quiet. They had a very bad opinion of the Prince of Condé, as a man who sought nothing but his own greatness, to which they believed he was ready to sacrifice all his friends and every cause that he espoused. This settled Cromwell in that particular. He also found that the Cardinal had such spies on that prince, that he knew every message that had passed between them: therefore he would have no further correspondence with him: he said upon that to Stouppe stultus est, et garrulus, et venditur a suis cardinali[14].'

Burnet's account of Stouppe's mission seems tolerably accurate[15]. The attitude of the French Protestants was such as he describes it to have been. The want of secrecy with which Condé's intrigues were conducted was a real obstacle to the negotiations. In his letters to Condé, Barrière himself says as much, and in one dated Aug. 14, 1654, he relates that Cromwell had complained to the Spanish Ambassador that Bordeaux was well acquainted with all his negotiations with Condé's agents.

But the story that Condé offered to become a Protestant can scarcely be true. It was rather Cromwell who suggested that he should convert himself to Protestantism as a step to the political headship of the Huguenots. In a conversation on the affairs of the Protestants in France the Protector, according to Barrière's report, had said: 'A! s'il y avoit moyen que M. le Prince se fist de nostre religion, ce seroit le plus grand bien qui peust jamais arriver a nos eglises, car pour moy je le tiens le plus grand homme et le plus grand capitaine non seulement de nostre siecle, mais qui aye esté depuis longtemps: et il est malheureux d'estre enguagé avecque des gens qui ont si peu de soin de luy tenir les choses qu'ils luy ont promis[16].' Some eighteen months earlier Condé was reported to have spoken in somewhat similar terms of Cromwell, drinking his health openly at Antwerp, 'as the wisest, ablest and greatest commander in Europe[17].' But it may well be that the reports of the views of the French Protestants which Stouppe brought back from France changed Cromwell's views, and that a more intimate knowledge of French politics altered his estimate of the prince's capacity.

The history of Joachim Hane's mission is still more obscure than that of Sexby or Stouppe. One of its objects probably was to communicate with the French Protestants. Slingsby Bethell, the only contemporary who mentions it, in a discussion on the policy of the Long Parliament towards foreign Protestants says that they treated with the deputies of Bordeaux on a plan for the ruin of popery and the advancement of the Protestant religion. But Cromwell, 'usurping the government did not only overthrow the design, but probably betrayed it to the French King with the lives of some engaged in the business; for Mr. Joachim Haines (by birth a German) general engineer to the army, and one of his own emissaries employed in that affair, who after Cromwell and Mazarin were agreed was pursued through France, and escaped miraculously, did believe he was discovered by Oliver, his errand being known only to himself and his confident[18].' Bethell's accusation against Cromwell deserves no credit. There is no trace of this belief in Hane's narrative, or in Hane's later conduct. Oliver and Mazarin did not agree till eighteen months after Hane's return from France. It is simply an example of the vague slanders which the extreme republicans circulated against the ruler they regarded as an apostate. Ludlow tells a similar story about Cromwell betraying Sexby to the French, probably confusing Hane and Sexby, and echoing Bethell's charge[19].

Hane himself says nothing of the nature of his mission in his narrative. When he was examined he stoutly denied that he was anything more than a gentleman travelling for his pleasure; but as he justly observes 'to speak the truth in all things did not consist with my safety at that time' (p. 9). Amongst Thurloe's correspondence there are two letters which may have been written by Hane[20]. Both are signed Israell Bernhard; one is dated Paris, October 25, 1653, the other Rochelle, November 15. Hane was at those places on the dates mentioned, and the second letter contains a still more remarkable parallel. The writer says, 'I intend to go two days hence to Bordeaux,' that is presumably on November 17. Now Hane's narrative states that he went from Rochelle to Bordeaux on November 18. It is very improbable that Thurloe had two correspondents in France whose movements tallied so exactly with those of Hane. In each letter the writer assumes the character of a merchant, and begins by giving various details about the state of trade. The first ends with a rather enigmatical reference to the proposed purchase of a house. 'I long to heare whether your neighbour Mr. Smith still hath a mind to buy Mr. Rob. tenement, that layeth towards you from his other house; if he intends to build such a house upon as he talketh, he had need of 6 or 7000 pound to begin withall, and then he may have a habitation to spend 2000 pound a yeare in it; but I am sure he will not perfect the building in so short a time as he was speaking to us, for he will have but a few materialls neere hand, and there is not so much as a hedge about the garden, but he will be forced to make new hedges round about. I would have him take good advise before he medle with the bargaine.' In the letter from Rochelle he says, 'All things hereabouts are pritty quiet; the prince's party being sufficiently silenced, so that we hope they will not rise in hast again. We are perswaded, that the government of our towne is in surer hands than it was three yeare ago, when we were betrayed with a corrupted governor, who kept the two towers next the haven for the prince de Condé, and did much annoyance to the towne from off them; the which after they were reduced, one of them was burned downe, and the other is now repairing againe, so that we hope we shall feare no more such bustling as formerly we have had[21].' The passage from the first letter probably refers to some French port, to the state of its fortifications, and to the cost of repairing them, while the second gives important facts as to the present state of the fortifications of Rochelle. At the moment information on that subject was of some importance to Cromwell. About October, 1651, there had arrived in England a person named Conan, whose object was to negotiate for a due pecuniary consideration to the persons concerned in the reception of an English governor into that town. He is frequently mentioned in Barrière's letters to Condé. In a letter