The leader of these despised legislators was Sir Harry Vane, the only man living who in Parliamentary ability could claim to be a rival of Cromwell. But Vane’s great object was to diminish the army, and to increase the fleet; and as chief Minister of Naval affairs he had succeeded in passing the Navigation Act, which, by restricting the importation of foreign goods to English ships, struck a fatal blow at Dutch Commerce, hitherto controlling the carrying trade. This act was felt to be a virtual declaration of war, and though negotiations for peace were going on, English and Dutch sailors were flying red flags, and fighting each other in the Downs. Everything relating to the conduct of affairs both in Church and State was provisional and chaotic; and the condition of religion, law, and all social matters, filled Cromwell with pity and anger. He wanted the Amnesty Act, to relieve the conquered royalists, passed at once. Intensely conservative by nature, he was impatient for the settlement of the nation, and of some stable form of government. And he had behind him an army which was the flower of the people,—men who knew themselves to be the natural leaders of their countrymen,—trained politicians, unconquered soldiers; the passion, the courage, and the conscience of England in arms. Their demands were few, but definite, and held with an intense tenacity. They wanted, first of all, the widest religious freedom for themselves and others; secondly, an orderly government and the abolition of all the abuses for which Laud and Charles had died. And though devoted to their great chief, they longed to return to their homes and to civil life, therefore they echoed strenuously Cromwell’s cry for a "speedy settlement," a consummation which the sitting Parliament was in no hurry to take in hand. On this state of affairs Cromwell looked with a hot heart. Untiring in patience when things had to be waited for, he was sudden and impatient when work ought to be done, and his constant word then was—"without delay." There was a meeting of the Council at the Speaker’s house the night after Israel Swaffham’s indignant protest against the Parliament, and Cromwell, sitting among those self-seeking men, was scornfully angry at their deliberations. His passion for public and social justice burned and in a thunderous speech, lit by flashes of blinding wrath, he spoke out of a full and determined heart. Then he mounted his horse and rode homeward. It was late, and the city’s ways were dark and still; and as he mused, he was uplifted by a mystical ecstasy, flowing from an intense realisation of his personal communion with God.