Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/130

 period, and his name is always high in the list of attendances. He was on every committee of importance. When Cromwell invaded Scotland, the business of supplying his army with money, provisions, and reinforcements was specially trusted to Vane's care, and Vane also kept him informed of home and foreign politics. ‘Let H. Vane know what I write,’ is Cromwell's message when he was in his greatest extremity just before the battle of Dunbar (, Letters, cxxxix.). Their friendship was so close that they invented familiar names for each other; Cromwell called Vane ‘brother Heron,’ and Vane addressed Cromwell as ‘brother Fountain.’ In one of his letters Vane, after saying that his health and his private affairs had suffered through his constant attendance to public matters, complained of the factious opposition of other members of the council. ‘Brother Fountain,’ he continued, ‘can guess at his brother's meaning … many other things are reserved for your knowledge, whenever it please God we meet, and till then let me desire you upon the score of ancient friendship that hath been between us not to give ear to the mistakes, surmises, or jealousies of others, from what hand soever, concerning your brother Heron, but to be assured he answers your heart's desire in all things, except he be esteemed by you in principles too high to fathom, which one day I am persuaded will not be so thought by you’ (, Letters and Papers addressed to Cromwell, p. 79, cf. pp. 19, 40, 84).

When the conquest of Scotland was completed, Vane was one of the eight commissioners sent thither (December 1651) to settle the civil government and negotiate for the union of Scotland and England. On 16 March 1652 Vane reported to the house the successful result of his mission, and received its thanks for his services (Commons' Journals, vii. 30, 105; Diary of John Nicoll, pp. 80–7; Scotland and the Commonwealth, p. xxiii;, i. 298). His narrative has not been preserved, but his views on the later history of the question of the union, and on the measures taken by Cromwell to complete it, are contained in a speech delivered in 1659 (, Diary, iv. 178).

In foreign and colonial affairs Vane also took a very active part (cf. Cal. State Papers, Colonial—America and West Indies—1574–1660, pp. 347, 372, 394). To him Roger Williams naturally applied in 1652 to secure Rhode Island against interference from the confederate colonies, and to reconcile its internal dissensions. ‘Under God,’ wrote Williams in April 1653, ‘the great anchor of our ship is Sir Henry,’ and when he returned home in 1654 he brought with him a letter from Vane, rebuking the Rhode islanders for their disorders and divisions (, History of New England, ii. 356–360;, Life of Milton, iv. 395, 532; , Life of Roger Williams, p. 126).

The council of state had appointed on 13 March 1649 a committee to consider alliances and relations with European powers in general. Vane was one of its leading members, and Milton, as its secretary, learnt there to admire the skill with which he explained ‘the drift of hollow states hard to be spelled.’ In all negotiations with foreign ministers he was from the first employed (cf. Commons' Journals, vi. 209, 315, 517, 522). About the autumn of 1651 he undertook a secret mission to France to negotiate with Cardinal de Retz, who describes him as an intimate confidant of Cromwell, adding that he appeared to be a man of surprising capacity. But the exact date and the details of this mission are doubtful (, Cromwell and the English Commonwealth, i. 261;, History of the Commonwealth, ii. 91). Vane is said to have opposed the war with Holland, and it is certain that he was one of those most eager to reopen negotiations after the war began (ib. ii. 128, 183;, John De Witt, i. 282). He was a strong believer in the feasibility of the proposed coalescence of the two states, and blamed Cromwell for abandoning that project when he made peace with the Dutch (, Diary, iii. 4 seq.).

In the management of the navy both before and during the war Vane took a principal part. Up to the end of 1650 he was treasurer of the navy. On 12 March 1649 he was appointed one of the admiralty committee in whom the powers lately exercised by the lord high admiral were vested. On 4 Dec. 1652 he was one of the extraordinary commissioners charged with the inspection, direction, and equipment of the fleet (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649–50, p. 34; Commons' Journals, vi. 440, vii. 225, 256). Contemporaries attributed the successful issue of the war largely to Vane's administrative skill, and Haslerig referred to him in the parliament of 1659 as ‘the gentleman by whose providence it was so excellently managed’ (, Diary, iii. 443;, i. 337, ii. 340). Vane was certainly an energetic administrator, but eulogistic biographers have attributed to him and to the admiralty committee much of the credit really due to their subordinates, the commissioners of the navy (English Historical Review, xi. 57, 62). Sikes, in his ‘Life of Vane,’ also exaggerates his pecuniary