The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 22

by Thomas Carlyle

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LETTERS XXII, XXIII

The next Two Letters represent the Army and Lieutenant-General got home to the Association again; and can be read with little commentary. ‘The Committee for the Isle of Ely,” we are to remark, consists of Honourable Members connected with that region, and has its sittings in London. Of ‘Major Ireton’ we shall hear farther; ‘Husband’ also is slightly met with elsewhere; and ‘Captain Castle’ grew, I think, to be Colonel Castle, and perished at the Storm of Tredah, some years afterwards.

LETTER XXII

FOR MY NOBLE FRIENDS THE COMMITTEE FOR THE ISLE OF ELY: PRESENT THESE

Lincoln, 1st September 1644.

Gentlemen, —I understand that you have lately released some persons committed by Major Ireton and Captain Husband, and one committed by Captain Castle,—all “committed,” upon clear and necessary grounds as they are represented unto me; “grounds” rendering them as very enemies as any we have, and as much requiring to have them continued secured.

I have given order to Captain Husband to see them recommitted to the hands of my Marshal, Richard White. And I much desire you, for the future, Not to entrench upon me so much as to release them,—or any committed in the like case by myself, or my Deputy and Commanders in the Garrison,—until myself or some Superior Authority^[1] be satisfied in the cause, and do give order in allowance of their enlargement. For | profess I will be no Governor, nor engage any other under me to undertake such a charge, upon such weak terms!—

 

I am so sensible of the need we have to improve the present opportunity of our being masters in the field and having no Enemy near the Isle, and to spare whatever charge we can towards the making of those Fortifications, which may render it more defensible hereafter if we shall have more need,—I shall desire you, for that end, to ease the Isle and Treasury from the superfluous charge of “having” Two several Committees, for the several parts of the Isle; and that one Committee, settled at March, may serve for the whole Isle.

Wherefore I wish that one of your number may, in your courses, intend^[2] and appear at that Committee, to manage and uphold it the better for all parts of the Isle.

Resting upon your care herein, I remain, your friend to serve you, OLIVER CROMWELL.^[3]

1. Not inferior!
2. ‘intend’ means ‘take pains’; March is a Town in the Ely region.
3. Old Copy, now (January 1846), on sale at Mr. Graves’s, Pall-Mall: printed in the Athenæum of 13th December 1845. Old Copy, such as the Clerks of Honourable Members were wont to take of Letters read in the House, or officially elsewhere;—worth copying for certain parties, in a time without Newspapers like ours.