in dim conflict, suffering manifold distress. And from his Majesty’s head-quarters ever and anon there darts out, now hither now thither, across the dim smoke-element, a swift fierce Prince Rupert, plundering and blazing; and then suddenly darts in again;—too like a streak of sudden fire, for he plunders, and even burns, a good deal! Which state of things Colonel Hampden and others witness with much impatience; but cannot get the Lord General to undertake anything, till he see.
An obscure entangled scene of things; all manner of War-movements and swift-shooting electric influences crossing one another, with complex action and reaction;—as happens in a scene of War; much more of Civil War, where a whole People and its affairs have become electric.—Here are Three poor Letters, reunited at last from their long exile, resuscitated after long interment: not in a very luminous condition! Vestiges of Oliver in the Eastern Association; which, however faint, are welcome to us.
The Essex people, at least the Town of Colchester and Langley their Captain have, in some measure, sent their contingent to Cambridge; but money is short. Cromwell, home rapidly again from Norfolk, must take charge of it; has an order from the Lord General;—nay it seems a Great Design is in view; and Cromwell too, like Richard Baxter and the rest of us, imagines one grand effort might perhaps end these bleeding miseries.
“To the Mayor etc. of Colchester; by Captain Dodsworth: these”
Gentlemen,—Upon the coming down of your Townsmen to Cambridge, Captain Langley not knowing how to dispose of them, desired me to nominate a fit Captain: which I did,—an
