3. But how could these bloody proceedings be reconciled with the terms of
capitulation which had been already granted? If we may believe Cromwell's
official account, a matchless specimen of craft and mystification, _he_ was
not to blame that they had been broken. He was perfectly innocent of all
that had happened. Could he not then have ordered his men to keep within
the castle, or have recalled them when they forced an entrance into the
town? Undoubtedly he might; but the pious man was unwilling to put himself
in opposition to God. "His study had been to preserve the place from
plunder, that it might be of more use to the commonwealth and the army."
But he saw "that God would not have have it so." The events which so
quickly followed each other, were to him a proof that God in his righteous
judgment had doomed the town and its defendants to destruction; on which
account he "thought it not good, nor just, to restrain off the soldiers
from their right of pillage, nor from doing of execution on the
enemy."--Letter of 16th of October. He concludes his despatch to the
government with these words:--"Thus it has pleased God to give into your
hands this other mercy, for which, as for all, we pray God may have all the
glory. Indeed, your instruments are poor and weak.
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