Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/435

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1648]
LETTER LXXXV. KNOTTINGLEY
401

matter of their pay. I rest upon your favour herein;—and subscribe myself, Sir, your very humble servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.[1]

Hull Garrison does not ‘break’: doubtless St. Nicholas, a chief Clerk, of weight in his department, did what he could. A Kentish man this St. Nicholas, if any one could be supposed to care what he was; came to be Recorder of Canterbury, and even refractory Member for Canterbury;[2] has his seat, for the present, in the Grocers’-Hall region, among the budgets or ‘bottomless bags,’ as Independency Walker calls them. And now for the remarkable Letter contemporaneous with this:

LETTER LXXXV

TO COLONEL ROBERT HAMMOND: THESE

“Knottingley, near Pontefract,” 25th Nov. 1648.

Dear Robin,—No man rejoiceth more to see a line from thee than myself. I know thou hast long been under trial. Thou shalt be no loser by it. All “things” must work for the best.

Thou desirest to hear of my experiences. I can tell thee: I am such a one as thou didst formerly know, having a body of sin and death; but I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord there is no condemnation, though much infirmity; and I wait for the redemption. And in this poor condition I obtain mercy, and sweet consolation through the Spirit. And find abundant cause every day to exalt the Lord, and abase flesh,—and herein[3] I have some exercise.

As to outward dispensations, if we may so call them: we have not been without our share of beholding some remarkable providences, and appearances of the Lord. His presence hath

  1. Kimber’s (anonymous) Life of Cromwell (4th edition, London, 1741), p. 92: Not given in the 1st edition; no notice whence.
  2. Whitlocke, September 1656 (2d edition, p. 642); Parliamentary History, xxi. 8; and Commons Journals, vii. 650, 730.
  3. ‘and in the latter respect at least.’