compassions, and let your bowels yearn for so many thousands of poor souls who are reduced to a morsel of bread for following the Lamb whithersoever he goes."[1] [Footnote 1: Morland's History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont, with a Relation of the Massacre (1658), 287-428; Guizot, II. 213-215.] There was a shudder of abhorrence through Protestant Europe, but no one was so much roused as Cromwell. In the interval between the Duke of Savoy's edict and the Massacre he had been desirous that the Vaudois should publicly appeal to him rather than to the Swiss; and, when the news of the Massacre reached England, he avowed that it came "as near his heart as if his own nearest and dearest had been concerned." On Thursday the 17th of May, and for many days more, the business of the Savoy Protestants was the chief occupation of the Council. Letters, all in Milton's Latin, but signed by the Lord Protector in his own name, were despatched (May 25) to the Duke of Savoy himself, to the French King, to the States General of the United Provinces, to the Protestant Swiss Cantons, to the King of Sweden, to the King of Denmark, and to Ragotski, Prince of Transylvania. A day of humiliation was appointed for the Cities of London and Westminster, and another for all England. A Committee was appointed, consisting of all the Councillors, with Sir Christopher Pack and other eminent citizens, and also some ministers, to organize a general collection of money throughout England and Wales in behalf of the suffering Vaudois. The collection, as arranged June 1, was to take the form of a house-to-house visitation by the ministers and churchwardens in every city, town, and parish on a particular Lord's day, for the receipt of whatever sum each householder might freely give, every such sum to be noted in presence of the donor, and the aggregates, parish by parish, or city by city, to be remitted to the treasurers in London, who were to enter them duly in a general register. The subscription, which lagged for a time in some districts, produced at length a total of £38,097 7_s._ 3_d._--equal to about £137,000 now. Of this sum £2000 (equal to about £7500 now) was Cromwell's own contribution, while London and Westminster contributed £9384 6_s._ 11_d._, and the various counties sums of various magnitudes, according to their size, wealth, and zeal, from Devonshire at the head, with £1965 0_s._ 3_d._, Yorkshire next, with £1786 14_s._ 5_d._, and Essex next, with £1512 17_s._ 7_d._, down to Merionethshire yielding £3 0_s._ 1_d._ from her eight parishes, and Radnorshire £1 14_s._ 4_d._ from her seven. Cromwell's own donation of £2000 went at once to Geneva for immediate use; and £10,000 followed on the 10th of July, as the first instalment of the general subscription. There were similar subscriptions, it ought to be added, in other Protestant countries.[1]