It was not the first time in history that the army had overturned representative government. In this case it was not done with the design of establishing a despotism. Cromwell was honest in his purpose of reforming the administration, and establishing a Parliamentary government. But he had to do with intractable elements. He called a constituent convention, giving to it the duty of paving the way to a constitutional Parliament. Instead of this, the convention began the work of reforming the constitution, and proposed such radical changes that the lord-general grew alarmed. Doubtless his musketeers would have dealt with the convention as they had done with the Rump Parliament, had it not fallen to pieces through its own dissensions. It handed back to Cromwell the power it had received from him. He became the lord protector of the realm. The revolutionary government had drifted, despite itself, into a despotism. A despotism it was to remain while Cromwell lived. _THE RELIEF OF LONDONDERRY._ Frightful was the state of Londonderry. "No surrender" was the ultimatum of its inhabitants, "blockade and starvation" the threat of the besiegers; the town was surrounded, the river closed, relief seemed hopeless, life, should the furious besiegers break in, equally hopeless. Far off, in the harbor of Lough Foyle, could be seen the English ships. Thirty vessels lay there, laden with men and provisions, but they were able to come no nearer. The inhabitants could see them, but the sight only aggravated their misery. Plenty so near at hand! Death and destitution in their midst! Frightful, indeed, was their extremity. The Foyle, the river leading to the town, was fringed with hostile forts and batteries, and its channel barricaded. Several boats laden with stone had been sunk in the channel. A row of stakes was driven into the bottom of the stream. A boom was formed of trunks of fir-trees, strongly bound together, and fastened by great cables to the shore. Relief from the fleet, with the river thus closed against it, seemed impossible. Yet scarcely two days' supplies were left in the town, and without hasty relief starvation or massacre seemed the only alternatives. Let us relate the occasion of this siege. James II. had been driven from England, and William of Orange was on the throne. In his effort to recover his kingdom, James sought Ireland, where the Catholic peasantry were on his side. His appearance was the signal for fifty thousand peasants to rise in arms, and for the Protestants to fly from peril of massacre. They knew their fate should they fall into the hands of the half-savage peasants, mad with years of misrule.