fo much death, but whom it has rather infpired with the love of justice, with a refpect for religion and with the feeling of compaffion, and who are more zealously interested in the preservation of liberty, in proportion as they have encountered more perils in its defence. They are not ftrangers or foreigners, a hireling rout scraped together from the dregs of the people, but for the most part, men of the better conditions in life, of families not difgraced if not ennobled, of fortunes either ample or moderate, and what if fome among them are recommended by their poverty? for it was not the luft of ravage which brought them into the field; it was the calamitous afpect of the times, which, in the moft critical circumftances, and often amid the most disastrous turns of fortune, roufed them to attempt the deliverance of their country from the fangs of defpotifm. They were men prepared, not only to debate but to fight; not only to argue in the fenate, but to engage the enemy in the field. But unless we will continually cherish indefinite and illufory expectations, I fee not in whom we can place any confidence, if not in thefe men and fuch as thefe. We have the fureft and most indubitable pledge of their fidelity, in this, that they have already expofed themselves to death in the fervice of their country; of their piety in this, that they have been always wont to afcribe the whole glory of their fucceffes to the favour of the Deity, whofe help they have fo fuppliantly implored, and fo confpicuously obtained; of their juftice in this, that they even brought the king to trial, and when his guilt was proved, refused to fave his life; of their moderation in our own uniform experience of its effects, and because, if by any outrage, they should disturb the peace which they have procured, they themselves will be the first to feel the miseries which it will occafion, the first to meet the havoc of the fword, and the first again to risk their

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