How uncertain it was yet whether Monk would ever desert the Commonwealth, and how anxious the Royalists were on the subject, appears from a letter of Mordaunt to Charles, dated Feb.

17, 1659-60, or four days before the Restoration of the Secluded Members (_Clar.

State Papers_, III.
683).

Speaking of Monk, Mordaunt writes thus:--"The visible inclination of the people; the danger he foresees from so many enemies; his particular pique to Lambert; the provocation of the Anabaptists and Sectaries, with whom I may now join the Catholics; the want of money to continue standing armies; the divisions of the chief officers in those respective armies; the advices of those near him--I mean, in particular, Clobery and Knight...; the admonitions daily given him by Mr.Annesley and Alderman Robinson;--unless God has fed him to the slaughter, cannot but move him."].