cklofts
and cellars. The statesmen who had formerly been the ornaments of the
Country Party, the statesmen who afterwards guided the councils of the
Convention, would have given advice very different from that which was
given by such men as John Wildman and Henry Danvers.

Wildman had served forty years before in the parliamentary army, but had
been more distinguished there as an agitator than as a soldier, and had
early quitted the profession of arms for pursuits better suited to
his temper. His hatred of monarchy had induced him to engage in a long
series of conspiracies, first against the Protector, and then against
the Stuarts. But with Wildman's fanaticism was joined a tender care for
his own safety. He had a wonderful skill in grazing the edge of
treason. No man understood better how to instigate others to desperate
enterprises by words which, when repeated to a jury, might seem
innocent, or, at worst, ambiguous. Such was his cunning that, though
always plotting, though always known to be plotting, and though long
malignantly watched by a vindictive government, he eluded every
danger, and died in his bed, after having seen two generations of his
accomplices die on the gallows. [319] Danvers was a man of the same
class, hotheaded, but fainthearted, constantly urged to the brink of
danger by enthusiasm, and constantly stopped on that brink by cowardice.
He had considerable influence among a portion of the Baptists, had
written largely in defence of their peculiar opinions, and had drawn
down on himself the severe censure of the most respectable Puritans by
attempting to palliate the crimes of Matthias and John of Leyden. It is
probable that, had he possessed a little courage, he would have trodden
in the footsteps of the wretches whom he defended. He was, at this time,
concealing himself from the officers of justice; for warrants were
out against him on account of a grossly calumnious paper of which the
government had discovered him to be the author. [320]

It is easy to imagine what kind of intelligence and counsel men, such
as have been described, were likely to send to the outlaws in the
Netherlands. Of the general character of those outlaws an estimate may
be formed from a few samples.

One of the most conspicuous among them was John Ayloffe, a lawyer
connected by affinity with the Hydes, and through the Hydes, with James.
Ayloffe had early made himself remarkable by offering a whimsical
insult to the governm