Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/407

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1648]
LETTER LXXIII. CHESWICK
373

Governor of Berwick also daily victualling his Garrison from Scotland side; and the Enemy yet in so considerable a posture as by these Gentlemen and your Papers we understand,—still prosecuting their former design, having gotten the advantage of Stirling Bridge, and so much of Scotland at their backs to enable them thereunto; and your Lordships’ condition not being such, at present, as may compel them to submit to the honest and necessary things you have proposed to them for the good of both the Kingdoms: we have thought fit, out of the sense of duty to the commands laid upon us by those who have sent us, and to the end we might be in a posture more ready to give you assistance, and not be wanting to what we have made so large professions of—to advance into Scotland with the Army.[1] And we trust, by the blessing of God, the common Enemy will thereby the sooner be brought to a submission to you: and we thereby shall do what becomes us in order to the obtaining of our Garrisons; engaging ourselves that, so soon as we shall know from you that the Enemy will yield to the things you have proposed to them, and we have our Garrisons delivered to us, we shall forthwith depart out of your Kingdom; and in the meantime be “even” more tender towards the Kingdom of Scotland, in the point of charge, than if we were in our own Kingdom.

If we shall receive from you any desire of a more speedy advance, we shall readily yield compliance therewith;—desiring also to hear from you how affairs stand. This being the result of a Council of War, I present it to you as the expression of their affections and of my own; who am, my Lords, your most humble servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.[2]

Cheswick, where Oliver now has his head-quarter, lies, as we said, some three or four miles south of Berwick, on the

  1. Neither does the sentence end even here! It is dreadfully bad composition; yet contains a vigorous clear sense in it.
  2. Thurloe, i. 101.