“If meanwhile we suffer such grievous injuries to be done to our countrymen in the West Indies without any satisfaction or vengeance; if we consent to be all excluded from that so important part of the world; if we permit our bitter and inveterate enemy (especially now that peace has been made with the Dutch) to carry home unmolested those huge treasures from the West Indies, by which he can repair his present losses, and restore his affairs to such a condition that he shall be able again to betake himself to that deliberation of his in 1588 ’whether it would be more prudent to begin with England for the recovery of the United Provinces of Holland, or to begin with them for the subjugation of England’;—­beyond a doubt he will find for himself not fewer, but even more reasons, why the beginning should now be made with England.  And, should God permit him ever to carry out these designs, then we should have good grounds for expecting that on us first, but eventually on all Protestants wheresoever, there would be wreaked the residue of that most brutal massacre suffered lately by our brothers in the Alpine valleys:  which massacre, if credit is to be given to the published complaints of those poor orthodox Christians, was originally schemed and appointed in the secret councils of the Spanish Court, through the agency of those paltry friars whom they call missionaries (per illos fraterculos missionarios quos vacant Hispanicae aulae consiliis intimis informata primitus ac designata erat).”

How far Milton’s hand helped in this important document of the Protectorate may fairly be a question.  The substance was probably drafted by the Council and Thurloe, and only handed to Milton for re-expression and translation; nay, it is possible that even in the work of translation, to save time, Milton and Meadows may have been partners.  All in all, however, as the proofs are all but certain that Milton’s hand was to some extent employed in the document, it may mark his return to ordinary official work in Oct.-Nov. 1655, after three months of renewed exemption from such work, following his batch of state-letters on the subject of the Massacre in Piedmont.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The Scriptum Domini Protectoris contra Hispanos was reprinted, as indubitably Milton’s, in 1738, and again in 1741, to assist in rousing British feeling afresh against Spain; and Birch and all succeeding editors of Milton have agreed in regarding it as his.  Godwin, however (Hist. of Commonwealth, IV. 217-219, footnote), suggests doubts.]

What adds to the probability that Cromwell’s Manifesto against Spain, dated Oct. 26, 1655, and published Nov. 9, was partly of Milton’s composition, is the fact, to which we have now to request attention, that he did about this time resume ordinary office-work to an extent beyond expectation.  The following is a list of Letters to Foreign States and Princes written by him for Cromwell from Dec. 1655 to May 1656 inclusively.  Two or three of them are important Cromwellian documents, and require elucidation:—­