ABSTRACT
Widespread criticism of the prosecution of the expedition against the Spanish represented only part of the challenge for the Lord Protector. Failure might also suggest that God did not smile upon his leadership of England or even on the entire revolution that brought him to power. A Dialogue casts a seaman as a knowledgeable and godly informant, who addresses a soldier. Most of the men who went with the expeditionary force from England with the army had not returned – either dead or trapped on Jamaica by a policy that prohibited their departure. The soldier’s questions convey some common concerns circulating at the time, while the sailor’s responses give the answers that the authorities wanted the public to consider. The seaman describes a just war, rooted in religion and the necessity of the propagation of the gospel. He presents Spain and the Catholic Church as the ideological antithesis of the English and a threat to future prosperity and safety.
