All in all, it is one of the most eloquent of the Milton series; and Milton must have exerted himself in the composition.
[Footnote 1: The exact day of the month is not given either in the Printed Collection or in the Skinner Transcript; but it is determined by a letter of Cromwell's to Ambassador Lockhart on the same business.

The two letters went together (see Carlyle, III.
357-365).] [Footnote 2: Letter of Cromwell to Lockhart of date May 25, 1658, printed by Mr.Carlyle, _loc.

cit._, from the Ayscough MSS.] (CXXI.) TO THE EVANGELICAL SWISS CANTONS, _May_ 26, 1658:[1]--On the same great business as the last.--"Illustrious and most honourable Lords, most dear Friends:--Concerning the Vaudois, your most afflicted neighbours, what grievous and intolerable things they have suffered from their Prince for Religion's sake, besides that the mind almost shrinks from remembering them because of the very atrocity of the facts, we have thought it superfluous to write to you what must be much better known to yourselves.

We have also seen copies of the letters which your Envoys, who a good while since were the advisers and witnesses of the Peace of Pignerol, have written to the Duke of Savoy and the President of his Council in Turin; in which they show and prove in detail that all the conditions of the Peace have been broken, and have been rather a snare for those miserable people than a security.

Which violation of the conditions, continued from the very date of the Peace even to this day, and every day growing more grievous, unless they endure patiently, unless they prostrate themselves and lie down to be trampled on and pushed into mud, their Religion itself forsworn, there impends over them the same calamity, the same havoc, which harassed and desolated them, with their wives and children, in so miserable a manner three years ago, and which, if it is to be undergone again, will wholly extirpate them.