Besides these official documents for Cromwell on the Piedmontese business, there came from Milton his memorable Sonnet on the same, expressing his own feelings, and Cromwell’s too, with less restraint.  It may have been in private circulation at the Protector’s Court at the date of the last two of the ten letters: 

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.

  Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
    Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
    Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
    When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
  Forget not:  in thy book record their groans
    Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
    Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
    Mother with infant down the rocks.  Their moans
  The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
    To heaven.  Their martyred blood and ashes sow
    O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
  The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
    A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
    Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[1]

[Footnote 1:  If Morland’s speech at Turin was of Milton’s composition, as we have found probable, the contrast between one phrase in that speech and the opening of this Sonnet is curious.  “Do not, great God, do not seek the revenge due to this iniquity,” says the Speech; “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints,” says the Sonnet.]

From the Piedmontese Massacre we have now to revert to Morus.  His Fides Publica, in reply to Milton’s Defensio Secunda, had been published in an incomplete state, as we have seen, by Ulac at the Hague in August or September 1654; and Milton had a rejoinder to this publication ready or nearly ready, as we have also seen, by the end of March 1655.  The reason why this Rejoinder had not already appeared has now to be stated.

One of Morus’s reasons for hurrying into France so unexpectedly, and leaving his unfinished book in Ulac’s hands, seems to have been the chance of a professorship or pastorship there that would enable him to quit Holland permanently, and settle at length in his own country.  “Some speak of calling Morus, against whom Mr. Milton writes so sharply, to be Professor of Divinity at Nismes; but most men say it will ruin that church,” is a piece of Parisian news sent by Pell to Thurloe in a letter from Zurich dated Oct. 28, 1654;[1] and, with that prospect, or some other, Morus seems to have remained in France for some time after that date.  When copies of his incomplete Fides Publica reached him there, he may not have thanked Ulac for issuing the book in such a state without leave given.  All the more, however, he must have felt himself obliged to complete the book.  Accordingly he did, from France, forward the rest of the MS. to Ulac, with the result of the appearance at last from Ulac’s press of a supplementary volume with this title:  “Alexandri Mori, Ecclesiastae et Sacrarum