Note 193 — MAY.

[No sooner had Cromwell assumed the Protectorate than his foreign policy took a more definite shape, and was steadily directed to two great objects—peace with Holland, and the union of the Protestant States. The conclusion of the Dutch peace was however not an easy matter. Cromwell himself had declared in favour of the daring project of a union of the two Republics, and the Dutch alliance was hated by many of his stoutest military supporters. Moreover he required of the Dutch, as a condition sine quâ non, that they should engage never to make the young Prince of Orange or his descendants their Stadtholder, or to give him the command of their forces. This was the secret article against which the States General most vehemently protested, and Cromwell was at length obliged to content himself with an engagement of the province of Holland to exclude the House of Orange. Even this pretension was strongly opposed by De Witt, but Cromwell insisted. The public treaty of peace was signed on the 5th of April, 1654; but it was not until the 5th of June following that the secret article was ratified. The King of Denmark, the Swiss Protestant cantons, the Hanseatic towns, and some of the Protestant Princes of North Germany were included in the treaty, which formed the complement of the negotiation on which Whitelocke was engaged in Sweden.—M. Guizot, Histoire de la République d’Angleterre, vol. ii. p. 67.]