=Source.=--_The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow._ Ed. C. H. Firth. Oxford,
1894. Vol. i., pp. 144, 145.
In the meantime I observed that another party was not idle: for,
walking one morning with Lieutenant-General Cromwell in Sir Robert
Cotton's garden, he inveighed bitterly against them, saying in a
familiar way to me, "If thy father were alive, he would let some
of them hear what they deserve," adding further "that it was a
miserable thing to serve a Parliament, to whom let a man be never
so faithful, if one pragmatical fellow amongst them rise up and
asperse him, he shall never wipe it off. Whereas," said he, "when one
serves under a general, he may do as much service, and yet be free
from all blame and envy." This text, together with the comment that
his after-actions put upon it, hath since persuaded me that he had
already conceived the design of destroying the civil authority, and
setting up of himself; and that he took that opportunity to feel my
pulse, whether I were a fit instrument to be employed by him to those
ends. But having replied to his discourse, that we ought to perform
the duty of our stations, and trust God with our honour, power, and
all that is dear to us, not permitting any such considerations to
discourage us from the prosecution of our duty, I never heard any
more from him upon that point.