THE DUTCH WAR 87 
Islands, since it was feared that the Dutch might make an 
attempt to secure a permanent footing in some of the islands 
which they had so long used as fishing stations.1 The Earl 
of Seaforth, moreover, had declared for the king, and 
Charles’ supporters were intriguing with the Dutch, offering 
them ports and fishing facilities in return for help against 
the troops of Cromwell. Thus, in 1653, the Earl of Glencairn 
in a letter to Middleton, whom the king had already commis- 
sioned as his Lieutenant-General in Scotland, but who was 
still engaged in Holland in an attempt to procure aid for the 
rising of Scottish royalists,? urges him to represent to the 
Estates of the United Provinces “what great advantages 
will redound to them by assisting us, and how able we are 
to promote there interest, by making a diversive warr, and 
how willing we are that the King our Soveraigne should 
posses them with any places or sea-ports which they shall 
desire, to be possessed by them for ever, for the securing of 
their fishing and commerce.” ® Middleton acted on these 
instructions by including the offer of fortified posts in the 
Orkneys, Shetland, and the Western Isles, in his ‘‘ Second 
Memorial ”’ to the Estates of the United Provinces.* Cromwell 
and his officers in Scotland, however, were alive to the 
situation ; Colonel Lilburne, the commander-in-chief in Scot- 
land, was ordered to secure against possible attack all the 
ports threatened: he established garrisons in the Lewis at 
1Cal. S.P. Dom. Commonwealth, 1651-52, p. 255. 
2 Scotland and the Commonwealth, Firth, pp. 46, 60. 
3 Ibid. p. 158. 
4“ D’avantage sa Majesté accordera a leur Seigneuries de faire bastir 
telles forteresses qu’elles voudront, dans les Isles Orcades, Hetland, et 
Isles Occidentales d’Escosse, ce qui servira grandement pour asseurer leur 
trafficq des Indes et vers le Septentrion; La pescherie aussi s’y pourra 
continuer tant en hiver qu’en esté, et avec beaucoup moins des fraiz, et 
des gens qu’ils n’ont accoustumé d’embarquer pour Ja pesche, les havres 
dans ces Iles leur estants tousjours ouverts, ou estants aidez par ceux de 
ce pais la a saler et dresser leur poissons, ils pourront plus faire avec cent, 
qu’a ceste heure avec trois cents.” —Ibid. p. 236. 
