Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/300

266 Englishmen and Frenchmen, which is always considerable; and then with the difference between believers in Jesus Christ and believers in Jean Jacques, which is still more considerable!

A few dates, and chief summits of events, are all that can be indicated here, to make our ‘Manifesto’ legible.

From the beginnings of this year 1647 and earlier, there had often been question as to what should be done with the Army. The expense of such an Army, between twenty and thirty thousand men, was great; the need of it, Royalism being now subdued, seemed small; besides, it was known that there were many in it who ‘had never taken the Covenant,’ and were never likely to take it. This latter point, at a time when Heresy seemed rising like a hydra, and the Spiritualism of England was developing itself in really strange ways, became very important too,—became gradually most of all important, and the soul of the whole Controversy.

Early in March, after much debating, it had been got settled that there should be Twelve-thousand men employed in Ireland, which was now in sad need of soldiers. ‘The rest were, in some good way, to be disbanded. The ‘way,’ however, and whether it might really be a good way, gave rise to considerations.—Without entering into a sea of troubles, we may state here in general that the things this Army demanded were strictly their just right: Arrears of pay, ‘three-and-forty weeks’ of hard-earned pay; indemnity for acts done in War; and clear discharge according to contract, not service in Ireland except under known Commanders and conditions,—‘our old Commanders,’ for example. It is also apparent that the Presbyterian party in Parliament, the leaders of whom were, several of them, Colonels of the Old Model, did not love this victorious Army; that indeed they disliked and grew to hate it, useful as it had been to them. Denzil Holles, Sir William Waller, Harley, Stapleton, these men, all strong for