“The So-called Council of State” 1649–1652negotiations, Milton was ordered (May 16) to get a complete list of Guimarães’s
retinue to expedite their passports. On other fronts, he wrote a letter for parliament
to the Senate of Danzig (February 6, 1650) urging that city not to enforce Poland’s
imposition of a tax on English trade goods to aid Charles II (CPW V.2, 544–5). On
March 28 he was ordered to translate the “Intercursus Magna,” a treaty signed in
1495 between England, Austria, and Holland that the Dutch were proposing as a
basis for negotiations then in progress in The Hague.^103 During the spring and
summer Milton wrote letters protesting various injuries – arrests, seizures of goods,
and sometimes violence – offered to English merchants in areas controlled by Spain:
Malaga, Flanders, and the Canary Islands.^104 The Canary Islands letter survives in
the council’s English and Milton’s Latin versions, providing an indication of how
Milton often improved upon the drafts he was given to work from.^105
Milton’s answer to Salmasius was published on February 24, 1651.^106 The title page
showcases its author: Joannis Miltoni Angli Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Contra Claudii
Anonymi, aliàs Salmasii, Defensionem Regiam. In testimony of its status, many copies
bore the official arms of the Commonwealth, a shield with English cross and Irish harp
within. Milton’s title, Defense of the English People, plays off Salmasius’s title, Defense of
the King, and he presents himself (again) as a solitary hero–scholar taking up an epic-
like challenge. His tract follows Salmasius chapter by chapter, answering his charges,
satirizing his Latinity and his scholarly practices, and jeering at him as a hen-pecked
husband, slavish at home and in his politics. It also offers a forceful defense of the
English republic and an elaboration of Milton’s developing republican theory. The
argument and rhetoric of this formidable Latin treatise are discussed on pages 271–7.
On March 5 the council arranged for reprints as needed, and in 1651 there were
at least two reissues, several European editions, and a Dutch translation.^107 Soon a
second English edition, “Emendatior,” was published as an elegant folio, often on
heavy paper with lined margins, and Milton gave several of these as presentation
copies.^108 At about the same time Milton had another cause for elation and pride:
the birth of his first son, carefully recorded in the family Bible: “My son, John, was
born on Sunday March the 16th about half an hower past nine at night 1650
[1651].”^109 He was, happily, spared some vision to greet both these hopeful off-
spring. On June 18 the council offered official thanks for the Defensio and an award
of £100 which Milton refused, scorning to appear to write for reward as he claimed
Salmasius had done.^110 Canceling that order, the council voted him more elaborate
thanks in terms that must have gratified him:
The Councel takeing notice of the manie good services performed by Mr. John Mylton
their Secretarie for forreigne languages to this State and commonwealth particularlie
of his booke in Vindication of the Parliament and people of England against the
calumnies and invectives of Salmasius, have thought fitt to declare their resentment
[appreciation] and good acceptance of the same and that the thankes of the Councel
bee returned to Mr. Mylton, and their sense represented in that behalfe, (LR III, 43)