ABSTRACT
During the debates on the recognition of Richard Cromwell as Protector in the early part of 1659 the Republican speakers took the opportunity to defend the financial administration of the Long Parliament and to contrast it favourably with that of Cromwell. They asserted that the Long Parliament had left the State free from debt and in possession of £600,000 in cash besides; and they maintained it was only when Cromwell attained supreme power that the Government's financial difficulties began to arise by means of regular deficits which accumulated until an unmanageable debt was left at his death. 1 This accusation was repeated by the Republican Edmund Ludlow in his Memoirs, who put Cromwell's cash in hand at £450,000; 2 and Mrs. Hutchinson, wife of a republican colonel, also related how
the parliament… by the blessing of God, restored the commonwealth to such a happy, rich, and plentiful condition, that it was not so flourishing before the war, and although the taxes that were paid were great, yet the people were rich and able to pay them: they were in a way of paying all the soldiers’ arrears, had some hundred thousand pounds in their purses, and were free from enemies in arms within and without, except the Dutch, whom they had beaten and brought to seek peace upon terms honourable to the English…, 3
