Besides Jeremiah White, Cromwell had other chaplains, Hugh Peters, William Hook, Nicholas Lockier, and Peter Sterry. John Howe, as already noticed, was also of the number; and in his letters there are found allusions to the moral and religious character of the Protector's Court, of so much importance that we cannot pass them over. Howe asked Baxter, what he conceived a chaplain ought to do in the way of urging upon the Government a redress of spiritual evils; how far it became him by public preaching, as well as by private exhortation, to bear witness against the neglect of such redress--supposing that those persons who were in power did not conceive that any interference of this description came within the range of their duty, or excused themselves because they had to attend to other affairs of still greater moment. What the writer exactly meant by these expressions is not very clear, whether by "interference" he intended merely _moral_ interference, respecting which there ought to have been no hesitation; or beyond this, some sort of _legislative_ interference, touching which, there might be doubts in the minds of Cromwell and his State Counsellors. The following passages had better be given literally:-- "My time will not serve me long; for I think I shall be constrained in conscience (all things considered) to return, ere long, to my former station. I left it, I think, upon very fair terms. For, first, when I settled there, I expressly reserved to myself a liberty of removing, if the providence of God should invite me to a condition of more serviceableness anywhere else--which liberty I reckon I could not have parted with if I would, unless I could have exempted myself from God's dominion. My call hither was a work I thought very considerable--the setting-up of the worship and discipline of Christ in this family, wherein I was to have joined with another, called upon the same account. I had made, as I supposed, a competent provision for the place I left. But now at once I see the designed work here hopelessly laid aside. We affect here to live in so loose a way, that a man cannot fix upon any certain charge to carry towards them as a minister of Christ should; so that it were as hopeful a course to preach in a market, or in any assembly met by chance, as here."