One of Henry Cromwell’s difficulties would have been Ludlow, had that uncompromising Republican remained in Ireland.  From that he was relieved.  In January 1655 Fleetwood had been ordered by the Protector to make Ludlow give up his commission; and, as Ludlow questioned the legality of the demand, he had arranged with Fleetwood to go and settle the matter with the Protector himself.  The Protector seeming to prefer that Ludlow should stay where he was, and having sent orders to that effect, Fleetwood was himself In England, and Henry Cromwell was in his place in Dublin, and still there seemed no chance of leave for Ludlow to cross the Channel.  At length, without distinct leave, but trusting to a written engagement Fleetwood had given him, he ventured on the passage; and on Dec. 12, 1655, after the experience of a most stormy sea, he had that of a more stormy interview with the Protector and some of his Council at Whitehall.  Cromwell rated him roundly for his past behaviour generally and for his return without leave, and demanded his parole of submission to the established Government for the future.  Some kind of parole Ludlow was willing to give, declaring that he saw no immediate chance of a subversion of the Government and knew of no design for that end, but refusing to tie his hands “if Providence should offer an occasion.”  With that Cromwell, who had begun to “carry himself more calmly” towards the end of the interview, was obliged to be content.  He became quite civil to Ludlow, saying he “wished him as well as he did any of his Council,” and desiring him to make “choice of some place to live in where he might have good air.”  Ludlow retired into Essex[1].

[Footnote 1:  Ludlow’s Memoirs, 481-557; Carlyle, III. 136.]

THE COLONIES.

With the exception of a factory of the London East India Company, which had been established at Surat on the west coast of Hindostan in 1612, and a settlement on the Gambia on the western coast of Africa, dating from 1631, all the considerable Colonies of England in 1656 were American:—­I.  NEW ENGLAND.  The four chief New England Colonies, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven, confederated since 1643, together with the outlying Plantations of Providence and Rhode-Island, &c., still belonged politically to the mother-country; and through Cromwell’s Protectorate, as before, the connexion had been signified by references of various subjects to the Home-Government, discussions of these by that Government, and orders and advices transmitted in return.  In the main, however, the Colonies remained independent, each with its annually elected Governor, and the Confederacy with its annually elected Board of Commissioners besides; and, while professing high admiration of Cromwell and approval generally of his rule, they were not troubled with questions of rule seriously affecting their own interests.  The war with the Dutch did for some