But the triumphs of the Parliament extend to enemies abroad; Portugal and Holland are both humbled, Barbadoes and Jamaica forced to surrender. Du Gard remained true to his promise. All Europe might peruse the famous letter, "des généraux de l'armée navale du Parlement et de la République d'Angleterre au très honorable Guil. Lenthal ecuier, orateur dudit Parlement, écrite à bord du navire le Triomfe en la baie dite de Stoake," and signed: Robert Blake, Richard Deane, George Monck. Sprung from the ranks of the people, those revolutionists used, when occasion needed, the language of patricians. "M. Bourdeaux (the French envoy) having delivered a copy of the letters accrediting him and subscribed: To our very dear and good friends, the people of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, it was directed to be returned, for all addresses should be subscribed: To the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England" (p. 513).
Such patriotic pride must move the writer of the _Nouvelles ordinaires_. So in one of his very few outbursts of humour he exclaims: "The King of Portugal being unable to do us harm, had tried to frighten us, but being unable to do either, on the contrary showing the most egregious cowardice and poltroonery as ever was seen, without the slightest regard for his reputation, has tried to conceal his shame by a lying account, signed by himself; if the said King thinks he has seen what he has written, it must be said that his spectacles were set awry" (p. 45).
Religious intelligence takes up a great space in the _Nouvelles ordinaires_. The readers are not spared a single proclamation about days of fasting and repentance; lengthy abstracts are duly given of the sermons preached at the Abbey or St. Margaret's; nor are the wordy resolutions of the several committees on religious affairs omitted. The _quakers_ are often spoken about. The first risings of the sect are set forth with the kind of minuteness that appeals to a modern historian. They are "evil-disposed and melancholy people" (_gens malfaits et mélancoliques_); most pestilent and persevering proselytisers, with an inordinate appetite for martyrdom, they appear at the same time in the most unexpected quarters; driven from Boston, they cause a holy panic in Hamburgh and Bordeaux (p. 1375). Their leader, or at any rate "the chief pillar of that frenzied sect," is named George Fox. "Many think the said Fox is a popish priest, there being several of that garb among the said quakers, and what makes the opinion plausible is that he is strong for popish and arminian tenets, such, for instance, as salvation by good works." (p. 981).