of his offence.

He could not see his wife. He could not learn whether she was alive or dead.

At every blow they asked him to confess his crimes. What crimes? They could not say he must confess of his own will and virtue. What was he to say? He would have told them anything, true or false, to stay their hands; for George was not a martyr; and he only wished to live and trade in peace.

Three years elapsed without producing the confessions wanted by the Holy Office. George was then brought into the trial-chamber, and in the presence of seven judges was accused of various crimes of being a heretic; of denying some of the seven sacraments; of presuming to marry a Catholic lady; of persuading his wife to change her creed; of meaning to carry his wife into England; of not hearing mass in San Lucar; of not confessing to a priest; of eating flesh on fast-days; and of doubting the miracles wrought by Spanish saints. He pleaded not guilty. But instead of producing witnesses to prove his alleged crimes, the judges ordered him to be tortured in their presence, until he confessed the truth of what was charged against him. For a while his strength and resolution bore him up; but his tormentors persevered, and at the end of four hours of excruciating and accumulating torments, he offered to confess anything they would suggest. Not satisfied with a confession which by the usages of Spain gave up his whole property to the Holy Office, the judges put him to the rack again, and by still more refined and delicate

torture forced from him a terrible oath that he would live and die a Catholic, and would defend that form of faith at the risk of his life against every enemy, on pain of being burned to death. He was then cut down from the rack, placed on a hurdle, and conveyed to his former dungeon, where the surgeon had to set his broken limbs, and swathe his lacerated flesh. A little light was now let into his cell; but ten weeks elapsed before he could be lifted from his bed of pain.

Neither George himself nor those who were nursing him back to life, expected that he would quit his cell for any other purpose than to make a holiday for the Sevillian mob. Near to his dungeon lay the public square in which heretics, Jews, and Moors, were burnt in honour of Holy Church. To that infamous square, every man condemned by the Inquisition, and whether he confessed his sins or not, was always led; and George supposed that when his limbs were strong enough to bear his weight, he would be marched like others to the place of death.

He could not know as yet how strong of arm, how quick to save, his country was becoming, since the Stuart dynasty was put away.

Captain Penn, while cruising off the coast of Munster, ran down a prize called the St. Patrick, bound for Bilboa in Spain, on board of which he found among his prisoners, Don Juan de Urbina, secretary to the Spanish Viceroy of the Low Countries. Penn seized this great official, and stripping him naked, thrust him into the hold.' Don Juan talked

big, as men like him are apt to do; and Señor Bernardo, Philip's envoy in London, made complaints to the Council of the insult offered to a man of such high birth and such official rank. Of course, apologies were made; the Don was put into softer hands; and Admiral Swanley was instructed to inquire into the conduct of Captain Penn. Then came out the facts. If such acts of wild justice could not be openly maintained, the tale of George's suffering went to the nation's heart. Don Juan was sent home in another ship, but the prisoner of the Holy Office, in whose cause he had been seized, was snatched from the burning pile.

So soon as Uncle George' could walk, he was fetched from his cell in the Inquisition by the seven judges and their households; robed in the San Benito, and carried in the midst of a great procession of monks and priests through the streets of Seville, to the cathedral church. In this church a scaffold was raised, up which they made him mount, so that every eye could see him, as his sentence was slowly read by the secretary of the Inquisition. That sentence opened in the usual way. The prisoner was a heretic; his goods were confiscated; his wife was taken from him; but for certain reasons his life was to be spared. He was pardoned by holy Church; but he was driven out from Spain for ever; wife was given to a good Catholic for the salvation of her soul; and he was threatened with fire and fagot should he fall away from his newly-adopted faith.

his

While the three children of Captain Penn were

growing up at Wanstead, Penn was getting rich and rising to higher rank. His prizes yielded him a great deal more than he got in pay; and some of this money he laid out in land. At twenty-three he was Rear-admiral in the Irish Sea; at twenty-five he was Vice-admiral; and at twenty-nine, under the Commonwealth, he was sent as Vice-admiral into the Straits of Gibraltar, the ports and cities of which he had known from his earliest years.

Great changes were taking place on land, of which he took but distant note. Charles Stuart, for whom his father had bought hawks and horses, had lost his crown and life. The hero of Dunbar and Worcester was lord of all. But the change from parliament to protector wrought no change in Vice-admiral Penn, who stuck to his duties and avoided politics. When Cromwell announced to the fleet that he had taken the reins of power into his own hands, Penn was one of the first to send in his adhesion, with that of all the officers under his command.

For the next few years the hand of genius was felt in every department of the administration. While the great powers of the State were in conflict, Spain had treated us with haughty disdain,-France had insulted us at every turn,-even Holland fancied we were no longer worthy of her ire. But Cromwell's arms soon taught them better. Ireland punished and Scotland pacified, he turned his resolute face towards Holland, France, and Spain. The Dutchman lay the nearest and had most provoked his wrath; but Holland was pre-eminently a naval power, and in dealing with her his invincible infantry was of little use.

Genius finds its own resources.

Resolved to infuse into the navy, as he had already done into the army his own heroic spirit, he employed in his fleet two captains of his camp, Blake and Monk; but these officers, though filled with an energy of spirit like his own, were in a great measure ignorant of the sea. All that courage, activity, and resolution. could do he expected them to accomplish; but he saw the necessity of placing by the side of these soldiers a worthy sea-captain, and for this important post he selected the young Admiral of the Straits. The Lord Protector knew that Penn was not attached to his person and government; but he needed his services; and seeing that Penn was a worldly man, and of the earth most earthy, he supposed that pensions and honours could secure his sword, if not his heart. What Cromwell wanted was his sword. Vice-admiral Penn had no objection to fight the countrymen of his wife. He was a sailor, as he used to say, and must be faithful to his flag.

When peace was made with Holland, Cromwell turned to Spain, the old and strenuous enemy of his country. England had a thousand scores to settle with the Spanish court; and two great expeditions were prepared in silence in the spring of 1655; one expedition, under Sea-general Blake, to act in Europe, sweep the Spanish coasts, and fight the Spanish fleets wherever he could find them; while a second expedition was to cross the ocean, search the Spanish main, alarm the coasts and islands, take possesion of San Domingo and St. John's-if possible,—and seize some portion of the continent, such as Cartagena.