and without delay:  In a Letter to General Monk."[1] The whole consists of less than three of the present pages.  Believing that all endeavours must now be used “that the ensuing election be of such, as are already firm or inclinable to constitute a Free Commonwealth,” Milton appeals to Monk to be himself the man to lead in these endeavours.  “The speediest way,” he says, “will be to call up forthwith [to London] the chief gentlemen out of every county, [and] to lay before them (as your Excellency hath already, both in your published Letters to the Army and your Declaration recited to the Members of Parliament), the danger and confusion of readmitting kingship in this land.”  Then let the gentlemen so charged return at once to their counties, and elect or cause to be elected, “by such at least of the people as are rightly qualified,” a STANDING COUNCIL in every city and great town, all great towns henceforth to be called Cities.  Let it be understood that these councils are to be permanent seats of district and local judicature and of political deliberation; but, while setting up such councils, let the gentlemen also see to the election of “the usual number of ablest knights and burgesses, engaged for a Commonwealth, to make up the PARLIAMENT, or, as it will from henceforth be better called, THE GRAND OR GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE NATION.”  The local or city councils having meanwhile been set up, and it having been intimated that on great occasions their assent will be required to measures proposed by the Grand Council of the nation, Milton does not anticipate that there will be much opposition “though this GRAND COUNCIL be perpetual, as in that book [his pamphlet] I proved would be best and most conformable to best examples”; but, should there be opposition, “the known expedient may at length be used of a partial rotation.”  This is all that Milton has to say, with one exception:—­“If these gentlemen convocated refuse these fair and noble offers of immediate liberty and happy condition, no doubt there be enough in every county who will thankfully accept them, your Excellency once more declaring publicly this to be your mind, and having a faithful veteran Army so ready and glad to assist you in the prosecution thereof.”—­What Monk thought of Mr. Milton’s Letter, if he ever took the trouble to read it, may be easily guessed.  It was at this time that he was so often drunk or nearly so at the dinners given in the City, and that Sir John Greenville, on the part of Charles, was watching for an interview with him at St. James’s.

[Footnote 1:  “Published from the Manuscript” is the addition in all our present reprints.  In other words, this Letter to Monk, together with the previous Letter to a Friend concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth, came into Toland’s hands in the manner described in Note p. 617, and was also given by Toland for use in the 1698 edition of Milton’s Prose Works.]

Not one of Milton’s pamphlets had a larger immediate circulation or provoked a more rapid fury of criticism than his Ready and Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth.