signified that he had received new
instructions from his master, which would enable him to meet
Cromwell's views in some points, he was allowed to have his own way
in the main; and in February 1655-6 the Treaty was on foot, both in
the Council meetings at Whitehall, and in meetings of Whitlocke and
the other English Commissioners with the Ambassador at Dorset
House. "A long debate touching levies of soldiers and hiring of
ships in one another's dominions;" "long debates touching
contraband goods, in which list were inserted by the Council corn,
hemp, pitch, tar, money, and other things:" such are Whitlocke's
descriptions of the Dorset House meetings. The Treaty, in fact, was
partly commercial and partly political, pointing to new advantages
for England, but also to new responsibilities, all round the Baltic
and throughout Germany. In the debates no one more resolute, no one
more clear-headed, no one more contemptuous when he pleased, than
Count Bundt; and he had, it appears, a very able second in his
subordinate, the Swedish Resident in ordinary, Mr. Coyet.--In the
midst of these laborious debates over the Treaty news had arrived
of the birth at Stockholm of a son and heir to the Swedish King.
The birth of this Prince, afterwards Charles XI. of Sweden,
occasioned a grand display of loyalty at the Swedish Embassy in
London. "Feb. 20," writes Whitlocke, "the Swedish Ambassador kept a
solemnity this evening for the birth of the young Prince of Sweden.
All the glass of the windows of his house, which were very large,
being new-built, were taken off, and instead thereof painted papers
were fitted to the places, with the arms of Sweden upon them, and
inscriptions in great letters testifying the rejoicing for the
birth of the young Prince: on the inside of the papers in the rooms
were set close to them a very great number of lighted candles,
glittering through the painted papers: the arms and colours and
writings were plainly to be discerned, and showed glorious, in the
street: the like was in the staircase, which had the form of a
tower. In the balconies on each side of the house were trumpets,
which sounded often seven or eight of them, together. The company
at supper were the Dutch Ambassador, the Portugal and Brandenburg
Residents, Mynheer Coyet, Resident for Sweden, the Earls of Bedford
and Devon, the Lords St. John, Ossory, Bruce, Ogilvie, and two or