This was justified, with approving references to the published Latin Declaration of Oct.

1655 on the subject, entitled _Scriptum Domini Protectoris, &c._ (Milton's ?), and with vehement expressions of his Highness's personal abhorrence of Spain and her policy.

He represented her and her allies and dependents as the anti-English and anti-Christian Hydra of the world, while France, though Roman Catholic too, stood apart from all the other Catholic powers in not being under the Pope's lash and so able to be fair and reasonable.

He urged the most energetic prosecution of the war that had been begun.

But with the Spanish war he connected the dangers to England from the Royalist risings and conspiracies of the last two years, announcing moreover that he had now full intelligence of a compact between Spain and Charles II., a force of 7000 or 8000 Spaniards ready at Bruges in consequence, and other forces promised by Popish princes, clients of Spain.