hours, till you had tired yourself as well as me. But pray, countryman, to avoid this fciomachy, or imaginary combat with words, let me know, Sir, what you mean by the name of tyrant, for I remember that, among your ancient authors, not only all kings, but even Jupiter himself (your juvans pater) is so termed; and perhaps, as it was used formerly in a good sense, so we shall find it, upon better confideration, to be still a good thing for the benefit and peace of mankind; at leaft, it will appear whether your interpretation of it may be justly applied to the perfon, who is now the fubject of our difcourfe." “I call him (said I) a tyrant, who either intrudes himself forcibly into the government of his fellow-citizens without any legal authority over them; or who, having a just title to the government of a people, abuses it to the destruction or tormenting of them. So that' all tyrants are at the same time ufurpers, either of the whole, or at least of a part, of that power which they affume to themselves; and no lefs are they to be accounted rebels, fince no man can ufurp authority over others, but by rebelling against them who had it before, or at least against those laws which were his fuperiors: and in all these fenfes, no hiftory can afford us a more evident example of tyranny, or more out of all poffibility of excufe or palliation, than that of the perfon whom you are pleased to defend; whether we confider his reiterated rebellions against all his fuperiors, or his ufurpation of the fupreme power to himself, or his ty, ranny in the exercise of it; and, if lawful princes have VOL. II. been been efteemed tyrants, by not containing them felves within the bounds of thofe laws which have been left them, as the sphere of their authority, by their forefathers, what fhall we fay of that man, who, having by right no power at all in this nation, could not content himfelf with that which had fatisfied the most ambitious of our princes? nay, not with those vaftly extended limits of fovereignty, which he (difdaining all that had been prescribed and obferved before) was pleafed (out of great modefty), to fet to himself; not abstaining from rebellion and ufurpation even against his own laws, as well as thofe of the nation" "Hold, friend, (faid his highnefs, pulling me by my arm) for I fee your zeal is tranfporting you again; whether the protector were a tyrant in the exorbitant exercife of his power, we shall fee anon; it is requisite to examine, firft, whether he were fo in the ufurpation of it. And I fay, that not only he, but no man elfe, ever was, or can be fo; and that for these reafons. First, because all power belongs only to God, who is the fource and fountain of it, as kings are of all honours in their dominions. Princes are but his viceroys in the little provinces of this world; and to fome he gives their places for a few years, to fome for their lives, and to others (upon ends or deferts best known to himself, or merely for his undisputable good pleafure) he bestows, as it were, leafes upon them, and their pofterity, for fuch a date of time as is prefixed in that patent of their destiny, which is not legible to you men below. Neither is it more unlawful for Oliver Oliver to fucceed Charles in the kingdom of England, when God fo disposes of it, than it had been for him to have fucceeded the Lord Strafford in the lieutenancy of Ireland, if he had been appointed to it by the king then reigning. Men are in both the cafes obliged to obey him whom they fee actually invefted with the authority, by that fovereign from whom he ought to derive it, without difputing or examining the causes, either of the removal of the one, or the preferment of the other. Secondly, becaufe all power is attained, either by the election and confent of the people (and that takes away your objection of forcible intrusion); or else by a conqueft of them (and that gives fuch a legal authority as you mention to be wanting in the ufurpation of a tyrant); fo that either this title is right, and then there are no ufurpers, or else it is a wrong one, and then there are none elfe but ufurpers, if you examine the original pretences of the princes of the world. Thirdly (which, quitting the difpute in general, is a particular juftification of his highness) the government of England was totally broken and dissolved, and extinguished by the confufions of a civil war; fo that his highnefs could not be accused to have poffeffed himself violently of the ancient building of the commonwealth, but to have prudently and peaceably built up a new one out of the ruins and afhes of the former; and he, who after a deplorable fhipwreck, can with extraordinary industry gather together the difperfed and broken planks and pieces of it, and with no lefs wonderful art and felicity fo rejoin them, as to make a new veffel more tight and beautiful than the old one, deferves, no doubt, to have the command of her (even as his highness had) by the defire of the feamen and paffengers themselves. And do but confider, laftly (for I omit a multitude of weighty things, that might be spoken upon this noble argument) do but confider feriously and impartially with yourself, what admirable parts of wit and prudence, what indefatigable diligence and invincible courage, must of neceffity have concurred in the person of that man, who, from fo contemptible beginnings (as I obferved before), and through fo many thousand difficulties, was able not only to make himself the greatest and most abfolute monarch of this nation, but to add to it the entire conqueft of Ireland and Scotland (which the whole force of the world, joined with the Roman virtue, could never attain to); and to crown all this with illustrious and heroical undertakings and fucceffes upon all our foreign enemies: do but (I fay again) confider this, and you will confefs, that his prodigious merits were a better title to imperial dignity, than the blood of an hundred royal progenitors; and will rather lament that he lived not to overcome more nations, than envy him the conquest and dominion of these." "Whoever you are, faid I (my indignation making me fomewhat bolder) your discourse, methinks, becomes as little the perfon of a tutelar angel, as Cromwell's actions did that of a protector. It is upon thefe principles, that all the great crimes of the world world have been committed, and moft particularly thofe which I have had the misfortune to fee in my own time, and in my own country. If these be to be allowed, we must break up human fociety, retire into woods, and equally there ftand upon our guards against our brethren mankind, and our rebels the wild beafts. For, if there can be no ufurpation upon the rights of a whole nation, there can be none most certainly upon those of a private perfon; and, if the robbers of countries be God's vicegerents, there is no doubt but the thieves and banditos, and murderers, are his under-officers. It is true which you say, that God is the fource and fountain of all power; and it is no lefs true, that he is the creator of ferpents, as well as angels; nor does his goodness fail of its ends, even in the malice of his own creatures. What power he fuffers the devil to exercise in this world, is too apparent by our daily experience; and by nothing more than the late monftrous iniquities which you difpute for, and patronize in England: but would you infer from thence, that the power of the devil is a just and lawful one; and that all men ought, as well as most men do, obey him? God is the fountain of all powers; but fome flow from the rich hand (as it were) of his goodness, and others from the left hand of his justice; and the world, like an island between these two rivers, is fometimes refreshed and nourished by the one, and fometimes over-run and ruined by the other; and (to continue a little farther the allegory) we are never overwhelmed with the latter, till, either by |