to his Parliament give, I am persuaded, a very true picture of the times. Compare them with the Clarendon Papers published at Oxford, as much if not more worth reading than the History. The late Sir Edward Bayntun told me that he had an original copy of a letter written by a Sir Edward Bayntun, his maternal ancestor—a very considerable man in the west—to Cromwell when a private man, desiring one of his daughters for his son, on account of the exemplary manner of their education and the reputation his home had for good order and decency. I have an original letter of Richard Cromwell to his brother in Ireland after his father's death, which gives a singular picture of the moment. It must be allowed that, while he had power, short as the moment was, he did set more things forward than all the Kings who reigned during the century, King William included. England was never so much respected abroad; while at home, though Cromwell could not settle the Government, talents of every kind began to show themselves, which were immediately crushed or put to sleep at the Restoration. The best and most unexceptional regulations of different kinds are to be found in his ordinances and proclamations remaining to this day unexecuted; and during his life he not only planned but enforced and executed the greatest measures of which the country was then susceptible. (See his conversations with Ludlow, particularly about a reform of the law, and his wish to make Ireland a field of experiment, and an example to England.[1]) It requires experience in Government to know the immense distance between planning and executing. All the difficulty is with the last. It requires no small labour to open the eyes of either the public or of individuals, but when that is accomplished, you are not got a third of the way. The real difficulty remains in getting people to apply the principles which they have admitted, and of which they are now so fully convinced. Then springs the mine composed of private interests and personal animosity. There cannot be a better instance than what is now depending. Professor Adam Smith's
- ↑ See Ludlow, Memoirs, ed. by Mr. C. H. Firth, i. 146.
