challenge his authority. Had they not been elected under writs issued
by him, in which writs it was expressly inserted, by regulation of
Article XII. of the Constitutional Instrument of the Protectorate,
"That the persons elected shall not have power to alter the
Government as it is hereby settled in one Single Person and a
Parliament"? On this point he was very emphatic. "That _your_
judgments, who are persons sent from all parts of the nation under
the notion of approving this Government--for _you_ to disown or
not to own it; for _you_ to act with Parliamentary authority
especially in the disowning of it, contrary to the very fundamental
things, yea against the very root of this Establishment; to sit and
not own the Authority by which you sit:--is that which I believe
astonisheth more men than myself." A revision of the Constitution of
the Protectorate in _circumstantials_ he would not object to,
but the _fundamentals_ must be left untouched. And let those
hearing him be under no mistake as to his own resolution. "The wilful
throwing away of this Government, such as it is, so owned of God, so
approved by men, so witnessed to in the fundamentals of it as was
mentioned above, were a thing which,--and in reference not to
_my_ good, but to the good of these Nations and Posterity,--I
can sooner be willing to be rolled into my grave, and buried with
infamy, than I can give my consent unto." He had therefore called
them now that they might come to an understanding. There was a
written parchment in the lobby of the Parliament House to which he
requested the signatures of such as might see fit. The doors of the
Parliament House would then be open for all such, to proceed
thenceforth as a free Parliament in all things, subject to the single
condition expressed in that parchment. "You have an absolute
Legislative Power in all things that can possibly concern the good
and interest of the public; and I think you may make these Nations