than that Morus either assumed or acknowledged the authorship of the same.' ... I add yet a third extract. It is from another letter from the Hague:--'A man of the first rank in the Hague has told me that he has in his possession a copy of the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_ with Morus's own letter.'" Farther on Milton re-adverts to the same topic, in a passage which it is also well to quote: "You say you 'will produce not rumours merely, not conversations merely, but letters, in proof that I had been warned not to assail an innocent man.' Let us then inspect the letter you publish, which was written to you by 'that highly distinguished man, Lord Nieuport, ambassador of the Dutch Confederation,'--a letter, it is evident, which you bring forward to be read, not for any force of proof in it, for it has none, but merely in ostentation. He--and it shows the singular kindliness of 'the highly distinguished man' (for what but goodness in him should make him take so much trouble on your most unworthy account?)--goes to Mr. Secretary Thurloe. He communicates your letter to Mr. Secretary. When he saw that he had no success, he sends to me two honourable persons, friends of mine, with that same letter of yours. What do they do? They read me that letter of Morus, and they request, and say that Ambassador Nieuport also requests, that I will trust to your letter in which you deny being the author of the _Clamor Regii Sanguinis_. I answered that what they asked was not fair--that neither was Morus's word worth so much, nor was it customary to believe, in contradiction to common report and other ascertained evidence, the mere letter of an accused person and an adversary denying what was alleged against him. They, having nothing more to say on the other side, give up the debate.... When afterwards the Ambassador wanted to persuade Mr. Secretary Thurloe, he had still no argument to produce but the same copy of your letter; whence it is quite clear that those 'reasons' brought to me 'for which he desired' me to be so good as not to publish my book had nothing to do with reasons of State. Do not then corrupt the Ambassador's letter. Nothing there of 'hostile spirit,' nothing of the 'inopportune time;' all he writes is that he 'is sorry I had chosen, notwithstanding his request, to show so little moderation'--sorry, that is, that I had not chosen, at his private request, to oblige you, a public adversary, and to recall and completely rewrite a work already printed and all but out. Let 'the highly distinguished man,' especially as an Ambassador, hold me excused if I would not, and really could not, condone public injuries on private intercessions."