Although the proper democratic spirit existed in great strength in many of the leaders of the Great Rebellion, and its extravagances generally affected the army, and some of the powerful leaders of that convulsion, yet extension of political power was not the object of the _national_ will. This is decisively proved by the fact, that when they gained the power, the people made no attempt, in any material respect, to alter the public institutions. Cromwell, doubtless, was a military usurper; but a military usurper is only the head of a warlike republic, and he is constrained to obey the wishes of the soldiers who have elevated him to power. Neither he nor the Long Parliament made any important alterations on the lasting structure of government, though, for the time, they totally altered its practice. The law was administered on the old precedents during the whole Protectorate. The estates of the malignants were put under sequestration, and many of the church lands were confiscated, but no great alteration in the foundations of government took place. Power, when the military oppression was removed, immediately returned to its former seats. The parliaments summoned by Cromwell proved so refractory, that they were in general dissolved after having sat a few days; juries, throughout his reign, were so hostile to his government that they acquitted nearly all the state offenders brought before them; and legal prosecutions fell into disuse. Every thing was done by military force; but it never occurred to him to turn up the soil, so as to bring up fresh elements into action:--he never thought of summoning a parliament resting on universal suffrage, or establishing a revolutionary tribunal, the jurors of which were nominated by that democratic assembly. So as the victorious party were allowed to chant hymns as they pleased, and hear long sermons replete with any absurdity, and indulge in the freedom of the pulpit, they cared nothing for that of the press, or altering the structure of government. When Charles II. was recalled by Monk, he had only to issue writs to the counties and boroughs which had returned the Long Parliament, to obtain the most thoroughly loyal commons which ever sat in England.