Here Venables called a council of officers, who, having previously sought the Lord, determined[a] to “purge” the army.  Some of the runaways were hanged; the officer who commanded the advance was broken, and sent on board the hospital ship to wait on the sick; the loose women who had followed the army were apprehended and punished; and a solemn fast was proclaimed and observed.  But no fasting, praying, or purging could restore the spirits of men humbled by defeat, enfeebled by disease, and reduced to the necessity of feeding on the horses belonging to the cavalry.  The attempt was abandoned;[b] but, on their return, the two commanders made a descent on the island of Jamaica.  The Spanish settlers, about five hundred, fled to the mountains; a capitulation[c] followed; and the island was ceded to England.  Could its flourishing condition in a subsequent period have been foreseen, this conquest might have consoled the nation for the loss at Hispaniola, and the disgrace of the attempt.  But at that time Jamaica was deemed an inconsiderable acquisition; the failure of the expedition encouraged men to condemn the grounds on which it had been undertaken; and Cromwell, mortified and ashamed, vented his displeasure

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1654.  April 28.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1654.  May 3.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1654.  May 10.]

on Penn and Venables, the two commanders, whom, on their arrival, he committed[a] to the Tower.[1]

To many it seemed a solecism in politics, that, when the protector determined to break with Spain, he did not attempt to sell his services to the great enemy of Spain, the king of France.  For reasons which have never been explained, he took no advantage of this circumstance; instead of urging, he seemed anxious to retard, the conclusion of the treaty with that power; after each concession he brought forward new and more provoking demands; and, as if he sought to prevail by intimidation, commissioned Blake to ruin the French commerce, and to attack the French fleet in the Mediterranean.  By Louis these insults were keenly felt; but his pride yielded to his interest; expedients were found to satisfy all the claims of the protector; and at length the time for the signature of the treaty was fixed, when an event occurred to furnish new pretexts for delay, that event, which by Protestants has been called the massacre, by Catholics the rebellion, of the Vaudois.

About the middle of the thirteenth century the peculiar doctrines of the “poor men of Lyons” penetrated

[Footnote 1:  Carte’s Letters, ii. 46-52.  Thurloe, iii. 504, 509, 689, 755; iv. 28.  Bates, 367.  Penn and Venables having resigned their commissions, were discharged.—­Council Book, 1655, Oct. 26, 31.  It appears from the papers in Thurloe that Cromwell paid great attention to the prosperity of the West Indian colonies, as affording facilities to future attempts on the American continent.  To increase the population, he had, as the reader is