i. 1575. Philips, 597.
Price, 759. The Lord-general Monk, his Speech. Printed by J. Macock, 1660.]

[Footnote 2: Gumble, 228. Price, 759, 760. Philips, 595. About this time,
a parcel of letters to the king, written by different persons in different
ciphers, and intrusted to the care of a Mr. Leonard, was intercepted by
Lockhart at Dunkirk, and sent by him to the council. When the writers
were first told that the letters had been deciphered, they laughed at the
information as of a thing impracticable; but were soon undeceived by the
decipherer, who sent to them by the son of the bishop of Ely copies of
their letters in cipher, with a correct interlineary explanation of
each. They were astonished and alarmed; and, to save themselves from the
consequences of the discovery, purchased of him two of the original letters
at the price of three hundred pounds.--Compare Barwick's Life, 171, and
App. 402, 412, 415, 422, with the correspondence on the subject in the
Clarendon Papers, iii. 668, 681, 696, 700, 715. After this, all letters of
importance were conveyed through the hands of Mrs. Mary Knatchbull, the
abbess of the English convent in Gand.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 6.]

The sincerity of this declaration was soon put to the test. The loyal party
in the city, especially among the moderate Presbyterians, had long been on
the increase. At the last elections the common council had been filled with
members of a new character; and the declaration which they issued demanded
"a full and free parliament, according to the ancient and fundamental laws
of the land." Of the assembly sitting in Westminster, as it contained no
representative from the city, no notice was taken; the taxes which it
had imposed were not paid; and the common council, as if it had been
an independent authority, received and answered addresses from the
neighbouring counties. This contumacy, in the opinion of the parliamentary
leaders, called for prompt and exemplary punishment; and it was artfully
suggested that, by making Monk the minister of their vengeance, they
would open a wide breach between him and their opponents. Two hours after
midnight he received[a] an order to march into the city, to arrest eleven
of the principal citizens, to remove the posts and chains which had lately
been fixed in the streets, and to destroy the portcullises and the gates.
After a moment's hesitation, he resolved to obey, rather than hazard the
loss of his commission. Th