The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 17
Listing still; and with more trouble than ever. Matters go not well: ‘Nobody to put-on,’ nobody to push; cash too is and remains defective:—here, however, is another glimpse of the Ironsides, first specific glimpse, which is something.
TO MY HONOURED FRIEND OLIVER ST. JOHN, ESQUIRE, AT LINCOLN’S INN: THESE PRESENT
Sir,—Of all men I should not trouble you with money matters,—did not the heavy necessities my Troops are in, press me beyond measure. I am neglected exceedingly!
I am now ready for[1] my march towards the Enemy; who hath entrenched himself over against Hull, my Lord Newcastle having besieged the Town. Many of my Lord of Manchester’s Troops are come to me: very bad and mutinous, not to be confided in;—they paid to a week almost; mine noways provided-for to support them, except by the poor Sequestrations of the County of Huntingdon!—My Troops increase. I have a lovely company; you would respect them, did you know them. They are no ‘Anabaptists’ ; they are honest sober Christians .—they expect to be used as men!
If I took pleasure to write to the House in bitterness, I have occasion. “Of” the 3,0001. allotted me, I cannot get the Norfolk part nor the Hertfordshire: it was gone before I had it.—I have minded your service to forgetfulness of my own and Soldiers’ necessities. I desire not to seek myself:—“but” I have little money of my own to help my Soldiers. My estate is little. I tell you, the business of Ireland and England hath had of me, in money, between Eleven and Twelve Hundred pounds;—therefore my Private can do little to help the Public. You have had my money: I hope in God I desire to venture my skin. So do mine. Lay wait upon their patience; but break it not! Think of that which may be a real help. I believe 5,0001.[2] is due.
If you lay aside the thought of me and my Letter, I expect no help. Pray for your true friend and servant, OLIVER CROMWELL.
“P.S.” There is no care taken how to maintain that Force of Horse and Foot raised and a-raising for my Lord of Manchester. He hath not one able to put-on “that business.” The Force will fall if some help not. Weak counsels and weak actings undo all!—[two words crossed out]:—all will be lost, if God help not! Remember who tells you.[3]In Lynn Regis there arose ‘distractions,’ last Spring; distractions ripening into open treason, and the seizure of Lynn by Malignant forces,—Roger L’Estrange, known afterwards as Sir Roger the busy Pamphleteer, being very active in it. Lynn lies strong amid its marshes; a gangrene in the heart of the Association itself. My Lord of Manchester is now, with all the regular Foot, and what utmost effort of volunteers the Country can make, besieging Lynn, does get it, at last, in a week hence. Ten days hence the Battle of Newbury is got; and much joy for Gloucester and it. But here in the Association, with such a weight of enemies upon us, and such a stagnancy and staggering want of pith within us, things still look extremely questionable!—
Monday, 25th September. The House of Commons and the Assembly of Divines take the Covenant, the old Scotch Covenant, slightly modified now into a ‘Solemn League and Covenant’; in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster.[4] They lifted up their hands seriatim, and then ‘stept into the chancel to sign.’ The List yet remains in Rushworth,—incorrect in some places. There sign in all about 220 Honourable Members that day. The whole Parliamentary Party, down to the lowest constable or drummer in their pay, gradually signed. It was the condition of assistance from the Scotch; who are now calling out ‘all fencible men from sixteen to sixty,’ for a third expedition into England. A very solemn Covenant, and Vow of all the People; of the awfulness of which, we, in these days of Custom-house oaths and loose regardless talk, cannot form the smallest notion.—Duke Hamilton, seeing his painful Scotch diplomacy end all in this way, flies to the King at Oxford,—is there ‘put under arrest,’ sent to Pendennis Castle near the Land’s End.[5]
- ↑ ‘upon’ crossed out as ambiguous; ‘ready for’ written over it.
- ↑ Erased, as not the correct sum.
- ↑ Additional Ayscough MSS. 5015, art. 25: printed, with some errors, in Annual Register, xxxv. 358.
- ↑ Commons Journals, iii, 252-4; Rushworth (incorrect in various particulars, —unusual with Rushworth), v. 475, 480; the Covenant itself, ib. 478.
- ↑ Burnet, Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton.