"I am the only man," he was often heard to say, "who has known how to subdue that insolent sect, which can suffer none but itself." The Protestant zeal which possessed the Presbyterians and Independents, was highly gratified by the haughty manner in which the protector so successfully supported the persecuted Protestants throughout all Europe.
Even the duke of Savoy, so remote a power, and so little exposed to the naval force of England, was obliged, by the authority of France, to comply with his mediation, and to tolerate the Protestants of the valleys, against whom that prince had commenced a furious persecution.
France itself was constrained to bear, not only with the religion, but even, in some instances, with the seditious insolence of the Hugonots; and when the French court applied for a reciprocal toleration of the Catholic religion in England, the protector, who arrogated in every thing the superiority, would hearken to no such proposal.

He had entertained a project of instituting a college, in imitation of that at Rome, for the propagation of the faith; and his apostles, in zeal, though not in unanimity, had certainly been a full match for the Catholics.
Cromwell retained the church of England in constraint though he permitted its clergy a little more liberty than the Republican parliament had formerly allowed.

He was pleased that the superior lenity of his administration should in every thing be remarked.

He bridled the royalists, both by the army which he retained, and by those secret spies which he found means to intermix in all their counsels.

Manning being detected, and punished with death, he corrupted Sir Richard Willis, who was much trusted by Chancellor Hyde and all the royalists; and by means of this man he was let into every design and conspiracy of the party.
He could disconcert any project, by confining the persons who were to be the actors in it; and as he restored them afterwards to liberty, his severity passed only for the result of general jealousy and suspicion, The secret source of his intelligence remained still unknown and unsuspected.
Conspiracies for an assassination he was chiefly afraid of; these being designs which no prudence or vigilance could evade.