He has great respect for Bremen as a thoroughly Protestant city, and he regrets that there should he a quarrel between it and the powerful Protestant Kingdom of Sweden, having no stronger desire than that "the whole Protestant denomination should at length coalesce in one by fraternal agreement and concord." (LI.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _Oct._ 28, 1654:--As announced to the Bremeners in the last letter, Cromwell did write on their behalf to the Swedish King.

He had hoped that the great Peace of Munster or Westphalia (1648) had left all continental Protestants united, and he regrets to hear that a dispute between Sweden and the Bremeners has arisen out of that Treaty.

How dreadful that Protestant Swedes and Protestant Bremeners, once in league against the common foe, should now be slaughtering each other! Can nothing be done?
Could not advantage be taken of the present truce?
He will himself do anything in his power to bring about a permanent reconciliation.
These three letters, it will be observed, belong to the first two months of that cramped and exasperated condition in which Oliver found himself when he had his First Parliament by his side; and there is not a single preserved letter of Milton for Oliver between Oct.
26, 1654, the date of the last of the three, and Jan.

22, 1654-5, the date of the sudden dissolution of the Parliament.

The reason of this idleness of Milton, in his Secretaryship during those three months, leaving all the work to Meadows, must have been, I believe, that he was then engaged on a Reply to More's _Fides Publica_ in the imperfect state in which it had just come forth.