It was not, however, the _Areopagitica_, but his vindication of the execution of Charles the First that procured for Milton the office of Latin Secretary under Cromwell's government. His boundless admiration for Cromwell had shown itself already in his immortal sonnet on the great soldier. He considered Cromwell the greatest and the best man of his generation, or of many generations; and he regarded Cromwell's assumption of the supreme power, as well as his retention of that power with a sovereign title, "as no real suppression of the republic, but as necessary for the preservation of the republic." Cromwell, in turn, saw in Milton a most powerful defender of the new commonwealth. By 1651 it was generally conceded that "the reputation of the Commonwealth abroad had been established by two agencies, and only two:--the victories of Cromwell, and the prose pamphlets of John Milton." In the nature of the case, their friendship and mutual respect of the two men was inevitable.
After the death of Charles, new treaties had to be drawn between England and Spain, England and France and Italy and Holland. These state papers were all written in Latin, and the Secretary of Latin and of Foreign Relations was a great person in the cabinet of every country. Milton's knowledge of Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, as well as Latin and Greek, made him an important figure in the deliberations of Cromwell's Council of State. His special duty was the drafting in Latin of letters of state, but from the first, he was employed in every conceivable kind of work. The council looked to him for everything in the nature of literary vigilance in the interests of the struggling Commonwealth. He was employed in personal conferences, in the examination of suspected papers, in interviews with their authors and printers, agents of foreign towns, envoys, ambassadors. It was a period of intense and feverish activity, with cabinet meetings, conferences between the leaders of the government, necessarily held at night. In that era of candle-light and flickering torches, with oil and electricity both still unknown, Milton, with despatches to be translated, notes to be made at all hours, was soon imperilling his eyesight. He was forty years of age when he took the post; at forty-six, as a result of his continuous and indomitable activities, he had ruined his eyes and was totally blind.