ABSTRACT
A manuscript containing a summary of the major works of James Harrington, including his Oceana, is kept at the University of Poitiers. The fact that the manuscript was elaborated in Leghorn strongly suggests that some English merchants of that city stood behind it. The Council of State appointed Charles Longland English Admiralty agent at the end of 1651. This refusal to sign can in fact be considered Longland's first act as the English agent of the Admiralty in Leghorn, although his formal appointment and the instructions that defined his tasks were only given to him in March 1652. After the regicide the English inhabitants of the port remained divided into those who supported the new republican government and those who did not approve of the new institutional structure of England. Longland came from a strong anti-Catholic family tradition. Longland provided detailed information about the plague that raged in Italy between 1656 and 1657, while leaving Tuscany undamaged.
