CARY'S MEMORIALS OF THE CIVIL WAR.

Terns volumes contain a selection of letters extracted from the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library. They were written be- tween 1646, the period when CHARLES the First escaped from Ox- ford after the downfal of his fortunes to throw himself into the hands of the Scotch army, and the autumn of 1652, when the battle of Worcester destroyed for CROMWELL'S life, and apparently for ever, the hopes of the STUARTS. The writers are persons of all classes—in the Army, the Navy, the Church, and the Law, in Parliament, in Diplomatic and Civil service, and in private life ; as well as in all ranks, from the Royal Family and Caordwers„ down to students in the University or agitators in the Army. The subjects the writers treat of are as various as themselves; but they may be generalized into-1. Letters from Diplomatic agents abroad ; embodying an account of their negotiations with Foreign Governments, as well as the character of the persons they

bad to deal with, the small facts of the day, and its various rumours : 2. Communications from military and naval officers;

partly of the nature of public despatches, though written with more brevity, directness, and homely strength, than obtains now that their composition has become a mechanical art ; partly of the nature of what official scribes head "most secret," the best and most striking portions of which refer to the irregularities of the Scotch Army in the Northern counties, the discontents of the English troops arising from their want of pay, and the distress of the people in the places where they were stationed, owing to military debts and free quarters : 3. The various topics that may be supposed to be mooted in addresses to the Supreme Power, by suitors, servants, and vanquished enemies, when society was dis- tracted by the effects of a civil war, and many of the unsuccessful, especially of the higher ranks, endangered in life or ruined in for- tune, and many of the victorious embarrassed in consequence of their pecuniary advances in the public cause : 4. Opinions from Bishops and Churchmen as to how far the King could, without sin, comply with the requisition of Parliament and consent to abolish Episcopacy and alienate the Church-lands ; among which, a long disquisition by JEREMY TAYLOR supports the high reputation of that eminent man : 5. Miscellaneous and private matters ; in which last, the letters of SANCROFT, (afterwards the Primate who beaded the Bishops in their resistance to JAMES the Second,) and his friends, exhibit the clerical epistolary style of the age, and the feelings of the more respectable class of Loyalists. Like all partial collections of letters by various persons on various subjects, exhibited in a chronological order, the work is disjointed and incomplete. The reader is carried from one writer and one subject to others, often of an opposite kind : matters are begun, or opened in the middle, and there left : in public events, the least interesting part is fully discoursed upon, but the progress of the story and catastrophe freffluently left untold,—as, for instance,

HAMMOND'S difficulties, whilst the King was in his custody at Carisbrook Castle, from want of money to render the place defen- sible, and anxiety respecting his charge, are pretty fully unfolded in his complaining letters to the Speaker, (the grand recipient oT grievances); but the seizure, trial, and execution of CHARLES, are all omitted; and the reader, in the volumes before us, only learns of his death by some jeremiades of his friends. These things are almost inseparable from a work of this nature : it is a less formal defect that many of' the letters are trivial, or without attraction : some of the more public letters are also dry, as referring to events of little interest in their results or in themselves. Still, taking the volumes altogether, they may be considered as interesting to the well-informed general reader as most collections of a similar kind, and more so than many. To the student of the history or the man- ners of the period, they have of course a greater value.

This value is, however, with one exception, of a limited natures and confined to motives of conduct or modes of acting, if indeed it can be said to have any absolute novelty on those points. The exception we allude to relates to the state of the country, and the treatment of the Army by the Long Parliament, before PRIDE'S purge ; which, after every allowance for the difficulties of the House, as well as for the disposition of people to magnify their own griev- ances, and the purpose of the Army agitators to exaggerate every thing, seems to have been scurvy, and, what men will bear less wil- lingly, neglectful. An odd point of which the Army complained, and which it only required will to remedy, was the want of an act of indemnity : the courts, it was said, holding the soldiers responsible for acts done in their military capacity during the war ; and "four- teen soldiers," it was reported, " which took horses by order from their officers, being hanged by the judges," and many others put upon their trial at every assize.

It is less, however, as an historical point than as an historical picture, that the sketches of the condition of the country and the soldiery by the complaints of the different parties have interest; because they tell minutely, what history either neglects or generalizes. Here is the state of the North from the conduct of the Parliament's allies, the Scotch ; apparently reinforced by some of the Cavaliers, who accompanied the King in his flight from Oxford or subsequently rallied round him.

" THOMAS SMALLWOOD TO LUKE ROBINSON, M.P.

" Sir—After long silence I am constrained to salute you with uncomfortable news from the distressed country of Cleveland: though my neighbours have felt the smart of Newcastle's army, and twice of the Scots', yet these times were times of peace and prosperity in comparison of this present time; never were poor people so oppressed as we are. The commander-in-chief in these parts is one General-major Vandruske, a civil gentleman : his regiment con- sists of many Papists, French, Dutch, Irish, Scotch; and those that are Eng- lishmen are (as their own chaplain confessed to me) four parts of them the King's reduced, or rather subdued officers, who, now our conquerors and tyrants, came from Newark, Oxford, and other of his garrisons. They are most of them very rude in their carriage, for they every day ride abroad and rob all men and women they meet with.; none can with safety pass to or from a fair, or town, or market : they have left us no horses that are able to carry a man ; and profess, whensoever they go away, to leave us no other goods. " In their quarters they demean themselves most barbarously. They beat their men and women causelessly. They will not eat either salt-beef, or milk, or butter, nor drink any small beer, but force the poor men to buy them mutton, lamb, and chickens, and ale in abundance ; and though they put their horses in the mowing grass, yet they force all their landlords to find them every day a peck of oats for each horse. Our honest men are many of them forced to leave their houses ; some are fled into Whitby Strand, some into the English army near York, and others into the East Riding. I was forced to fly from my house, and leave all I had to their mercy : as for those towns where no soldiers are quartered, they compel them to pay monies to them, some towns Si., some 101., some 161., some 20/. per diem ; so that if some speedy course be not taken, the whole county will be destroyed. I cannot see how they can possibly subsist twenty days in all likelihood; and though these burdens lie upon them, they dare not complain; no justice was yet done, except upon one man, who was shot to death for killing his landlord (in cool blood): they change their quarters every other clay, which proves a very heavy burden to the poor people. Honest men dare not show a Bible among them, except it have both Common Prayers and Apocrypha in it ; and it were treason for the poor godly men to pray in their families. " Sir, 1 want words to express the misery the county is in. I question not but you have much from other hands : I have not written a word but I can vouch it to be true. Sir, I am confident you will believe me, and I hope plead for some redress for us, which will be very acceptable service for the never more to be lamented North. If you please to acquaint Sir Math Boynton and Mr. Thos. Chaloner with this in particular, they may know that they can expect no more rents from vs. The Lord incline the hearts of the Parliament to study some relief for us.

" Ever yours, THOMAS SMALLWOOD. " From Captain Lawson's house in Scarborough, 25th May 1646."

The conduct of the Scotch seems to have arisen from greediness or wantonness; that of the English soldiery from want, arising from non-payment of their arrears. This is the

PLIGHT OF THE DEPUTY-LTEUTENANTS AT CHESTER.

" Mr. Speaker—It pleased the Parliament long since to settle a garrison in Chester of six hundred men, and a troop of horse in the county ; which have been paid by this impoverished county till near about March last, that by ordinance of Parliament this garrison was to be paid (among others then voted to continue) out of the monies of the state : but since then no monies have come hither • so that the soldiers, both horse and foot, being four months un- paid, have taken upon them the boldness and impudence to seize and enthral our persons, some of us from our houses, and others of us at our meetings for the Parliament's service, and to draw and enforce us to Chester, like rogues and thieves, in base and disgraceful manner, and to bring us openly through all the streets, (there being no street free from the infection of the plague, it being spread through the whole city,) and at their wills and pleasures to re- move us, sometimes throwing us all, being in number fifteen persons, into one little room, part of the common gaol, where there was neither bread nor pro- vision of meat or drink, nor any accommodation for nature, but publicly, like beasts, among ourselves; our friends denied to come to us; and being in this sad condition and durance, we were threatened by some of them shouting to hang us, and others to cut our throats or destroy us, and cast us into infected houses : and yet it pleased God to work upon the hearts of some of them to

relent at the miserable danger our lives were then in, and, at the persuasions of the Governor and other officers, (whose commands they slighted,) to remove us again into a house, where we have two or three rooms, and necessary accom- modation to preserve our lives ; and yet, by reason of the spreading infection of the plague, we know not which of ourselves are safe or free from it, by reason the tumultuous rout were always thronging upon us, some of them being since thought to be infected.

"Mr. Speaker, the desperate and barbarous acts of these soldiers are without precedent, and of dangerous consequences, as we humbly conceive, who sought utterly to destroy and hinder us by lingering torments; and truly the condition and quality of some of the men being now Imparted and discovered to us, and being considered, we could expect no less, for that, as we are informed, many of them have served against the Parliament, and some of them under the rebels in Ireland.

" Mr. Speaker, to redeem our persons and save our lives, (nothing satisfying them but present money,) we have been enforced to take upon us the payment of all those four months' pay, both of horse and foot; which, together with another month's pay which will be due before they can be disbanded with safety to the country, will amount to five thousand pounds; and have made extreme hard shift to get them pay for themselves, and speedily to satisfy their quarters; which to do, we are neither able of ourselves nor by all the power of our friends ; nor can this impoverished county help us. Therefore we do most humbly beseech the Honourable House of Commons to take speedy course to disband these forces, that they may never be trusted or employed again in the Parliament's service; and that timely course may be taken for their monies, otherwise we are liable to the like danger, they mainly insisting upon it to have their quarters paid, and they secured of their pay for the future."

Whatever irregularities from the soldiery at large occurred in England, seem to have arisen from absolute necessity, and with the object of getting paid. In Ireland they were different men.

COLONEL COOKE'S CAMPAIGNING IN IRELAND.

"In searching the woods and bogs, we found great store of corn, which we burnt, also all the houses and cabins we could find, in all which we found great plenty of corn. We continued burning and destroying for four days; in which time we wanted no provision for horse or man, finding also housing enough to lie in, though we burnt our quarters every morning, and continued burning all day after. He was an idle soldier that had not either a fat lamb, veal, pig, poultry, or all of them, every night to his supper. "This country the enemy of these parts chiefly depended upon for provisions. I believe we destroyed as much as would have served some thousands of them until next harvest. The place is called Macdemore'a country ; it lieth border- ing on the county of Wicklow, and to the sea-side. • •

'Sir Thomas Esmond's troop, and his sin's, and some others, lay there: we took many of their horses, and killed and took many horsemen which we found on foot ; we killed also divers foot-soldiers, it is hard to say how many; but some soldiers that were with Colonel Sankey and Colonel Axtell, when they fell into the enemies' quarters this winter, say we killed many more soldiers than they. We could have killed many hundreds of country-people that we found up and down the country, not knowing what to do, but forbore at pre- sent, they being newly put out of protection, and some of them probably being about to go within the line; as also because we judged them people that would rather do us service, by eating up that little provision which possibly might escape the fire, than hurt us, they being all of them either old men, women, or children. We took about two hundred garroons, three hundred cows and calves, and four hundred sheep and goats, besides some few swine. I believe we took at least half a hundred of those horses that the enemy served upon against us, some better some worse. 1 am confident we left the enemy in such a condition as they must needs most of them starve. If the same course be taken in the other parts that border upon them, doubtless this is the only way to make a speedy end of these wars."