the fleet on purpose to fight the Dutch; but dying, and the Parliament being restored, Sir Henry Vane, who afterwards was beheaded, had order from the Council of State to give order to the fleet what to do now Oliver was dead, and themselves restored.  Vane, out of state-policy, gave the Earl of Sandwich direction not to fight the Dutch.  Captain Symons, who carried those letters, swore unto me, had he known the letters he carried had contained any such prohibition, he would have sunk both ship and letters.  Oliver said, when the fleet was to go forth, ’That if God blessed his Majesty of Sweden with Copenhagen, the English were to have Elsinore as their share; which if once I have,’ saith Oliver, ’the English shall have the whole trade of the Baltick Sea:  I will make the Dutch find another passage, except they will pay such customs as I shall impose.’  Considering the advantages this would have been to our English, who can blame my pen for being liberal, thereby to have encouraged our famous and noble seamen, or for writing so honourably of the Swedish nation, who had most courteously treated my best of friends, Sir Bolstrode Whitlock, and by whose means, had the design taken effect, the English nation had been made happy with the most beneficial concern of all Christendom.  I shall conclude about Oliver the then Protector, with whom obliquely I had transactions by his son-in-law, Mr. Cleypool; and to speak truly of him, he sent one that waited upon him in his chamber, once in two or three days, to hear how it fared with me in my sessions business; but I never had of him, directly or indirectly, either pension, or any the least sum of money, or any gratuity during his whole Protectorship; this I protest to be true, by the name and in the name of the most holy God.

In 1653, before the dissolution of the Parliament, and that ere they had chosen any for their Ambassador into Sweden, Mr. Cleypool came unto me, demanding of me whom I thought fittest to send upon that embassy into Sweden:  I nominated Sir B. Whitlock, who was chosen, and two or three days after Mr. Cleypool came again:  ’I hope, Mr. Lilly, my father hath now pleased you:  Your friend Sir B. Whitlock is to go for Sweden.’  But since I have mentioned Oliver Cromwell, I will relate something of him, which perhaps no other pen can, or will mention.  He was born of generous parents in Huntingdonshire, educated some time at the university of Cambridge:  in his youth was wholly given to debauchery, quarrelling, drinking, &c. quid non; having by those means wasted his patrimony, he was enforced to bethink himself of leaving England, and go to New-England:  he had hired a passage in a ship, but ere she launched out for her voyage, a kinsman dieth, leaving him a considerable fortune; upon which he returns, pays his debts, became affected to religion; is elected in 1640 a member of Parliament, in 1642 made a Captain of horse under Sir Philip Stapleton, fought at Edge-Hill; after he was made a Colonel, then Lieutenant-General