ed that if the greatest of your military officers
should demean himself ill towards you, he would take a course with
him."

A mealy-mouthed Lord-General drawing near his end.[140:1]

Wise was removed from the Hull garrison. The affronted corporation was
not satisfied, and Marvell had to argue the point.

"And I hope, Sir, you will incline the Bench to consider whether I am
able or whether it be fit for me to urge it beyond that point. Yet it
is not all his (Wise's) Parliament men and relations that have
wrought me in the least, but what I simply conceive as the state of
things now to be possible and satisfactory. What would you have more
of a soldier than to run away and have him cashiered as to any
command in your garrison? The first he hath done and the second he
must submit to. And I assure you whatsoever he was among you, he is
here a kind of decrepit young gentleman and terribly crest-fallen."

The letter concludes thus:--

"For I assure you they use all the civility imaginable to you, and as
we sat there drinking a cup of sack with the General, Colonel
Legge[141:1] chancing to be present, there were twenty good things
said on all hands tending to the good fame, reputation, and advantage
of the Town, an occasion that I was heartily glad of."

Corporations may not have souls to save and bodies to kill, but
evidently they have vanities to tickle.

In November 1669 the House is still busy over the accounts. Sir George
Carteret was Treasurer of the Navy. Marvell refers to him in _The Last
Instructions to a Painter_ as:--

"Carteret the rich did the accountants guide
And in ill English all the world defied."

The following letter of Marvell's gives an excellent account of House of
Commons business, both how it is conducted, and how often it gets
accidentally interrupted by other business unexpectedly cropping up:--

"_November 20, 1669._

"GENTLEMEN, MY VERY WORTHY FRIENDS,--Returning after our adjournment
to sit upon Wednesday, the House having heard what Sir G. Cartaret
could say for himselfe, and he then commended to withdraw, after a
considerable debate, put it to the question, whether he were guilty
of misdemeanour upon the Commissioners first observation, the words
of which were, That all monyes received by him out of His Majesty's
Exchequer are by the privy seales assigned for