XIV. 1655. with the natural advantages of the island, and CHAP. could never be reduced. At the same time Cuba, and even the Spanish main, would be ever at hand, to assist their efforts, and restore them to the ascendancy they might temporarily have lost. While Jamaica, being only one fourth of the dimensions of Hispaniola, might be securely occupied. The English there would feel themselves in safety, and would have every advantage for assailing the enemy, and annoying their trade. The subject of regret was, that the army and fleet had not immediately proceeded for Jamaica, instead of encountering the loss and disgrace they had sustained at Hispaniola'.-Be this however as it will, certain it is, that the principle of the expedition in the mind of Cromwel was very different from that which is here expressed. He had anticipated vast conquests, and the dividing with Spain the whole empire of South America; and to him the disappointment was therefore Thurloe, p. 507. The later accounts of this expedition have been for the most part drawn from Burchet's Naval History of England, whose narrative on this head is founded upon the examinations of Penn and Venables after their return, thus treating the statements of the delinquents themselves as the sources of ge nuine history. Venables aimed to retort on Desborough, the kinsman of Cromwel, to whom the care of the ammunition and provisions for the army was committed, as if that officer, out of a spirit of peculation, had diverted the stores, and defrauded the adventurers of their subsistence, and the aids necessary to their suc cess. IV. BOOK intolerable. Whether the projects he had conceived were capable or incapable of being carried in execution, is a point of no small importance in estimating his true character. 1655. The com manders return are impri soned. The commanders, as soon as they had escaped the disasters and ignominy of their enterprise on home, and St Domingo, broke out into new misunderstandings. Penn, that he might have the advantage of being the first to tell his tale in England, delivered over part of his fleet to his second in command, and took his departure on the twenty-fifth of June. He arrived at Spithead on the last day of August. Venables, stimulated by similar motives, and whose constitution was much shattered by the hardships of the expedition, was only nine days after him. Cromwel ordered them both immediately to the Tower, assigning as his reason their having quitted their conquest without leave, and when their presence there was most urgently necessary". Censure to which The history of this enterprise by no means afCromwel is fords a favourable specimen of the government of Cromwel. He exerted a wonderful activity sion. in fitting out this expedition and the adventure liable on this occa of Blake. He took care that every thing should be in readiness for them on their arrival at Barbadoes, so that with the smallest practicable delay XIV. 1655. they were enabled to double the numbers intended CHAP. to complete their conquest. Nevertheless the failure of the expedition is in the first place to be imputed to Cromwel. The force employed by him was probably sufficiently numerous to effect all that he purposed. But the materials of which that force was composed were in a great degree of the worst sort. And it is beyond measure surprising, that he committed the charge of this great enterprise to such men as Penn and Venables proved themselves to be. It is a poor excuse for the first magistrate to say that they deceived his expectation. This is the distinction between a great statesman and an inefficient one. The great statesman is not deceived. He sees events in their causes. He looks into "the seeds of time, and knows which grain will grow, and which will not." He discerns the character of the man in the school-boy, and foresees, if such an individual is put into such a situation, how he will conduct himself. In almost all other cases Cromwel shewed that he possessed this kind of sagacity in a superlative degree. But in this instance he paid the debt which the best of us owe to human frailty. 204 CHAPTER XV. PERSECUTION OF THE PROTESTANTS IN PIEDMONT. COMMENCED. CRUELTIES PERPE TRATED ON THE REFORMED.-SENTIMENTS OF SIX FRENCH REGI IV. 1655. Persecu FRANCE AND ENGLAND. AGAINST SPAIN. BOOK A CIRCUMSTANCE early in the present year, which, by calling forth the sympathies of Cromwel, led to a display of his ascendancy in Europe, was the tion of the intolerant proceeding of the duke of Savoy against Protestants his Protestant subjects. His mother, the daughter of Henry the Fourth of France, and sister of Louis the Thirteenth, is represented as the author of the measure. The victims of the proceeding were the Waldenses, or people of the vallies of Piedmont, who were on all occasions regarded with partiality of Piedmont. XV. by the Protestants of Europe, as having enter- CHAP. tained the principles of the Reformed Religion before Luther, and being asserted by some never at any time to have bowed the neck to the Roman Catholic superstition. 1655. 1654. Com of the dis 1655. Edict of Savoy They are represented by the Catholic writers as having been the aggressors. The priest of mencement Fenile was found murdered in his house; and turbances. they are said, on Christmas-day 1654, to have made a procession with an ass, accompanied with drums, trumpets and fifes, in ridicule of the procession of the host". In retaliation for these offences the duke of Savoy published an edict the duke of on the twenty-fifth of January, requiring a part against the of this people, regardless of the inclemency of Reformed. the season, to quit their places of residence within three days, unless they would instantly profess their adherence to the Roman Catholic faith. The Protestants of Piedmont were the natives of three vallies, Lucerna, Perosa and St Martin; and the southernmost of these was Lucerna. Through the middle of this valley runs the river Pelice; and it was the inhabitants to the south of this river that were ordered into exile, together with the population of St John and la Torre on the northern bank ". The Catholic Vallies in habited by them. Proscrippart of tion of a these inha bitants. a Moreri; art. Charles Emanuel II. ger, Morland, History of Evangelical Churches in Piedmont. Le- |