England still spends ten times as much for beer as for books, and the religion in which Charles believed is yet the established one. The religion of Cromwell, which represented simple industry, truth, and mutual helpfulness, omitting ritual, is still considered strange, erratic and peculiar. For fifteen years the rule of Oliver Cromwell in England was supreme. With the help of Admiral Blake he drove the pirates from the Mediterranean, set English captives free, and made Great Britain both respected and feared the round world over. Spain gave way and dipped her colors; Italy paid a long-delayed indemnity of sixty thousand pounds for injuries done to British subjects; Catholic France religiously kept hands off. The Episcopal faith was not suppressed, but was simply placed on the same footing as Presbyterianism. Toleration for each and every faith was manifest, and the pillory and whipping-post fell into disuse. The prison-ships lying in the Thames, waiting for their living cargo to be carried away and dumped on distant lands, were cleaned out, refitted, holystoned, and sent out as merchant-ships. Roads were built, waterways deepened, canals dug, and marsh-lands drained. A general order was issued that any British soldier or sailor, in any place or clime, who at any time was guilty of assault on women, or who looted or damaged private property, or attacked a neutral, should be at once tried, and, if found guilty, shot. If, in the exigency of war, English soldiers were compelled to take private property, receipts must be given, prices fixed, and drafts drawn for same on the home office. All this to the end, "Thou shalt not steal." Pensions were cut off, parasites set to work, vagabonds collared and given jobs, and all State business managed on the same plan that a man would bring to bear in his private affairs. For carrying dummy names on his payroll, the governor of a shipyard was led forth and dropped into the sea, and a man who gave a ball at the expense of the State was deprived of his office and sent to the Barbados. Cromwell liked to dress as a private soldier, mixing with his men, and going to taverns or palaces looking for contraband of war. When he was Chief Commander of the armies of England, he insisted on acting as colonel and leading the Ironsides into battle at the head of a charge. When Cromwell was presented with six coach-horses, all alike, and by one sire, he insisted on personally driving them. The coach was loaded with broad-brimmed Puritans, who had guiltily left their work, when the horses ran away, frightened, they say, by an Episcopal bishop. All Royalists laughed--but not very loud. A few ultra-Puritans said it was a warning to Oliver not to try to set up a monarchy.