Sir Thomas COTTON was in no danger of being tempted to follow the example of HAMPDEN. The readiness with which he discharged the troublesome task of collecting the impost throughout his county probably laid the first foundation of a strong feeling of personal ill-will towards him, on the part of the lower class of the adherents of the Parliament, during subsequent years. He never ranged himself with the King’s party. Neither would he take any prominent part on the side of the Parliament. He had little taste for public life; and regarded the quarrel with the aloofness of spirit natural to a man with no dominant political convictions, and with a decided love for country sports and for the pleasures of domesticity. [Sidenote: _Domestic Corresp._, Charles I, vol. cccxliii, § 67; cccxlvi, § 115; cccxlv, § 17; cccxlviii, cccl, § 40; cccliv, § 58; ccclxi, § 104; ccclxvi, § 13; ccclxxi, § 58. (R. H.)] He had sat in Parliament (for Marlow) during his father’s lifetime, and in his father’s company. His correspondence shows considerable talent. The extensive portion of that correspondence—in the years 1636 and 1637—which was imposed on him by the Shipmoney business, shews also considerable power of dealing with official details, little as he could have liked them. It exhibits an anxiety to acquit himself conscientiously of a difficult duty, and not to shirk any of the incidents of duty merely on account of their distastefulness. In the ‘Short Parliament’ of 1640 he sat as member for his own county. He does not seem to have sought for any seat in the memorable Parliament which followed. [Sidenote: THE COMMITTEE OF SEQUESTRATIONS FOR HUNTINGDONSHIRE.] His troubles began in 1644. Much to his disgust he was appointed to be one of the ‘Committee of Sequestrations’ for Huntingdonshire. The duty was one which any English gentleman might well have disliked without incurring the reproach either of idleness or of undue fastidiousness. Sir Thomas’ repugnance to the work was backed by a repugnance, not less keen, to those who would fain have been his fellows in its performance. ‘This County of Huntingdon’—so he writes not long after his own nomination to an ungenial office, which he refused to accept on the ground of an illness, that was far from being feigned for the occasion—‘is in an unhappy condition by Sequestrators. Only four or five men, of mean reputation and estate, are “Committees;” and they act (all of them) as Judges, Jury, and Executioners.’ His own experience was destined to become a pregnant comment on that pithy text.