Blake's subsequent account, the Dutch Admiral, when summoned by him, delayed to perform this obeisance. Van Tromp said that he was about to do it, when he was attacked. Whatever the truth was, a bloody conflict took place, in which Blake, reinforced during the action, had, on the whole, the superiority. War with The urgent endeavors still made by the government of the United Provinces to restore a good understanding, were not met by a corresponding disposition on the other side. The war which followed was waged for a Holland. while with shifting success; and at one time Van December. Tromp sailed unobstructed up and down the Channel, with a broom fastened to the mainmast of his flag-ship, in token of his sweeping the seas. But Cromwell was at the head of the affairs of England. Vane directed her naval administration. Blake, with Monk and Deane for subordinates, fought her battles at sea. The Puritan ports of England had an abundant supply of brave and skilful mariners. The Puritan people grudged no outlay for the security and glory of their new republic. The Dutch found that they had engaged in an unPeace with equal contest; and two years had not passed before they consented to terms of peace, which, April 5. under the circumstances, though distasteful to their pride, were not oppressive. Holland. 1654. In respect to New England, one of the last proceedings of the war had a singular result. Cromwell sent three or four ships with a few troops to take possession of New Netherland. They were under the command of Robert Sedgwick1 1 For Cromwell's instructions to this expedition, see Mass. Hist. Coll., XXXII. 230.—Robert Sedgwick was made a freeman of Massachusetts March 9, 1637. (Mass. Rec., I. 373.) He was at the same time chosen a Captain, and was a Deputy for Charlestown the same year (Ibid., 190, 191), and for many years afterwards. In 1641, he was "ordered to take care of the Castle" (Ibid., 332); and in 1644 he was associated with Gibbons in the trust of keeping Boston harbor sacred from naval disturbers. (See above, p. 225, note.) He was still in Massachusetts in 1652, at which time he held the office of Major-General. (Ibid., III. 277; comp. 258.) He soon after went June 5. June 23. and John Leverett, two persons lately come from Massachusetts, who were instructed to obtain a reinforcement in the Colonies. The vessels had a long passage, and news of the treaty of peace with Holland arrived soon after them. England had now no quarrel with France; but—authorized, without doubt, by secret instructions - Sedgwick and Leverett led their force, strengthened by recruits enlisted in New England, against the French settlements in Nova Scotia. La Tour, who, by marriage with his rival's widow, and by making his peace with the French court, had again obtained possession of the eastern posts, was in no condition to resist.2 to England, where Cromwell was not driving off "foreign religionists" (the long in discovering his merit. 1 Mr. Thomas Leverett took the freeman's oath, March 4, 1633 (Ibid., I. 368), and was chosen Ruling Elder of the Boston church in December of the same year. (Winthrop, I. 114.) John Leverett, his son, became a freeman March 3, 1635 (Mass. Rec., I. 371), and was a Captain as early as 1645. (Ibid., II. 123.) In 1651, 1652, and 1653, he was a Deputy for Boston. (Ibid., II. 220, 259, 297.) In 1653, or 1654, he went to England, where he had been before. (See above, 253, note 2.) 2 See above, 200, note 4.—In 1650, after the death of his rival, La Tour returned to Acadie from his wanderings. Whatever were the means by which he was restored to the favor of the court, a commission was executed by Louis the Fourteenth, February 27, 1651, constituting him again "Governor and Lieutenant-General representing the King's person in all the countries, harbors, coasts, and confines of Acadie." It recites, that "for fortytwo years" La Tour had “usefully devoted all his attention to attaching the savages of that country to the Christian faith," and that, in former attempts to render good service to the crown, by New-England people), La Tour "had been thwarted by the late Charles de Menou d'Aulnay-Charnisé, who had abetted his enemies in charges and surmises which they had not been able to substantiate," and of which La Tour had been acquitted on the 16th day of the same month. Nearly two years after this, he seems to have lost credit again. There is a royal decree, dated December, 1652, which relates to an encroachment of his upon the rights of property of " Dame Jeanne Motin" (the maiden name of D'Aulnay's widow, now La Tour's wife) and of her children. The instrument authorizes the Duke of Vendôme to protect their interests. I think that her marriage to La Tour was not yet known in France, and that the application on which the decree was founded was made by her friends there, in her behalf. La Tour, restored to his former possessions, again laid him himself open to a charge of intriguing with the English; and one Le Borgne received from France some sort of authority to check his dangerous career. Le Borgne was about to attack him at St. John, when Sedgwick's fleet appeared. (Garneau, Conquest of Aug. 16. Sedgwick attacked and took St. John; Port Royal surrendered without fighting;1 and the whole country, Nova Scotia. from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Penobscot, was resumed into the hands of the English.2 In fear of the powerful Protestant party about him, Cardinal Mazarin, at the head of the affairs of France, could not afford to quarrel with Cromwell. He chose rather to pass in silence the affront by which a disputed boundary was settled, than to make a remonstrance which could neither be retracted with dignity, nor insisted on without too much hazard.3 Acadie, again erected into an English principality, with the revived name of Nova Scotia, was bestowed by Cromwell upon three proprietors: La Tour, who was always French or English according to circumstances, Thomas Temple, and William Crowne. La Tour died soon after this Grant of Nova Scotia Temple, and Histoire du Canada, I. 151, 152; comp. Hull's Diary, in Archæol. Amer., III. 174-176; Haliburton, Account of Nova Scotia, I. 60, 61.) 1 The articles of capitulation were signed, August 16, 1654, by Sedgwick, for the English force, and by M. de la Verdure, for the French. " William Hathorne accompanied the expedition, probably in a military command. (Hutch. Coll., 255.) 3 The King, however, as late as January 30, 1658, in a letter to his ambassador at London, complained of an express refusal by Cromwell to surrender the country. as Temple "his near kinsman." (Hutchinson, I. 190.) The mother of Fiennes was Temple's great aunt. His father's brother, Sir Peter Temple, was a member of the Long Parliament, and was appointed one of the High Court of Justice for the trial of the King; but did not serve. Colonel Thomas Temple must have acquired his military title in the Parliament's service. He was probably the person repeatedly referred to in Whitelocke's Memorials as Captain, Major, and Colonel Temple (89, 107, 129, 165, 172, 236, 316, 357). He is called "Colonel" by Cromwell in the order to Leverett to deliver to him the forts of Acadie. (Mass. Hist. Coll., XXXII. 233.) He became Sir Thomas Temple as a Baronet of Nova Scotia. Of William Crowne I know nothing with certainty before the time when he became one of the grantees of Nova Scotia. He was the father of John Crowne, afterwards a favorite dramatic poet of King Charles the Second. Chal transaction, having first, however, sold his share to Temple. Meanwhile the reins of government in England had been tightly gathered into the strong hand which had been more and more felt from the beginning of this marvellous revolution. The war being apparently ended by the victory at Worcester, the army clamored for a "settlement of the nation," and, as incident to it, a dissolution of the existing Parliament. Tenacious of their power, and jealous of the designs of the military men, the members of that body could be brought to no further concession than was expressed in a vote, that, at 1651. the end of three years, they would transfer their Nov. 18. functions to a new Parliament, to be seasonably summoned. Having by this compromise obtained a reprieve, they proceeded to deliberate on a reduction of the military force. Partially they effected it; but when they were about to prosecute the plan further, a remonstrance of Cromwell in behalf of the soldiery interrupted their discussion. Dec. 19. 1652. June. 1653. While the General consulted with his officers and with others on the proper form of a government to be ultimately established, Parliament was debating the qualifications of members, and of constituents, of the representa- March. tive body which it was to call in to supersede itself. The troops, and the Independent party which was in sympa thy with them, watched the proceedings with suspicion, conceiving that they discerned a purpose to intrust power to Presbyterian hands. On the day preceding that when it was expected that the question would be taken, Crom mers (Biog. Dict., XI. 87, note) says that a William Crowne accompanied the Earl of Arundel to Vienna, and on his return published, in 1637, "a relation of his Lordship's travels;" and that, "after holding an office in the Herald's College, he went with his family to one of the plantations, and there well and other officers held a meeting, at which they understood themselves to receive assurances that final action in Parliament should be still further delayed. Expulsion of Early on the day after this meeting, they were again in consultation, when a messenger came to them the Rump of with intelligence that the obnoxious bill was rapParliament. idly passing through its last stages. Cromwell, the Long April 20. in citizen's attire, immediately started for his place in the House, followed by a company of musketeers, which he commanded to await his orders in the lobby. Vane was speaking, in favor of the pending bill. When he ceased, Cromwell rose to reply. Warming as he went on, he turned to different members with vehement reproaches. As he ended his harangue, he stamped upon the floor, and, on the appearance of the soldiers, ordered them to clear the room. "Take away that bawble," he said to one soldier, pointing to the mace; another he ordered to see the door locked, and to follow him with the key. In the afternoon of the same day, attended only by Harrison and Lambert, he went to the meeting of the Council of State, and declared it dissolved; a sentence which it was evident was not to be withstood. What had hitherto been kept together of that Parliament, which, thirteen years before, had begun the overt resistance to the despotism of Charles the First, was now no more, and there was no civil authority in England.1 The chief soldier's truncheon was all that kept the peace. If he meant henceforward to govern with it, it was at all events prudent not to offend the pride of the governed by parading the nature of his sway. The parties which he had vanquished were disabled for effective hostility against him by hostilities among themselves; but some The day after the dissolution, the crowd about Westminster Hall was amused by a placard on the door of the House (probably placed there by some Cavalier in the night) with the words, "This House to be let unfurnished." (Guizot, History of Oliver Cromwell, I. 318.) |