Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/351

A.D. 1654.] murder. He pleaded that he belonged to the embassy, and was therefore exempt from the tribunals of this country; but neither this, nor the zealous exertions of his brother, the ambassador, could save him; he was condemned to die.

Richard Baxter. From an authentic Portrait

Cromwell, though on the verge of concluding a treaty with Portugal, would not concede a pardon to the blood-thirsty Portuguese, who had been found guilty by a jury of half Englishmen and half foreigners. He went to Tower Hill to a coach and six, attended by numbers of the attaches of the embassy in morning, and his brother signed the treaty and left the country. Such an exhibition of firmness and impartiality, refusing to make any distinction in a murderer, whether noble or a commoner, evinced great moral courage in Cromwell; but another execution, which took place a short time before, namely, on the 23rd of June, was not so creditable to him. This was hanging an old catholic priest, of the name of Southworth, who had been convicted thirty-seven years before, under the bloody laws of James against popish priests, and had been banished. Being now discovered in the country, he was tried for that offence and put to death. On the scaffold he very justly upbraided the government with having taken arms for liberty, yet shed the blood of those who differed from them on religious grounds. The stern persecution of popery was, in fact, a blot on Cromwell's character; he had not in that respect at all outgrown his age.

Whilst these and other plots were exacting from the protector a severe compensation for the eminence of his position, he was yet steadily prosecuting measures for the better administration of the national government. Being empowered by the instrument of government, with his council, not only to raise sufficient money for the necessary demands of government, but also "to make laws and ordinances for the peace and welfare of these nations," he actually made no less than sixty ordinances, many of them of singular wisdom and excellence. He and his council, in fact, showed that they