his settlement." With so much great work before them, with
the three nations looking on in hope, with foreign nations looking on
with wonder or worse feelings, had they not a great
responsibility?[1]

[Footnote 1: Carlyle's Cromwell, III. 37-61.]

Bradshaw, Hasilrig, and others, would not sign the document offered
them, which was a brief engagement "to be true and faithful to the
Lord Protector and the Commonwealth," and not to propose alteration
of the Government as "settled in a single Person and a Parliament."
The Parliament, therefore, lost these leaders; but within an hour
"The Recognition," as it came to be called, was signed by a hundred
members, and the number was raised to 140 before the day was over,
and ultimately to about 300. And so, with this goodly number, the
House went on. But the Anti-Oliverian leaven was still strong in it.
This appeared even in the immediate dealings of the House with the
Recognition itself. They first (Sept, 14) declared that it should not
be construed to comprehend the whole Constitutional Instrument of the
Protectorate, but only the main principle of the first Article; and
then (Sept. 18) they converted the Recognition into a resolution of
their own, requiring all members to sign it, Next, in order to get
rid of the stumbling-block of the First Article altogether, they
resolved (Sept. 19) that the Supreme Legislative authority was and
did reside in "One Person and the People assembled in Parliament,"
and also (Sept. 20) that Oliver Cromwell was and should he Lord
Protector for life, and that there should be Triennial Parliaments.
Thus free to advance through the rest of the Forty-two Articles at
their leisure, they made that thenceforward almost their sole work.
Through the rest of September, the whole of October, and part of
November, the business went on in Committee, with the result of a new
and more detailed Constitution of the whole Government in sixty
Articles instead of the Forty-two. A Bill for enacting this
Constitution, passed the first reading on the 22nd of December, and
the second on the 23rd; it then went back into Committee for
amendments; and in January 1654-5 the House was debating these
amendments and others.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates given and of Nov. 7, and
Godwin, IV, 130-132.]

In the long course of the total debate perhaps the most interesting
divisions had been one in Committee on October 16, and one in the
House on November 10. In th