he [Charles Gustavus] would turn his victorious army upon them and their associates, with the assistance of France and a good Dutch league.
It seems no hard matter to get the Imperial Crown and turn the Ecclesiastic Princes into Secular Protestants."[2] Very much in the direction of Baillie's hopes were Cromwell's envoys, Meadows, Jephson, Bradshaw, and Downing, to labour for the next few months.
Of their journeys hither and thither, their expectations and disappointments, there are glimpses in successive letters in _Thurloe_; from which also it appears that Meadows and Downing gave most satisfaction, and that, after a while, Jephson was relieved of the main business of the Swedish mission, and that mission was conjoined with the Danish in the hands of Meadows (Thurloe, VII.

63-64).
[Footnote 1: The translation of this letter by Phillips is unusually careless.

It jumbles the tenses in such a manner that the Peace between Sweden and Denmark does not seem to have yet taken place, but only to be hoped for by Cromwell.

In fact, Phillips's translation robs the letter of all its meaning and interest.] [Footnote 2: Baillie, III.

371.] (CXIX.) TO THE GRAND-DUKE OF TUSCANY, _April_ 7, 1658:--A John Hosier, master of a ship called _The Lady_, had been swindled in April 1656 by an Italian named Guiseppe Armani, who has moreover possessed himself fraudulently of 6000 pieces of eight belonging to one Thomas Clutterbuck.