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Rh Cromwell, and sat still, about a quarter of an hour. When the question was going to be put, he said again to Harrison, 'This is the time I must put it.' And suddenly starting up, he loaded the Parliament with the vilest reproaches, for their tyranny, ambition, oppression, and robbery of the public. Then stamping with his foot, which was the signal for the soldiers to enter, 'for shame,' said he to the Parliament, 'get you gone; give place to honester men; to those who will more faithfully discharge their trust. You are no longer a Parliament; I tell you, you are no longer a Parliament. The Lord has done with you; he has chosen other instruments for carrying on his work.' After this fanatic speech he reviled several of the members by name, calling one a drunkard, another an adulterer, and a third a glutton. He next commanded a soldier to seize the mace, saying: 'What shall we do with this bauble? Here, take it away.' Then addressing himself to the house, he said, 'It is you who have forced me upon this.' Having commanded the soldiers to clear the hall, he himself went out the last, and ordering the doors to be locked put the keys in his pocket."

The dissolution of the Long Parliament, in this bold and extraordinary manner, prepared the way for a treaty with the Dutch, which brought great credit to Cromwell's administration. But like the wall which gave to Wall Street its name, peace was a monument of slow growth, and of uncertain character for a full twelve-month. The summer of that year (1654) was one of peculiar turmoil on both sides of the Atlantic. Cromwell was not invested with the supreme power to make war or peace until December. In the mean time a civil contest threatened the kingdom, and the people of New York knew no comfort or rest. When the first appropriation for the building of the wall was exhausted, the work necessarily ceased, although it was a conspicuously incomplete fortification. The hostile attitude of Connecticut continued, and volunteers there formed into companies to "instantly" subdue the Dutch were with difficulty restrained by the general government. The authorities of Massachusetts refused to bear part in an offensive war against New York, and their action Connecticut in wrath pronounced an "indelible stain upon their honor as men, and upon their morals as Christians," and wrote to Cromwell urging that the Dutch be removed from the coast of North America.

Stuyvesant tried in vain to induce the Burgomasters and Schepens to raise further funds for the defenses of the city. The fort, they said, was a proper charge upon the provincial revenue, and unless the excise on wines and beers was guaranteed to the city treasurer, they would contribute nothing to its repair. This demand for the excise was unfalteringly firm,