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.