kinds of such employment he found his blindness less and less a disqualification, that the arrangement as to salary might be as the Council pleased, but that his own suggestion would be that his salary should be reduced to L200, so that he and Mr. Meadows should henceforth be on an equality in that respect.  Such, at all events, was the arrangement adopted; and we may now dismiss this whole incident in Milton’s biography by saying that, though in April 1655 there was a proposal to superannuate him entirely on a life-pension of L150 a year, the proposal did not take effect, but he went on from that date, just as before, in the Latin Secretaryship Extraordinary, though at the reduced salary of L200 a year instead of his original L288.

[Footnote 1:  My notes from the Money Warrant Books of the Council.]

[Footnote 2:  Money Warrants of Feb. 15, 1658-9 and Oct. 25, 1659.]

[Footnote 3:  Money Warrant of Oct. 25, 1659.]

[Footnote 4:  Ibid.]

[Footnote 5:  Ibid.]

As if to prove that the arrangement was a perfectly suitable one, and that Milton’s retirement into ex-Secretaryship would have been a loss, there came from him, immediately after the arrangement had been made, that burst of Latin State-letters which is now the most famous of his official performances for Cromwell.  It was in the second week of May, 1655, that the news of the Massacre of the Piedmontese Protestants reached England; and from the 17th of that month, onwards for weeks and weeks, the attention of the Protector and the Council was all but engrossed, as we have seen (ante pp. 38-44), by that dreadful topic.  Here are a few of the first Minutes of Council relating to it:—­

Thursday, May 17, 1655:—­Present:  HIS HIGHNESS THE LORD PROTECTOR, Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Colonel Fiennes, Lord Lambert, Mr. Rous, Major-General Skippon, Lord Viscount Lisle, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Colonel Montague, Colonel Jones, General Desborough, Colonel Sydenham, Sir Charles Wolseley, Mr. Strickland. Ordered, “That it be referred to the Earl of Mulgrave, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Mr. Rous, and Colonel Jones, or any—­of them to consider of the Petition [a Petition from London ministers and others], and also of the papers of intelligence already come touching the Protestants under the Duke of Savoy, and such other intelligence as shall come to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, and to offer to the Council what they shall think fit, as well touching writing of letters, collections, or otherwise, in order to their relief ...  That it be referred to Colonel Fiennes, Mr. Strickland, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and Mr. Secretary Thurloe, to prepare the draft of a letter to the French King upon this day’s debate touching the Protestants suffering in the Dukedom of Savoy, and to bring in the same to-morrow morning.”

Friday, May 18:—­At a second, or afternoon sitting (present: