As against the King, the trick was a good one; but, like many another financier, William, Earl of Bedford, was shortsighted.  The more anxious the King grew to pay out public money to the Russells, the less able he grew to do so, till at last he lost not only the shadow of power over the treasury, but life itself; and William, Earl of Bedford, brought in his bill to the Commonwealth.

Cromwell was of the same class, and knew the trick too well.  He gave the family leave to prosecute their digging to forget their demand for money.  The Act was passed at noon.  Bedford was sent for at seven o’clock the next morning and ordered to attend upon Cromwell, “and make thankful acknowledgments.”  He did so.

The works began once more.  The common people, in their simplicity, rose as they had so often risen before, against a benefit they could not comprehend; but they no longer had a Stuart to deal with.  To their extreme surprise they were put down “with the aid of the military.”  Then, for all the world as in the promotion of a modern company, the consulting engineer of the original promotors reappears.  The Russells had patched it up with Vermuyden, and the work was resumed a third time.

There was, however, this difficulty, that though Englishmen might properly be constrained at this moment to love an orderly and godly life, and to relinquish their property when it was to the public good that they should do so, yet it would have been abhorrent to the whole spirit of the Commonwealth to enslave them even for a work of national advantage.  A labour difficulty arose, and the works were in grave peril.

Those whose petty envy may be pleased at the entanglement of William, Earl of Bedford, have forgotten the destiny which maintains our great families.  In the worst of the crisis the battle of Dunbar was fought; 166 Scotch prisoners (and later 500 more) were indentured out to dig the ditches, and it was printed and posted in the end of 1651 that it was “death without mercy” for any to attempt to escape.

The respite was not for long.  Heaven, as though to try the patience of its chosen agent, raised up a new obstacle before the great patriot.  Peace was made, and the Scotch prisoners were sent home.  It was but the passing frown which makes the succeeding smiles of the Deity more gracious.  At that very moment Blake was defeating the Dutch upon the seas, and these excellent prisoners, laborious, and (by an accident which clearly shows the finger of Divine providence) especially acquainted with the digging of ditches, arrived in considerable numbers, chained, and were handed over to the Premier House.  At the same time it was ordered by the Lord Protector that when the 95,000 acres should at last be dry, any Protestant, even though he were a foreigner, might buy.  Two years later an unfortunate peace compelled the return of the Dutch prisoners; but the work was done, and the Earl of Bedford returned thanks in his cathedral.