Page:Memories of Madras.djvu/32

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MEMORIES OF MADRAS

mand of the Earl of Norwich, and resolved to march upon London. Among them was Cogan, who had already spent much of his fortune in the service of the King, and who had still something to lose in the Royal cause. But the discipline of the force was in inverse proportion to the courage of its component parts, and the better discipline of the enemy under Fairfax proved irresistible. Some five hundred of the Kentish men, including Cogan, succeeded in crossing the Thames with Lord Norwich, and threatened the eastern end of the metropolis. The small force was easily scattered ; and while many of those associated with it made their way to Colchester, there to be beleaguered by the ruthless Fairfax, the remainder fled, some to the home counties, others to the Continent. Cogan was among the latter. Thus it was that, in June, 1650, he was impeached as being among " malignants," who were " beyond seas with the enemies of Parliament," and his estate at Greenwich was confiscated.

In the following month a seven years' lease of the estate was granted by Cromwell to a Member of Parliament, named Gregory Clement, a man remarkable for the posses- sion of a loud voice, who had sat in Westminster Hall as one of the Judges at the trial of the King. Mr. Foster concludes that this is the Gregory Clement who is known to have been in the Company's service from 1624 to 1631, and to have been employed chiefly at Surat, Ahmedabad, and Agra, though the Dictionary of National Biography says that nothing is known of him prior to 1642. If Mr. Foster's assumption is correct, then Clement may have known Cogan in India ; and he may, like Cogan, have laid the foundation of a large fortune in that country in the fashion that was so irritating to the susceptibilities of the magnates of Leadenhall Street. At any rate, ere Clement's lease of the estate at Greenwich had quite expired he bought the property outright from the " Treason Trustees," intending, doubtless, to live happily thereon ever after. But his Puritanism failed to keep his passions under proper control ; and, being found out in a disgraceful