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of fresh numbers, and those who resided in the neighbouring towns, had
received orders to assemble at one place, on the twentieth of November.
Carriages and horses were provided for all; captains and under officers
chosen, and the whole assemblage wisely organized. All obeyed the Lord
Protector of dying England; all looked up to him. His council was chosen,
it consisted of about fifty persons. Distinction and station were not the
qualifications of their election. We had no station among us, but that
which benevolence and prudence gave; no distinction save between the living
and the dead. Although we were anxious to leave England before the depth of
winter, yet we were detained. Small parties had been dispatched to various
parts of England, in search of stragglers; we would not go, until we had
assured ourselves that in all human probability we did not leave behind a
single human being.
On our arrival in London, we found that the aged Countess of Windsor was
residing with her son in the palace of the Protectorate; we repaired to our
accustomed abode near Hyde Park. Idris now for the first time for many
years saw her mother, anxious to assure herself that the childishness of
old age did not mingle with unforgotten pride, to make this high-born dame
still so inveterate against me. Age and care had furrowed her cheeks, and
bent her form; but her eye was still bright, her manners authoritative and
unchanged; she received her daughter coldly, but displayed more feeling as
she folded her grand-children in her arms. It is our nature to wish to
continue our systems and thoughts to posterity through our own offspring.
The Countess had failed in this design with regard to her children; perhaps
she hoped to find the next remove in birth more tractable. Once Idris named
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