It was while Sir Henry Vane was thus conducting operations, which were covering the name of England with glory, and securing to her the position of the first commercial nation and naval power in the world, and at the same time contriving and constructing a just, and equal, and free government for her people, that his career of usefulness and honor arrested the attention of the great POET OF LIBERTY. John Milton addressed to him the following just tribute of praise.

"Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old,

Than whom a better senator ne'er held

The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled The fierce Epirot, and the African bold,

Whether to settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled;
Then to advise how war may best upheld

Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,

In all her equipage; besides to know

Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,

What severs each, thou hast learnt, which few have

done;

The bounds of either sword to thee we owe ;

Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans

In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son,”

CHAPTER XI.

Cromwell's treasonable Ambition.-Disperses the Parliament by military Force. - Character of the Long Parliament.— Vane returns to private Life.-"Retired Man's Meditations." — Cromwell's religious Professions.

In the mean time Cromwell was maturing his plans, and preparing for their execution. There is much reason to believe, as has already been intimated, that he had long allowed himself to indulge the ambition of becoming supreme in the government. As far back as the battle of Worcester, Hugh Peters had expressed such a suspicion, suggested by Cromwell's conversation and deportment while travelling with him on the road shortly after that victory had heightened his brilliant fame, and thrown unbounded power into his hands. The traitorous and wicked thought was permitted to visit his mind until it became a familiar guest, and then every sentiment of patriotism, and every compunction of conscience fled at its approach.

*

He well knew that while the Long Parliament, that noble company, who had fought the great

* HARRIS's Life of Cromwell, p. 318.

battle of liberty from the beginning, remained in session, and such men as Vane were enabled to mingle in its deliberations, it would be utterly useless for him to think of executing his purpose. And he could not but perceive, that every hour of delay was dangerous, and might prove fatal to his plan. He knew that if the Reforın Bill should be suffered to pass, and a House of Commons be convened, freely elected on popular principles, and constituting a full and fair and equal representation, it would be impossible ever after to overthrow the liberties of the people, or break down the government of the country. In such an event, too, the glory he had won at the head of his victorious army, and which had already been nearly paralleled by the splendid success of Vane in conducting the war upon the ocean, would be in danger of being eclipsed, at least in the minds of the more intelligent part of the nation, by the equally difficult and important services which the Parliament was rendering to the Commonwealth in the construction of a new form of government, which promised to combine the blessings of liberty and law, and to become universally popular throughout the country. Influenced by such considerations as these, Cromwell resolved upon his course, and determined to defeat, at every hazard, the passage of the bill. When all other means failed, and he found

that he could not stop the deliberations of the House, or throw out the bill, no alternative remained but by the use of military force and actual violence to dissolve and disperse the Parliament itself. And he formed the desperate purpose.

But, great as was the energy and firmness of his character, it was with difficulty that he could brace himself up to the perpetration of the criminal and audacious design. Oliver Cromwell was well acquainted with the principles of liberty and government. He was, at least in his speculative opinions, an intelligent and thorough Republican; and, in yielding to the tempting suggestions of a profligate ambition, he sinned against the light that was in him, and permitted himself to be drawn into what he knew and saw to be the vortex of guilt and infamy. He delayed the moment when the fatal blow was to be struck from day to day, until the last hour arrived; and then, putting a forcible restraint upon his conscience, and trampling reason and honor under foot, he rushed like a mad, blind man to the commission of the deed.

The bill originally presented by Sir Henry Vane had been amended and altered, committed and recommitted, times without number, during the years it had been pending in Parliament. At length it was brought into a form, in which it was prepared for the final action of the House.

Unfortunately no copy has been preserved of the bill in its matured shape. Ludlow informs us that it provided for an equal representation of the people, disfranchised several boroughs which had ceased to have a population in proportion to the representation, fixed the number of the House at four hundred, and, with the exception of a few of the largest cities which were to be allowed to send special representatives, the members were to be chosen in counties, apportioned as nearly as possible according to the sums charged upon them for the service of the state; and every man, with two hundred pounds in lands, leases, or goods, was to be an elector. If this bill had passed, although it was not all that the more enlightened republicans wished, it would unquestionably have confirmed the government, rescued the country from tyranny and misrule, and secured to England and to the rest of the world the blessings of republican institutions, two centuries earlier than can now be expected.

On the 20th of April, 1653, the House having concluded all the preliminary measures respecting the bill, nothing remained but to give it its third reading, and engross and enact it. A motion was made, that these forms be forthwith observed and the bill become a law; in the event of which motion passing, the Long Parliament would, according to the provision of the bill, be dissolved