Add MS 4364-4365

COLLECTIONS RELATING TO THE SWISS CANTONS

State papers and letters relating chiefly to the affairs of the Swiss Evangelical Cantons and Piedmont, and to Cromwell's efforts in 1656-1657, to detach the Cantons from France and to create throughout Europe an universal Protestant League. Two volumes. 1632-1714. Paper. Folio. Included are many letters from John Pell, Cromwell's Agent to the Cantons, and subsequently Resident at Zurich, and of John Durie, who with Cromwell's approbation acted with Pell, visiting the Cantons and various states of Germany, Holland, etc. (For other correspondence of John Pell see Add. MSS. 4278-4280, 24850 and Lansdowne MSS. 745- 755). Some of the letters in Vol. I are signed by, them jointly, while others are written under the name of Pell's servant 'Marcus' or 'Marcus Feege', and addressed to 'Adrian Peters, Merchant, London' (i.e. J. Thurloe). In Vol. II Durie writes generally as 'John Robertson', and some of his letters relate to his second journey to the Continent, undertaken in 1661 with the same object, the Union of the Churches. The collection includes many newsletters from France, Holland, Germany and Sweden, some being addressed to Samuel Hartlib and forwarded by him to Thurloe. A few by the latter will be found printed in The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, by Robert Vaughan, 1838, or in Thurloe State Papers, ed. Birch, 1742. This volume also contains some of Pell's private and scientific papers (see also Add. MSS. 4394-4404 and 4407-4431). The principal contents are as follows:-