What may have been the exact reply to Cromwell from the House we do not know; but the House was not in a mood to spare Nayler.

He had not satisfied the clergymen sent to confer with him.

Accordingly, on the 27th, a motion to respite him for another week having been lost by 113 to 59, the second part of his punishment was inflicted to the letter; after which he was removed to Bristol to receive the rest.

All that one can say is that, though Cromwell was far from pleased with the business, and even thought it a horrible one, he did not feel that he could at that time make it the occasion of an actual quarrel with the Parliament.[1] [Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Carlyle III, 213-215; Sewel's _History of the People called Quakers_ (ed.

1834) I.179-207.] Another matter in which a disagreement might have been feared between Cromwell and his Parliament was that of _The Major-Generalships._ This "invention" of Cromwell's for the police of England and Wales generally, and specially for the collection of the Decimation or Militia Tax from the Royalists, had been so successful that he had congratulated himself on It in his opening speech to the Parliament.