Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/306

296 that he might obtain a reprieve, he wrote ſeveral letters to the earl of Northumberland, the earl of Stamford, and others of the nobility, from whom he received favours. In the Houſe of Commons he was particularly obliged to Sir John Corbet, and Sir Henry Cholmondley. He was reprieved in order to a further hearing; but after almoſt thirty months ſpent in vain endeavours, either to come to a hearing, or to put himſelf into an exchangeable condition, he printed a ſtate of his caſe, as an Appeal from the Court-martial to the Parliament, dated at Newgate in 1647.

After almoſt four years impriſonment, with his keeper’s privity, he ſlipt into Kent, and then with much difficuity got beyond ſea. About the latter end of Auguſt 1653, upon the diſſolution of the Long Parliament, by Cromwel, he returned into England, and preſently acquainted the council, then ſitting at Whitehall, that finding himſelf within the Act of Indemnity, he thought it his duty to give them notice of his return. Soon after this he was ſerved with the following order, Wedneſday September 7, 1655. Ordered,

That Roger L’Eſtrange be ſent unto, to attend the committee of this council for examination. , Secretary. This order laid him under a neceſſity of attending for his diſcharge, but perceiving his buſineſs to advance very ſlowly, and his father at that time lying upon his death-bed, he was ſollicitous to have his diſcharge as much haſtened as poſſible, that he might pay his duty to his father, whom he had not ſeen for many years before. Mr. Strickland was one of the commiſſioners appointed to examine