to be gleaned from other sources concerning this correspondence with de Retz. A passage in the Cardinal's memoirs states that 'Vainc, grand parlementaire et tres confident de Cromwell,' came to see him with a letter of credence from Cromwell, and told him that his defence of liberty and his reputation had inspired Cromwell with the desire to form a close friendship with him. This emissary has generally been identified rightly or wrongly with Sir Henry Vane, but the identification is at least doubtful. Nor is it easy to fix the date at which this interview took place. It is placed in the narrative of the events of 1650, but is said to have occurred soon after the return of Charles II to Paris, that is about the end of October, 1651. Of Sexby's mission more is known. For a delicate diplomatic mission he was a very singular agent. A Suffolk man by birth, he had served four years as a private in Cromwell's own troop of Ironsides and in Fairfax's regiment of horse. He became notorious in 1647 as one of the leaders of the Agitators and as the spokesman of the extreme democratic party amongst the soldiers. He left the army for a time, but seems to have entered it again in 1649 and obtained commissions as captain and governor of Portland. Then he raised a regiment of foot and served for a short time under Cromwell in Scotland with the rank of Colonel, but in June, 1651, he was cashiered by a court-martial. The charge which lost him his commission was that he had detained the pay of seven or eight of the soldiers of his old company who refused to enter his new regiment; and though it was urged that 'as to his own intentions he did it for the public service,' it seemed a sufficient breach of the articles of war to secure his condemnation. His offence could scarcely have been considered as a mere act of embezzlement or he would not have been employed again. In a petition which Sexby presented to the Council of State in 1654, he gives a brief account of his mission. A secret committee of the Council of State, consisting of Cromwell, Scot, and Whitelocke, sent him to France in 1651. He was instructed 'to give an account of the state of that country, and the affections of the people, in order to prevent danger and to create an interest.' He took with him four gentlemen, was to have a salary of £1000 a year for himself and them, and stayed in France twenty-three months[8].

Of his doings in France the petition says nothing, but a curious illustration of his zeal for democracy has survived amongst the papers of Mazarin and Condé—a draft of a republican constitution drawn up in the name of the Princes of Condé and Conti and the City of Bordeaux[9]. On examination it proves to be a French translation of the Agreement of the People which Lilburne and the leaders of the English Levellers had published in May, 1649. It bears the title of L'Accord du Peuple, and the difference between it and its English original consists in the introductory engagement of the subscribers not to lay down their arms till they have obtained the liberties it defines and in the list of grievances to be redressed. It was intended to serve as a manifesto for the republicans of Bordeaux and Guienne, but a constitution too advanced for England had no prospect of acceptance in France. Lenet, Condé's confidential agent, endorsed it 'Memoires données a son Altesse de Conti par les sieurs Saxebri et Arrondel que je n'approuve pas.' 'Saxebri,' or 'Saxebery,' evidently denotes Sexby, and 'Arrondel' is one of his companions.

The two were back in England, as Barrière's letters prove, in the autumn of 1653. Arrondel's return is mentioned in a letter of October 24, and Saxebri's in one dated December 12. Both had doubtless returned before Hane set out.

It was now Cromwell's turn to send confidential agents to inquire into the state of France. Unlike Scot and the republican fanatics, it is evident that he cared little for the propagation of republican principles. What he cared about was the condition of the French Protestants and the propagation of the Protestant religion.

To Cromwell, as to most of his party, one of the worst sins of Charles I was that he had induced the Huguenots to revolt against Louis XIII, and then left them to be crushed by his forces. Englishmen abroad were accustomed to be taunted with their desertion of their co-religionists. 'I have heard,' wrote John Cook, 'fearful exclamations from the French Protestants against the King and the late Duke of Buckingham for the betraying of Rochelle; and some of the ministers told me ten years ago that God would be revenged of the wicked King of England for betraying Rochelle[10].' One of the arguments which agents of the Huguenots of Guienne used when they appealed to Cromwell was 'that the churches of these parts have endured a very great brunt by the deceitful promises which have been made to them by the former supreme powers of Great Britain[11].' To this argument Cromwell was particularly accessible. He said that England had ruined the Protestant party in France and that England must restore it again[12]. In the twenty-second article of the draft-treaty which he proposed to Mazarin in July, 1654, he demanded the right of superintending the execution of the edicts in favour of the French Protestants and seeing that they were scrupulously observed—a demand which naturally met with a refusal from Mazarin[13]. To obtain information of the condition of the French Protestants and of their political attitude Cromwell despatched to France about the close of 1653, or early in 1654, a Swiss who is often mentioned by Burnet, namely, Jean Baptiste Stouppe. Burnet describes him as 'a Grison by birth, then minister of the French church in the Savoy, and afterwards a brigadier-general in the French armies: a man of intrigue but of no virtue.' Condé, continues Burnet, had sent over 'to offer Cromwell to turn Protestant: and if he would give him a fleet with good troops he would make a descent on Guienne, where he did not doubt he should be assisted by the Protestants; and that he should so distress France, as to obtain such conditions for them and for England as Cromwell himself should dictate. Upon this offer Cromwell sent Stouppe round all France, to talk with their most eminent men, to see into their strength, into their present disposition, the oppressions they lay under, and their inclinations to trust the Prince of Condé. He went from Paris down the Loire, then to Bordeaux, from thence to Montauban, and cross the south of France to Lyons: he was instructed to talk to them only as a traveller, and to assure them of Cromwell's zeal and care for them, which he magnified everywhere. The Protestants were then very much at their ease: for Mazarin, who thought of nothing but to enrich his family, took care to maintain the edicts better than they had been in any time formerly. So Stouppe returned and gave Cromwell an account of the ease they were in, and of their resolution to be