An American, surely, can feel no respect for hereditary titles. In his view, Cromwell would have had a clear right to the throne, if the people had chosen to give him the crown; and there is quite as much evidence, that the great body of the people of England were satisfied with the government of Cromwell, as that they were content with that of Charles II. If by usurpation is meant a violation of the Constitution, it may be replied, that the Constitution was already broken. The King had trampled on it, and the Long Parliament had governed the kingdom for years with an entire disregard of the Constitution. The country was in a state of anarchy, and it was a blessing to England that Cromwell seized the reins, and controlled the fierce parties who convulsed the nation. Napoleon, though his subsequent course was unjustifiable, did a good service to France, when he overthrew the detestable demagogues who had deluged her with blood. If our peerless Washington had found this country, in 1784, in the condition in which England was in 1653, and France in 1800, it would have been his duty, as a patriot and a philanthropist, to employ the power at his control for the preservation of order, and the restoration of public happiness. It is certain, that the great ends of government,—peace and prosperity at home and respect abroad,—were enjoyed under Cromwell’s sway, to a far higher degree than they were under most of the British monarchs, preceding the revolution. Even Hume, who was an infidel and a tory, and of course hated Cromwell, acknowledges, that the distracted state of England, and the mutual rancor of its various factions, rendered an energetic government indispensable, and would have furnished a reasonable excuse for what he calls the “temporary usurpation” of Cromwell, if the Protector had been guilty of no other crime.[307] The excellent Baxter, who carried his loyalty to the preposterous length of opposing Cromwell, under whom he enjoyed perfect toleration, and striving to restore the “legitimate” King, with the almost certain prospect of being persecuted and silenced, confesses, that religion flourished, under the Protector, in a degree before unknown. “I do not believe,” he says,[308] “that ever England had so able and faithful a ministry since it was a nation, as it hath at this day; and I fear, that few nations on earth, if any, have the like. Sure I am, the change is so great, within these twelve years, that it is one of the greatest joys that ever I had in the world to behold it. O how many congregations are now plainly and frequently taught, that lived then in great obscurity. How many able, faithful men are there now in a county, in comparison of what were then.” And yet Baxter labored and prayed for the restoration of Charles, under whom Baxter himself and two thousand more of these faithful ministers were speedily silenced.