(LII.) TO THE PRINCE OF TARENTE, April 4, 1655[1]:—­This Prince, one of the chiefs of the French nobility, but connected with Germany by marriage, was a Protestant by education, had been mixed up with the wars of the Fronde, and was altogether a very stirring man abroad.  He had written to Cromwell invoking his interest in behalf of foreign, and especially of French, Protestantism.  Cromwell expresses his satisfaction in having had such an address from so eminent a representative of the Reformed faith in a kingdom in which so many have lapsed from it, and declares that nothing would please him more than “to be able to promote the enlargement, the safety, or, what is most important, the peace, of the Reformed Church.”  Meanwhile he exhorts the Prince to be himself firm and faithful to his creed to the very last.—­The Prince of Tarente, it may be mentioned, had interested himself much in the lawsuit between Morus and Salmasius.  He had tried to act as mediator and induce Morus to withdraw his action—­a condescension which Morus acknowledges, though he felt himself obliged, he says, to go on.

[Footnote 1:  No. 32 in Skinner Transcript (which gives the exact date); also in Printed Collection and in Phillips.]

(LIII.) To ARCHDUKE LEOPOLD of AUSTRIA, GOVERNOR OF THE SPANISH NETHERLANDS (undated):—­Sir Charles Harbord, an Englishman, has had certain goods and household stuff violently seized at Bruges by Sir Richard Grenville.  The goods had originally been sent from England to Holland in 1643 by the then Earl of Suffolk, in pledge for a debt owing to Harbord; and Grenville’s pretext was that he also was a creditor of the Earl, and had obtained a decree of the English Chancery in his favour.  Now, by the English law, neither was the present Earl of Suffolk bound by that decree nor could the goods be distrained under it.  The decision of the Court to that effect is herewith transmitted; and His Serenity is requested to cause Grenville to restore the goods, inasmuch as it is against the comity of nations that any one should be allowed an action in foreign jurisdiction which he would not be allowed in the country where the cause of the action first arose.  “The justice of the case itself and the universal reputation of your Serenity for fair dealing have moved us to commend the matter to your attention; and, if at any time there shall be occasion to discuss the rights or convenience of your subjects with as, I promise that you shall find our diligence in the same not remiss, but at all times most ready."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Undated in Printed Collection and in Phillips; dated “Aug. 1658” in the Skinner Transcript, but surely by mistake.  Such a letter can hardly have been sent to the Archduke after Oct. 1655, when the war with Spain broke out.  I have inserted it at this point by conjecture only, and may be wrong.]