It is but justice, however, to Venables to hear his account of the matter. There are, two letters from General Venables to General Montague, printed in Carte's Collection of Original Letters. In the first of these, dated Barbadoes, Feb. 28, 1654-5, Venables says: 'All the promises made us in England, of men, provision, and arms, we find to be but promises. I do not know that we have raised 3,000, and not arms for 1,300 of them. Mr. Noel's 1,500 arms are found to be but 190.' The next sentence is very significant, and exhibits in a striking manner the difference between my lord and his Council' and the Council of State of the Commonwealth which ' my lord' had destroyed. We did not doubt but my lord and his Council had proceeded and grounded their resolves upon greater certainties than we can yet discern, by any one particular, of all that was taken as most certain. . We desired our men's arms might be changed, they being extreme bad, and two-fifths not to be made serviceable here. Of 3,000 men designed, we brought but 2,500, and not so that (our stores not coming as promised) we are making half-pikes here to arm the rest, and those we raise, for we have not any hopes to above 1,600 fire-arms. . . . It's persons that know America, that not keep above nine months, and at that time we must receive constant supplies. French and Spanish powder will keep many years; therefore I earnestly desire that saltpetre and all other materials, a mill and men to make powder, might be sent to us, for the several ingredients will keep uncompounded very well. We have met with all the obstructions that men in this place can cast in our

1,600 of them well armed;

procure, at any hand, agreed on, by all English powder will

way; and now we have time to draw our men together we find not half of them to be armed; nay, in some regiments, not above 200 are; the most having unfixed arms, and unfit men generally given us; and here we are forced to make half-pikes to arm them, which hath lost us so much time, and will hazard our ruin. Had we been armed in England, doubtless we had been at work before this. I have just now an account from General Penn, of what the fleet can accommodate us with; which, as you may see by the enclosed particular, will not amount to, in short, above fifteen shot a man-a most inconsiderable proportion to have hunted Tories in Ireland with, where we might have had supplies every day; much more, to attempt one of the greatest princes in the world within his most beloved country, where some supplies cannot be had above twice a year.'

1

We now come to examine the proximate or immediate causes of the failure of the attack upon Hispaniola. The materials, it has been seen, were bad; and these bad materials were made worse by the manner in which they were handled. The most prominent of the proximate causes of the failure was the landing of the troops at a distance of near forty miles instead of six miles from the town of St. Domingo, when they had to march through a country the difficulties of which were very great. The reports of Penn and Venables agree as to the place of landing; and the report of Penn admits that if they had waited till the 15th of April, only one day after the landing, the troops might have been landed at a distance of only six miles from the town. Penn, in his dispatch to Cromwell dated

1 Carte's Collection of Original Letters, vol. ii. pp. 46-52. Granville Penn, vol. ii. pp. 120, 121.

'On board the Swiftsure, Jamaica, the 6th of June, 1655,' saysThe place always intended for their landing being Hina Bay, some six or seven miles west from the town, they could not approach unto it (being a lee shore, and very full of rocks, and the breeze being that day very great and the sea much grown); so that they were necessitated to sail down farther to leeward unto the next place, called Point Nicayo, which was more safe, but at least eight leagues from Domingo; where all landed the next day (April 14th), without opposition.' He then proves that they might have been landed at Hina if he had waited till the 15th, by his next sentence. Fifteen hundred of the army stayed behind with the fleet, being appointed to land two or three miles to the eastward of the town; but having searched the coast, and found it all along very steep and rocky, and altogether impossible to land on in less distance than twelve miles, Mr. Winslow 2 and myself (Captain Butler having gone along with the general) did think fit to land them at Hina (the sea being then more calm) which accordingly, on the 15th, was effected without any resistance; to which place we made account the army by that time was arrived, it being their way to the

This was not the way in which Blake went to work, when in the face of difficulties of winds, waves and rocks, and of

1 Venables, who was likely to be better informed as to the distance, having traversed it, says, 'near forty miles to the west of Santo Domingo.'-Granville Penn, ii. 122.

2 Mr. Winslow and Captain Gregory Butler, with the sea and land generals, and some others, were appointed commissioners for carrying into effect the object of the expedition. Mr. Granville Penn says that 'Commissioner Butler was in the particular confidence of Cromwell, and was sent by him as his spy on both the generals.'-Memorials of Sir William Penn, ii. 31.

3 Admiral Penn to his Highness the Lord Protector, June 6, 1655, in Granville Penn, ii. 109-112.

enemies more formidable than the Spaniards of Hispaniola, he captured the Scilly Isles and the Island of Jersey.

It will be observed that Penn does not say that Venables insisted on being landed with his troops on the 14th at a place forty miles distant from the town of St. Domingo instead of waiting till the state of the sea would permit his being landed at a place six miles distant from that town. It is also to be observed that Venables does not in express words throw the blame of the landing at so great a distance from the town on Penn. In the second of his two letters to General Montague before mentioned, Venables says: We came to Hispaniola, where we landed upon Saturday, the 14th of April, near forty miles to the west of Santo Domingo. The reason was our pilots were all absent; the chief had outstayed his order, being sent out to discover, and none with us but an old Dutchman, that knew no place but that: whereas, we resolved to have landed where Sir Francis Drake did, except forced off by a fort (said to be there); and then, in such a case, to have gone to the other.' He then goes on to describe the result.

'From our landing we marched without any guide, save heaven, through woods; the ways so narrow, that five hundred men might have extremely prejudiced twenty thousand by ambushes; but this course the enemy held not, save twice. The weather extreme hot, and little water; our feet scorched through our shoes, and men and horse died of thirst; but if any had liquor put into their mouth presently after they fell, they would recover, else die in an instant. Our men, the last fortnight at sea, had bad bread, and little of it or other victuals, notwithstanding General Penn's order, so that they were very weak at landing; and some, instead of three days' provision at

landing, had but one, with which they marched five days, and therefore fell to eat limes, oranges, lemons, &c., which put them into fluxes and fevers. Of the former I had my share for near a fortnight, with cruel gripings that I could scarce stand.'1

I have given in my history of the Commonwealth many minutes from the MS. Order Books of the Council of State of the Commonwealth, evincing the most anxious care of the seamen's and soldiers' food-minutes which have never before been printed, although the critic before referred to in this essay has asserted that my history is not based, as it professes to be, on unused materials.' The mode in which this expedition against Hispaniola was provisioned, to say nothing at present of its other characteristics, marks very distinctly the differ ence between the government of the Commonwealth and the government of Oliver Cromwell; of whom M. Guizot has ventured to say that no party could govern like

him.

There are three accounts of what followed-that of General Venables, that of Captain Gregory Butler, and a third in the journal of the Swiftsure from one Ensign Fowler. Venables dwells most on the weakness of his men from the want of food and water,2 and says nothing of the want of discipline and courage. Ensign Fowler, as cited in the journal of the Swiftsure, excuses not the officers, as well as the soldiers, for their failings in this

1 Carte's Collection of Original Letters, vol. ii. pp. 46-52. Granville Penn's Memorials of Admiral Sir William Penn, vol. ii. pp. 122, 123. The statement of Venables as to the short supply of provisions is confirmed by Penn in a letter to Cromwell, dated Barbadoes, March 17, 1654–5.—Granville Penn, ii. 72.

* Granville Penn, ii. 123.