[Footnote 2:  Carte’s Letters, ii. 96, 103, 109.  Ludlow, ii. 80-82.  Clar.  Hist. iii. 649.  See also A Narrative of the Proceedings in the case of Mr. G. Coney, by S. Selwood, gent., 1655.  The Jews had offered Cromwell a considerable sum for permission to settle and trade in England.  Commissioners were appointed to confer with their agent Manasseh Ben Israel, and a council of divines was consulted respecting the lawfulness of the project.  The opposition of the merchants and theologians induced him to pause; but Mr. Ellis has shown that he afterwards took them silently under his protection.—­Council Book, 14th Nov., 1655.  Thurloe, iv. 321, 388.  Bates, 371.  Ellis, iv. 2.  Marten had made an ineffectual attempt in their favour at the commencement of the commonwealth.—­Wood’s Athen.  Ox. iii. 1239.]

The result of the elections revealed to him the alarming secret, that the antipathy to his government was more deeply rooted, and more widely spread, than he had previously imagined.  In Scotland and Ireland, indeed, the electors obsequiously chose the members recommended by the council; but these were conquered countries, bending under the yoke of military despotism.  In England, the whole nation was in a ferment; pamphlets were clandestinely circulated,[a] calling on the electors to make a last struggle in defence of their liberties; and though Vane, Ludlow, and Rich were taken into custody;[1] though other republican leaders were excluded by criminal prosecutions, though the Cavaliers, the Catholics, and all who had neglected to aid the cause of the parliament, were disqualified from voting by “the instrument;” though a military force was employed in London to overawe the proceedings, and the whole influence of the government and of the army was openly exerted in the country, yet in several counties the court candidates were wholly, and in most, partially, rejected.  But Cromwell was aware of the error which he had committed in the last parliament.  He resolved that none of his avowed opponents should be allowed to take possession of their seats.  The returns were laid before the council; the majors-general received orders to inquire into the political and religious characters of the elected; the reports of these officers

[Footnote 1:  The proceedings on these occasions may be seen in Ludlow, ii. 115-123; and State Trials, v. 791.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1657.  August 20.]

were carefully examined; and a list was made of nearly one hundred persons to be excluded under the pretext of immorality or delinquency.[1]

On the appointed day,[a] the protector, after divine service, addressed the new “representatives” in the Painted Chamber.  His real object was to procure money; and with this view he sought to excite their alarm, and to inflame their religious antipathies.  He enumerated the enemies of the nation.  The first was the Spaniard, the natural adversary of England, because he was the slave of the pope, a child of darkness,