Having assembled there, they listened to Cromwell's "Third Speech." It is one of the most powerful of all his speeches.

It began with a long review of his life in general and the steps by which he had recently been brought to the Protectorship.

It proceeded then to a recitation of what he called "the witnesses" to his Government, or proofs of its validity--the Witness _above_, or God's manifest Providence in leading him to where he was; the Witness _within_, or his own consciousness of integrity; and the Witnesses _without_, or testimonies of confidence he had received from the Army, the Judges, the City of London, other cities, counties and boroughs, and public bodies of all sorts.

"I believe," he said, "that, if the learnedest men in this nation were called to show a precedent, equally clear, of a Government so many ways approved of, they would not in all their search, find it." Then, coming to the point, he asked what right the present Parliament had to come after all those witnesses and challenge his authority.

Had they not been elected under writs issued by him, in which writs it was expressly inserted, by regulation of Article XII.