A simple affirmative was, or seemed to be, extorted from him.

Soon after, on the third of September, that very day which he had always considered as the most fortunate for him, he expired, A violent tempest, which immediately succeeded his death, served as a subject of discourse to the vulgar.

His partisans, as well as his enemies, were fond of remarking this event; and each of them endeavored, by forced inferences, to interpret it as a confirmation of their particular prejudices.
The writers attached to the memory of this wonderful person, make his character, with regard to abilities, bear the air of the most extravagant panegyric: his enemies form such a representation of his moral qualities as resembles the most virulent invective.

Both of them, it must be confessed, are supported by such striking circumstances in his conduct and fortune, as bestow on their representation a great air of probability.

"What can be more extraordinary," it is said,[*] "than that a person of private birth and education, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, nor shining talents of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the abilities to execute, so great a design as the subverting one of the most ancient and best established monarchies in the world?
That he should have the power and boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death?
Should banish that numerous and strongly allied family?
Cover all these temerities under a seeming obedience to a parliament, in whose service he pretended to be retained?
Trample, too, upon that parliament in their turn, and scornfully expel them as soon as they gave him ground of dissatisfaction?
Erect in their place the dominion of the saints, and give reality to the most visionary idea which the heated imagination of any fanatic was ever able to entertain?
Suppress again that monster in its infancy, and openly set up himself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England?
Overcome first all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice?
Serve all parties patiently for a while, and command them victoriously at last?
Overrun each corner of the three nations, and subdue, with equal facility, both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north?
Be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and be adopted a brother to the gods of the earth?
Call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth?
Reduce to subjection a warlike and discontented nation, by means of a mutinous army?
Command a mutinous army by means of seditious and factious officers?
Be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would be pleased, at the rate of millions a year, to be hired as master of those who had hired him before to be their servant?
Have the estates and lives of three nations as much at his disposal as was once the little inheritance of his father, and be as noble and liberal in the spending of them?
And lastly, (for there is no end of enumerating every particular of his glory,) with one word bequeath all this power and splendor to his posterity?
He possessed of peace at home and triumph abroad?
Be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity; and leave a name behind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world; which as it was too little for his praise, so might it have been for his conquests, if the short line of his mortal life could have stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs ?" * Cowley's Discourses.