about three o'clock, and marched through Dorsetshire into Devonshire. At South Molton Captain Crook came up with them, and speedily made himself master of fifty of the insurgents, including Penruddock, Grove, and Jones, but Wagstaff escaped. They had expected a body of conspirators from Hampshire to join them at Salisbury, and these were actually on their way when they heard of the retreat of Wagstaff's band, and immediately dispersed. Similarly feeble outbreaks took place in the counties of Northumberland, Nottingham, Shropshire, and Montgomery. Penruddock, Grove, and Jones were beheaded at Exeter, and about fifteen others suffered there and at Salisbury; the rest of the deluded prisoners were sold to Barbadoes. Charles returned crest-fallen to Cologne, and Hyde, convinced that his plans had been betrayed, attributed the treason to Manning, whom, having secured, they had shot in the following winter, in the territory of the Duke of Neuburg. To prevent more of these outbreaks, Cromwell planned to divide the whole country into military districts, over each of which he placed an officer, who was to act chiefly with the militia, and not with the Levelling regulars. These officers he created major-generals, beginning first with Desborough in the south-west, and, before the year was out, he had despatched, each to his district, the other major-generals--Fleetwood, Skippon, Whalley, Kelsey, Goffe, Berry, Butler, Wortley, and Barkstead, who effectually preserved the peace of the nation. During the spring also, undaunted by these disturbances, Cromwell progressed with his internal reforms, and with the greatest of all, the reform of Chancery. This was no easy matter. The lawyers were as turbulent as the Anabaptists in the army. Two of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, Whitelock and Widdrington, refused to enforce the reform, and were obliged to resign. Lisle and Fiennes, the other Commissioners, dared to carry out the change. Lenthall, the Speaker, now Master of the Rolls, protested that he would be hanged at the Rolls gate before he would obey; but he saw fit to alter his mind, and the Protector, so far from bearing any ill-will to the two conscientious Commissioners, Whitelock and Widdrington, soon after made them Commissioners of the Treasury. We may now look back a little, to observe what Cromwell had been doing beyond the shores of the kingdom. We have seen that almost all the nations of Europe sent embassies to congratulate him on his elevation to the Protectorate. The vigour of his rule speedily made them more anxious to stand on good terms with him. He soon made peace with Sweden as a Protestant country, and from natural sympathy with the Protestant fame of the great Gustavus. He concluded peace also with Holland, but with France and Spain there were more difficulties.