made fast to England; the seas had been swept of Barbary pirates from
Gibraltar to Crete; maritime domination had been founded under two
forms, Victory and Commerce. On the 10th of August, 1653, the man of
thirty-three victories, the old admiral who called himself the sailors'
grandfather, Martin Happertz van Tromp, who had beaten the Spanish, had
been destroyed by the English fleet. The Atlantic had been cleared of
the Spanish navy, the Pacific of the Dutch, the Mediterranean of the
Venetian, and by the patent of navigation, England had taken possession
of the sea-coast of the world. By the ocean she commanded the world; at
sea the Dutch flag humbly saluted the British flag. France, in the
person of the Ambassador Mancini, bent the knee to Oliver Cromwell; and
Cromwell played with Calais and Dunkirk as with two shuttlecocks on a
battledore. The Continent had been taught to tremble, peace had been
dictated, war declared, the British Ensign raised on every pinnacle. By
itself the Protector's regiment of Ironsides weighed in the fears of
Europe against an army. Cromwell used to say, "_I wish the Republic of
England to be respected, as was respected the Republic of Rome_." No
longer were delusions held sacred; speech was free, the press was free.
In the public street men said what they listed; they printed what they
pleased without control or censorship. The equilibrium of thrones had
been destroyed. The whole order of European monarchy, in which the
Stuarts formed a link, had been overturned. But at last England had
emerged from this odious order of things, and had won its pardon.

The indulgent Charles II. had granted the declaration of Breda. He had
conceded to England oblivion of the period in which the son of the
Huntingdon brewer placed his foot on the neck of Louis XIV. England said
its mea culpa, and breathed again. The cup of joy was, as we have just
said, full; gibbets for the regicides adding to the universal delight. A
restoration is a smile; but a few gibbets are not out of place, and