But if the zeal of the Independents was more sparing of blood than that of the Presbyterians, it was not inferior in point of rapacity.  The ordinances for sequestration and forfeiture were executed with unrelenting severity.[2] It is difficult to say which suffered from them most cruelly—­families with small fortunes who were thus reduced to a state of penury; or husbandmen, servants, and mechanics, who, on their refusal to take the oath of abjuration, were deprived

[Footnote 1:  Challoner, ii 346.  MS. papers in my possession.  See note.  (G).]

[Footnote 2:  In 1650 the annual rents of Catholics in possession of the sequestrators were retained at sixty-two thousand and forty-eight pounds seventeen shillings and threepence three farthings.  It should, however, be observed that thirteen counties were not included.—­Journ.  Dee. 17.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  Feb. 26.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1651.  May. 19.]

of two-thirds of their scanty earnings, even of their household goods and wearing apparel.[1] The sufferers ventured to solicit[a] from parliament such indulgence as might be thought “consistent with the public peace and their comfortable subsistence in their native country.”  The petition was read:  Sir Henry Vane spoke in its favour; but the house was deaf to the voice of reason and humanity, and the prayer for relief was indignantly rejected.[2]

[Footnote 1:  In proof I may be allowed to mention one instance of a Catholic servant maid, an orphan, who, during a servitude of seventeen years, at seven nobles a year, had saved twenty pounds.  The sequestrators, having discovered with whom she had deposited her money, took two-thirds, thirteen pounds six shillings and eightpence, for the use of the commonwealth, and left her the remainder, six pounds thirteen and fourpence.  In March, 1652, she appealed to the commissioners at Haberdashers’ Hall, who replied that they could afford her no relief, unless she took the oath of abjuration.  See this and many other cases in the “Christian Moderator, or Persecution for Religion,

condemned by the Light of Nature, the Law of God, and Evidence of our own Principles,” p. 77-84.  London, 1652.]

[Footnote 2:  Journals, 1652, June 30.  The petition is in the Christian Moderator, p. 59.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1652.  Jun. 30.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE PROTECTORATE.

Cromwell Calls The Little Parliament—­Dissolves It—­Makes Himself Protector—­Subjugation Of The Scottish Royalists—­Peace With The Dutch—­New Parliament—­Its Dissolution—­Insurrection In England—­Breach With Spain—­Troubles In Piedmont—­Treaty With France.