The infancy of his
successor emboldened the democratical party; they abolished the office of
stadtholder, and recovered the ascendancy in the government. On the news of
this revolution, the council advised that St. John, the chief justice of
the Common Pleas, and Strickland, the former envoy, should be appointed
ambassadors extraordinary to the States General. St. John, with the fate
of Ascham before his eyes, sought to escape this dangerous mission; he
alleged[d] the infirmity of his health and the insalubrity of the climate;
but the parliament derided his timidity, and his petition was dismissed on
a division by a considerable majority.[2]
Among the numerous projects which the English leaders cherished under the
intoxication of success, was that of forming, by the incorporation of the
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 112, 113, 114, 124.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, 1651, Jan. 21, 23, 28.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1646. Dec. 8.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Nov. 6.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Nov. 14.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. Jan. 28.]
United Provinces with the commonwealth, a great and powerful republic,
capable of striking terror into all the crowned heads of Europe. But so
many difficulties were foreseen, so many objections raised, that the
ambassadors received instructions to confine themselves to the more sober
proposal of "a strict and intimate alliance and union, which might give to
each a mutual and intrinsical interest" in the prosperity of the other.
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