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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of History of James the Second
+by Charles James Fox
+(#1 in our series by Charles James Fox)
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+Title: A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second
+
+Author: Charles James Fox
+
+Release Date: July, 2003  [Etext #4245]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on December 18, 2001]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of History of James the Second
+by Charles James Fox
+******This file should be named hsjms10.txt or hsjms10.zip******
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+
+
+
+A HISTORY OF THE EARLY PART OF THE REIGN OF JAMES THE SECOND
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+Fox's "History of the Reign of James II.," which begins with his
+view of the reign of Charles II. and breaks off at the execution of
+Monmouth, was the beginning of a History of England from the
+Revolution, upon which he worked in the last years of his life, for
+which he collected materials in Paris after the Peace of Amiens, in
+1802--he died in September, 1806--and which was first published in
+1808.
+
+The grandfather of Charles James Fox was Stephen, son of William
+Fox, of Farley, in Wiltshire.  Stephen Fox was a young royalist
+under Charles I.  He was twenty-two at the time of the king's
+execution, went into exile during the Commonwealth, came back at the
+Restoration, was appointed paymaster of the first two regiments of
+guards that were raised, and afterwards Paymaster of all the Forces.
+In that office he made much money, but rebuilt the church at Farley,
+and earned lasting honour as the actual founder of Chelsea Hospital,
+which was opened in 1682 for wounded and superannuated soldiers.
+The ground and buildings had been appointed by James I., in 1609, as
+Chelsea College, for the training of disputants against the Roman
+Catholics.  Sir Stephen Fox himself contributed thirteen thousand
+pounds to the carrying out of this design.  Fox's History dealt,
+therefore, with times in which his grandfather had played a part.
+
+In 1703, when his age was seventy-six, Stephen Fox took a second
+wife, by whom he had two sons, who became founders of two families;
+Stephen, the elder, became first Earl of Ilchester; Henry, the
+younger, who married Georgina, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and
+was himself created, in 1763, Baron Holland of Farley.  Of the
+children of that marriage Charles James Fox was the third son, born
+on the 24th of January, 1749.  The second son had died in infancy.
+
+Henry Fox inherited Tory opinions.  He was regarded by George II. as
+a good man of business, and was made Secretary of War in 1754, when
+Charles James, whose cleverness made him a favoured child, was five
+years old.  In the next year Henry Fox was Secretary of State for
+the Southern Department.  The outbreak of the Seven Years' War bred
+discontent and change of Ministry.  The elder Fox had then to give
+place to the elder Pitt.  But Henry Fox was compensated by the
+office of Paymaster of the Forces, from which he knew even better
+than his father had known how to extract profit.  He rapidly
+acquired the wealth which he joined to his title as Lord Holland of
+Farley, and for which he was attacked vigorously, until two hundred
+thousand pounds--some part of the money that stayed by him--had been
+refunded.
+
+Henry Fox, Lord Holland, found his boy, Charles James, brilliant and
+lively, made him a companion, and indulged him to the utmost.  Once
+he expressed a strong desire to break a watch that his father was
+winding up:  his father gave it him to dash upon the floor.  Once
+his father had promised that when an old garden wall at Holland
+House was blown down with gunpowder before replacing it with iron
+railings, he should see the explosion.  The workmen blew it down in
+the boy's absence:  his father had the wall rebuilt in its old form
+that it might be blown down again in his presence, and his promise
+kept.  He was sent first to Westminster School, and then to Eton.
+At home he was his father's companion, joined in the talk of men at
+his father's dinner-parties, travelled at fourteen with his father
+to the Continent, and is said to have been allowed five guineas a
+night for gambling-money.  He grew up reckless of the worth of
+money, and for many years the excitement of gambling was to him as
+one of the necessaries of life.  His immense energy at school and
+college made him work as hard as the most diligent man who did
+nothing else, and devote himself to gambling, horse-racing, and
+convivial pleasures as vigorously as if he were the weak man capable
+of nothing else.  The Eton boys all prophesied his future fame.  At
+Oxford, where he entered Hertford College, he was one of the best
+men of his time, and one of the wildest.  A clergyman, strong in
+Greek, was arguing with young Fox against the genuineness of a verse
+of the Iliad because its measure was unusual.  Fox at once quoted
+from memory some twenty parallels.
+
+From college he went on the usual tour of Europe, spending lavishly,
+incurring heavy debts, and sending home large bills for his father
+to pay.  One bill alone, paid by his father to a creditor at Naples,
+was for sixteen thousand pounds.  He came back in raiment of the
+highest fashion, and was put into Parliament in 1768, not yet twenty
+years old, as member for Midhurst.  He began his political life with
+the family opinions, defended the Ministry against John Wilkes, and
+was provided promptly with a place as Paymaster of the Pensions to
+the Widows of Land Officers, and then, when he had reached the age
+of twenty-one, there was a seat found for him at the Board of
+Admiralty.
+
+At once Fox made his mark in the House as a brilliant debater with
+an intellectual power and an industry that made him master of the
+subjects he discussed.  Still also he was scattering money, and
+incurring debt, training race-horses, and staking heavily at
+gambling tables.  When a noble friend, who was not a gambler,
+offered to bet fifty pounds upon a throw, Fox declined, saying, "I
+never play for pence."
+
+After a few years of impatient submission to Lord North, Fox broke
+from him, and it was not long before he had broken from Lord North's
+opinions and taken the side of the people in all leading questions.
+He became the friend of Burke; and joined in the attack upon the
+policy of Coercion that destroyed the union between England and her
+American colonies.  In 1774, at the age of twenty-five, Fox lost by
+death his father, his mother, and his elder brother, who had
+succeeded to the title, and who had left a little son to be his
+heir.  In February of that year Lord North had finally broken with
+Fox by causing a letter to be handed to him in the House of Commons
+while he was sitting by his side on the Treasury Bench.
+
+
+"His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the
+Treasury to be made out, in which I do not perceive your name.
+NORTH."
+
+
+By the end of the year he was member for Malmesbury, and one of the
+chiefs in opposition.  When Lord North opened the session of 1775
+with a speech arguing the need of coercion, Fox compared what ought
+to have been done with what was done, and said that Lord Chatham,
+the King of Prussia, nay, even Alexander the Great, never gained
+more in one campaign than Lord North had lost.  He had lost a whole
+continent.  When Lord North's ministry fell in 1782, Fox became a
+Secretary of State, resigning on the death of Rockingham.  In
+coalition with Lord North, Fox brought in an India Bill, which was
+rejected by the Lords, and caused a resignation of the Ministry.
+Pitt then came into office, and there was rivalry between a Pitt and
+a Fox of the second generation, with some reversal in each son of
+the political bias of his father.
+
+In opposing the policy that caused the American Revolution Fox and
+Burke were of one mind.  He opposed the slave trade.  After the
+outbreak of the French Revolution he differed from Burke, and
+resolutely opposed Pitt's policy of interference by armed force.
+
+William Pitt died on the 23rd January, 1806.  Charles James Fox
+became again a Secretary of State, and had set on foot negotiations
+for a peace with France before his own death, eight months later, at
+the age of fifty-seven.
+
+During the last ten or twelve years of his life Fox had withdrawn
+from the dissipations of his earlier years.  His interest in horse-
+racing flagged after the death, in 1793, of his friend Lord Foley, a
+kindly, honourable man, upon whose judgment in such matters Fox had
+greatly relied.  Lord Foley began his sporting life with a clear
+estate of 1,800 pounds a year, and 100,000 pounds in ready money.
+He ended his sporting and his earthly life with an estate heavily
+encumbered and an empty pocket.
+
+H. M.
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY OF THE EARLY PART OF THE REIGN OF JAMES II.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
+
+
+
+Introductory observations--First period, from Henry VII. to the year
+1588--Second period, from 1588 to 1640--Meeting of Parliament--
+Redress of grievances--Strafford's attainder--The commencement of
+the Civil War--Treaty from the Isle of Wight--The king's execution--
+Cromwell's power; his character--Indifference of the nation
+respecting forms of government--The Restoration--Ministry of
+Clarendon sod Southampton--Cabal--Dutch War--De Witt--The Prince of
+Orange--The Popish plot--The Habeas Corpus Act--The Exclusion Bill--
+Dissolution of Charles the Second's last Parliament--His power; his
+tyranny in Scotland; in England--Exorbitant fines--Executions--
+Forfeitures of charters--Despotism established--Despondency of good
+men--Charles's death; his character--Reflections upon the probable
+consequences of his reign and death.
+
+In reading the history of every country there are certain periods at
+which the mind naturally pauses to meditate upon, and consider them,
+with reference, not only to their immediate effects, but to their
+more remote consequences.  After the wars of Marius and Sylla, and
+the incorporation, as it were, of all Italy with the city of Rome,
+we cannot but stop to consider the consequences likely to result
+from these important events; and in this instance we find them to be
+just such as might have been expected.
+
+The reign of our Henry VII. affords a field of more doubtful
+speculation.  Every one who takes a retrospective view of the wars
+of York and Lancaster, and attends to the regulations effected by
+the policy of that prince, must see they would necessarily lead to
+great and important changes in the government; but what the tendency
+of such changes would be, and much more, in what manner they would
+be produced, might be a question of great difficulty.  It is now the
+generally received opinion, and I think a probable opinion, that to
+the provisions of that reign we are to refer the origin, both of the
+unlimited power of the Tudors and of the liberties wrested by our
+ancestors from the Stuarts; that tyranny was their immediate, and
+liberty their remote, consequence; but he must have great confidence
+in his own sagacity who can satisfy himself that, unaided by the
+knowledge of subsequent events, he could, from a consideration of
+the causes, have foreseen the succession of effects so different.
+
+Another period that affords ample scope for speculation of this kind
+is that which is comprised between the years 1588 and 1640, a period
+of almost uninterrupted tranquillity and peace.  The general
+improvement in all arts of civil life, and, above all, the
+astonishing progress of literature, are the most striking among the
+general features of that period, and are in themselves causes
+sufficient to produce effects of the utmost importance.  A country
+whose language was enriched by the works of Hooker, Raleigh, and
+Bacon, could not but experience a sensible change in its manners and
+in its style of thinking; and even to speak the same language in
+which Spenser and Shakespeare had written seemed a sufficient plea
+to rescue the commons of England from the appellation of brutes,
+with which Henry VIII. had addressed them.  Among the more
+particular effects of this general improvement the most material and
+worthy to be considered appear to me to have been the frequency of
+debate in the House of Commons, and the additional value that came
+to be set on a seat in that assembly.
+
+From these circumstances a sagacious observer may be led to expect
+the most important revolutions; and from the latter he may be
+enabled to foresee that the House of Commons will be the principal
+instrument in bringing them to pass.  But in what manner will that
+house conduct itself?  Will it content itself with its regular share
+of legislative power, and with the influence which it cannot fail to
+possess whenever it exerts itself upon the other branches of the
+legislative, and on the executive power; or will it boldly (perhaps
+rashly) pretend to a power commensurate with the natural rights of
+the representative of the people?  If it should, will it not be
+obliged to support its claims by military force?  And how long will
+such a force be under its control?  How long before it follows the
+usual course of all armies, and ranges itself under a single master?
+If such a master should arise, will he establish an hereditary or an
+elective government?  If the first, what will be gained but a change
+of dynasty?  If the second, will not the military force, as it chose
+the first king or protector (the name is of no importance), choose
+in effect all his successors?  Or will he fail, and shall we have a
+restoration, usually the most dangerous and worst of all
+revolutions?  To some of these questions the answers may, from the
+experience of past ages, be easy, but to many of them far otherwise.
+And he will read history with most profit who the most canvasses
+questions of this nature, especially if he can divest his mind for
+the time of the recollection of the event as it in fact succeeded.
+
+The next period, as it is that which immediately precedes the
+commencement of this history, requires a more detailed examination;
+nor is there any more fertile of matter, whether for reflection or
+speculation.  Between the year 1640 and the death of Charles II. we
+have the opportunity of contemplating the state in almost every
+variety of circumstance.  Religious dispute, political contest in
+all its forms and degrees, from the honest exertions of party and
+the corrupt intrigues of faction to violence and civil war;
+despotism, first, in the person of a usurper, and afterwards in that
+of an hereditary king; the most memorable and salutary improvements
+in the laws, the most abandoned administration of them; in fine,
+whatever can happen to a nation, whether of glorious of calamitous,
+makes a part of this astonishing and instructive picture.
+
+The commencement of this period is marked by exertions of the
+people, through their representatives in the House of Commons, not
+only justifiable in their principle, but directed to the properest
+objects, and in a manner the most judicious.  Many of their leaders
+were greatly versed in ancient as well as modern learning, and were
+even enthusiastically attached to the great names of antiquity; but
+they never conceived the wild project of assimilating the government
+of England to that of Athens, of Sparta, or of Rome.  They were
+content with applying to the English constitution, and to the
+English laws, the spirit of liberty which had animated and rendered
+illustrious the ancient republics.  Their first object was to obtain
+redress of past grievances, with a proper regard to the individuals
+who had suffered; the next, to prevent the recurrence of such
+grievances by the abolition of tyrannical tribunals acting upon
+arbitrary maxims in criminal proceedings, and most improperly
+denominated courts of justice.  They then proceeded to establish
+that fundamental principle of all free government, the preserving of
+the purse to the people and their representatives.  And though there
+may be more difference of opinion upon their proposed regulations in
+regard to the militia, yet surely, when a contest was to be
+foreseen, they could not, consistently with prudence, leave the
+power of the sword altogether in the hands of an adverse party.
+
+The prosecution of Lord Strafford, or rather, the manner in which it
+was carried on, is less justifiable.  He was, doubtless, a great
+delinquent, and well deserved the severest punishment; but nothing
+short of a clearly proved case of self-defence can justify, or even
+excuse, a departure from the sacred rules of criminal justice.  For
+it can rarely indeed happen that the mischief to be apprehended from
+suffering any criminal, however guilty, to escape, can be equal to
+that resulting from the violation of those rules to which the
+innocent owe the security of all that is dear to them.  If such
+cases have existed they must have been in instances where trial has
+been wholly out of the question, as in that of Caesar and other
+tyrants; but when a man is once in a situation to be tried, and his
+person in the power of his accusers and his judges, he can no longer
+be formidable in that degree which alone can justify (if anything
+can) the violation of the substantial rules of criminal proceedings.
+
+At the breaking out of the Civil War, so intemperately denominated a
+rebellion by Lord Clarendon and other Tory writers, the material
+question appears to me to be, whether or not sufficient attempts
+were made by the Parliament and their leaders to avoid bringing
+affairs to such a decision?  That, according to the general
+principles of morality, they had justice on their side cannot fairly
+be doubted; but did they sufficiently attend to that great dictum of
+Tully in questions of civil dissension, wherein he declares his
+preference of even an unfair peace to the most just war?  Did they
+sufficiently weigh the dangers that might ensue even from victory;
+dangers, in such cases, little less formidable to the cause of
+liberty than those which might follow a defeat?  Did they consider
+that it is not peculiar to the followers of Pompey, and the civil
+wars of Rome, that the event to be looked for is, as the same Tully
+describes it, in case of defeat--proscription; in that of victory--
+servitude?  Is the failure of the negotiation when the king was in
+the Isle of Wight to be imputed to the suspicions justly entertained
+of his sincerity, or to the ambition of the parliamentary leaders?
+If the insincerity of the king was the real cause, ought not the
+mischief to be apprehended from his insincerity rather to have been
+guarded against by treaty than alleged as a pretence for breaking
+off the negotiation?  Sad, indeed, will be the condition of the
+world if we are never to make peace with an adverse party whose
+sincerity we have reason to suspect.  Even just grounds for such
+suspicions will but too often occur, and when such fail, the
+proneness of man to impute evil qualities, as well as evil designs,
+to his enemies, will suggest false ones.  In the present case the
+suspicion of insincerity was, it is true, so just, as to amount to a
+moral certainty.  The example of the petition of right was a
+satisfactory proof that the king made no point of adhering to
+concessions which he considered as extorted from him; and a
+philosophical historian, writing above a century after the time, can
+deem the pretended hard usage Charles met with as a sufficient
+excuse for his breaking his faith in the first instance, much more
+must that prince himself, with all his prejudices and notions of his
+divine right, have thought it justifiable to retract concessions,
+which to him, no doubt, appeared far more unreasonable than the
+petition of right, and which, with much more colour, he might
+consider as extorted.  These considerations were probably the cause
+why the Parliament so long delayed their determination of accepting
+the king's offer as a basis for treaty; but, unfortunately, they had
+delayed so long that when at last they adopted it they found
+themselves without power to carry it into execution.  The army
+having now ceased to be the servants, had become the masters of the
+Parliament, and, being entirely influenced by Cromwell, gave a
+commencement to what may, properly speaking, be called a new reign.
+The subsequent measures, therefore, the execution of the king, as
+well as others, are not to be considered as acts of the Parliament,
+but of Cromwell; and great and respectable as are the names of some
+who sat in the high court, they must be regarded, in this instance,
+rather as ministers of that usurper than as acting from themselves.
+
+The execution of the king, though a far less violent measure than
+that of Lord Strafford, is an event of so singular a nature that we
+cannot wonder that it should have excited more sensation than any
+other in the annals of England.  This exemplary act of substantial
+justice, as it has been called by some, of enormous wickedness by
+others, must be considered in two points of view.  First, was it not
+in itself just and necessary?  Secondly, was the example of it
+likely to be salutary or pernicious?  In regard to the first of
+these questions, Mr. Hume, not perhaps intentionally, makes the best
+justification of it by saying that while Charles lived the projected
+republic could never be secure.  But to justify taking away the life
+of an individual upon the principle of self-defence, the danger must
+be not problematical and remote, but evident and immediate.  The
+danger in this instance was not of such a nature, and the
+imprisonment or even banishment of Charles might have given to the
+republic such a degree of security as any government ought to be
+content with.  It must be confessed, however, on the other aide,
+that if the republican government had suffered the king to escape,
+it would have been an act of justice and generosity wholly
+unexampled; and to have granted him even his life would have been
+one among the more rare efforts of virtue.  The short interval
+between the deposal and death of princes is become proverbial, and
+though there may be some few examples on the other side as far as
+life is concerned, I doubt whether a single instance can be found
+where liberty has been granted to a deposed monarch.  Among the
+modes of destroying persons in such a situation, there can be little
+doubt but that that adopted by Cromwell and his adherents is the
+least dishonourable.  Edward II., Richard II., Henry VI., Edward V.,
+had none of them long survived their deposal, but this was the first
+instance, in our history at least, where, of such an act, it could
+be truly said that it was not done in a corner.
+
+As to the second question, whether the advantage to be derived from
+the example was such as to justify an act of such violence, it
+appears to me to be a complete solution of it to observe that, with
+respect to England (and I know not upon what ground we are to set
+examples for other nations; or, in other words, to take the criminal
+justice of the world into our hands) it was wholly needless, and
+therefore unjustifiable, to set one for kings at a time when it was
+intended the office of king should be abolished, and consequently
+that no person should be in the situation to make it the rule of his
+conduct.  Besides, the miseries attendant upon a deposed monarch
+seem to be sufficient to deter any prince, who thinks of
+consequences, from running the risk of being placed in such a
+situation; or, if death be the only evil that can deter him, the
+fate of former tyrants deposed by their subjects would by no means
+encourage him to hope he could avoid even that catastrophe.  As far
+as we can judge from the event, the example was certainly not very
+effectual, since both the sons of Charles, though having their
+father's fate before their eyes, yet feared not to violate the
+liberties of the people even more than he had attempted to do.
+
+If we consider this question of example in a more extended view, and
+look to the general effect produced upon the minds of men, it cannot
+be doubted but the opportunity thus given to Charles to display his
+firmness and piety has created more respect for his memory than it
+could otherwise have obtained.  Respect and pity for the sufferer on
+the one hand, and hatred to his enemies on the other, soon produce
+favour and aversion to their respective causes; and thus, even
+though it should be admitted (which is doubtful) that some advantage
+may have been gained to the cause of liberty by the terror of the
+example operating upon the minds of princes, such advantage is far
+outweighed by the zeal which admiration for virtue, and pity for
+sufferings, the best passions of the human heart, have excited in
+favour of the royal cause.  It has been thought dangerous to the
+morals of mankind, even in fiction and romance, to make us
+sympathise with characters whose general conduct is blameable; but
+how much greater must the effect be when in real history our
+feelings are interested in favour of a monarch with whom, to say the
+least, his subjects were obliged to contend in arms for their
+liberty?  After all, however, notwithstanding what the more
+reasonable part of mankind may think upon this question, it is much
+to be doubted whether this singular proceeding has not as much as
+any other circumstance, served to raise the character of the English
+nation in the opinion of Europe in general.  He who has read, and
+still more, he who has heard in conversation discussions upon this
+subject by foreigners, must have perceived that, even in the minds
+of those who condemn the act, the impression made by it has been far
+more that of respect and admiration than that of disgust and horror.
+The truth is that the guilt of the action--that is to say, the
+taking away of the life of the king, is what most men in the place
+of Cromwell and his associates would have incurred; what there is of
+splendour and of magnanimity in it, I mean the publicity and
+solemnity of the act, is what few would be capable of displaying.
+It is a degrading fact to human nature, that even the sending away
+of the Duke of Gloucester was an instance of generosity almost
+unexampled in the history of transactions of this nature.
+
+From the execution of the king to the death of Cromwell, the
+government was, with some variation of forms, in substance
+monarchical and absolute, as a government established by a military
+force will almost invariably be, especially when the exertions of
+such a force are continued for any length of time.  If to this
+general rule our own age, and a people whom their origin and near
+relation to us would almost warrant us to call our own nation, have
+afforded a splendid and perhaps a solitary exception, we must
+reflect not only that a character of virtues so happily tempered by
+one another, and so wholly unalloyed with any vices, as that of
+Washington, is hardly to be found in the pages of history, but that
+even Washington himself might not have been able to act his most
+glorious of all parts without the existence of circumstances
+uncommonly favourable, and almost peculiar to the country which was
+to be the theatre of it.  Virtue like his depends not indeed upon
+time or place; but although in no country or time would he have
+degraded himself into a Pisistratus, or a Caesar, or a Cromwell, he
+might have shared the fate of a Cato, or a De Witt; or, like Ludlow
+and Sidney, have mourned in exile the lost liberties of his country.
+
+With the life of the protector almost immediately ended the
+government which he had established.  The great talents of this
+extraordinary person had supported during his life a system
+condemned equally by reason and by prejudice:  by reason, as wanting
+freedom; by prejudice, as a usurpation; and it must be confessed to
+be no mean testimony to his genius, that notwithstanding the radical
+defects of such a system, the splendour of his character and
+exploits render the era of the protectorship one of the most
+brilliant in English history.  It is true his conduct in foreign
+concerns is set off to advantage by a comparison of it with that of
+those who preceded and who followed him.  If he made a mistake in
+espousing the French interest instead of the Spanish, we should
+recollect that in examining this question we must divest our minds
+entirely of all the considerations which the subsequent relative
+state of those two empires suggest to us before we can become
+impartial judges in it; and at any rate we must allow his reign, in
+regard to European concerns, to have been most glorious when
+contrasted with the pusillanimity of James I., with the levity of
+Charles I., and the mercenary meanness of the two last princes of
+the house of Stuart.  Upon the whole, the character of Cromwell must
+ever stand high in the list of those who raised themselves to
+supreme power by the force of their genius; and among such, even in
+respect of moral virtue, it would be found to be one of the least
+exceptionable if it had not been tainted with that most odious and
+degrading of all human vices, hypocrisy.
+
+The short interval between Cromwell's death and the restoration
+exhibits the picture of a nation either so wearied with changes as
+not to feel, or so subdued by military power as not to dare to show,
+any care or even preference with regard to the form of their
+government.  All was in the army; and that army, by such a
+concurrence of fortuitous circumstances as history teaches us not to
+be surprised at, had fallen into the hands of a man than whom a
+baser could not be found in its lowest ranks.  Personal courage
+appears to have been Monk's only virtue; reserve and dissimulation
+made up the whole stock of his wisdom.  But to this man did the
+nation look up, ready to receive from his orders the form of
+government he should choose to prescribe.  There is reason to
+believe that, from the general bias of the Presbyterians, as well as
+of the Cavaliers, monarchy was the prevalent wish; but it is
+observable that although the Parliament was, contrary to the
+principle upon which it was pretended to be called, composed of many
+avowed royalists, yet none dared to hint at the restoration of the
+king till they had Monk's permission, or rather command to receive
+and consider his letters.  It is impossible, in reviewing the whole
+of this transaction, not to remark that a general who had gained his
+rank, reputation, and station in the service of a republic, and of
+what he, as well as others, called, however falsely, the cause of
+liberty, made no scruple to lay the nation prostrate at the feet of
+a monarch, without a single provision in favour of that cause; and
+if the promise of indemnity may seem to argue that there was some
+attention, at least, paid to the safety of his associates in arms,
+his subsequent conduct gives reason to suppose that even this
+provision was owing to any other cause rather than to a generous
+feeling of his breast.  For he afterwards not only acquiesced in the
+insults so meanly put upon the illustrious corpse of Blake, under
+whose auspices and command he had performed the most creditable
+services of his life, but in the trial of Argyle produced letters of
+friendship and confidence to take away the life of a nobleman, the
+zeal and cordiality of whose co-operation with him, proved by such
+documents, was the chief ground of his execution; thus gratuitously
+surpassing in infamy those miserable wretches who, to save their own
+lives, are sometimes persuaded to impeach and swear away the lives
+of their accomplices.
+
+The reign of Charles II. forms one of the most singular as well as
+of the most important periods of history.  It is the era of good
+laws and bad government.  The abolition of the court of wards, the
+repeal of the writ De Heretico Comburendo, the Triennial Parliament
+Bill, the establishment of the rights of the House of Commons in
+regard to impeachment, the expiration of the Licence Act, and, above
+all, the glorious statute of Habeas Corpus, have therefore induced a
+modern writer of great eminence to fix the year 1679 as the period
+at which our constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical
+perfection; but he owns, in a short note upon the passage alluded
+to, that the times immediately following were times of great
+practical oppression.  What a field for meditation does this short
+observation from such a man furnish!  What reflections does it not
+suggest to a thinking mind upon the inefficacy of human laws and the
+imperfection of human constitutions!  We are called from the
+contemplation of the progress of our constitution, and our attention
+fixed with the most minute accuracy to a particular point, when it
+is said to have risen to its utmost perfection.  Here we are, then,
+at the best moment of the best constitution that ever human wisdom
+framed.  What follows?  A tide of oppression and misery, not arising
+from external or accidental causes, such as war, pestilence, or
+famine, nor even from any such alteration of the laws as might be
+supposed to impair this boasted perfection, but from a corrupt and
+wicked administration, which all the so much admired checks of the
+constitution were not able to prevent.  How vain, then, how idle,
+how presumptuous is the opinion that laws can do everything! and how
+weak and pernicious the maxim founded upon it, that measures, not
+men, are to be attended to.
+
+The first years of this reign, under the administration of
+Southampton and Clarendon, form by far the least exceptionable part
+of it; and even in this period the executions of Argyle and Vane and
+the whole conduct of the Government with respect to church matters,
+both in England and in Scotland, were gross instances of tyranny.
+With respect to the execution of those who were accused of having
+been more immediately concerned in the king's death, that of Scrope,
+who had come in upon the proclamation, and of the military officers
+who had attended the trial, was a violation of every principle of
+law and justice.  But the fate of the others, though highly
+dishonourable to Monk, whose whole power had arisen from his zeal in
+their service, and the favour and confidence with which they had
+rewarded him, and not, perhaps, very creditable to the nation, of
+which many had applauded, more had supported, and almost all had
+acquiesced in the act, is not certainly to be imputed as a crime to
+the king, or to those of his advisers who were of the Cavalier
+party.  The passion of revenge, though properly condemned both by
+philosophy and religion, yet when it is excited by injurious
+treatment of persons justly dear to us, is among the most excusable
+of human frailties; and if Charles, in his general conduct, had
+shown stronger feelings of gratitude for services performed to his
+father, his character, in the eyes of many, would be rather raised
+than lowered by this example of severity against the regicides.
+Clarendon is said to have been privy to the king's receiving money
+from Louis XIV.; but what proofs exist of this charge (for a heavy
+charge it is) I know not.  Southampton was one of the very few of
+the Royalist party who preserved any just regard for the liberties
+of the people; and the disgust which a person possessed of such
+sentiments must unavoidably feel is said to have determined him to
+quit the king's service, and to retire altogether from public
+affairs.  Whether he would have acted upon this determination, his
+death, which happened in the year 1667, prevents us now from
+ascertaining.
+
+After the fall of Clarendon, which soon followed, the king entered
+into that career of misgovernment which, that he was able to pursue
+it to its end, is a disgrace to the history of our country.  If
+anything can add to our disgust at the meanness with which he
+solicited a dependence upon Louis XIV., it is, the hypocritical
+pretence upon which he was continually pressing that monarch.  After
+having passed a law, making it penal to affirm (what was true) that
+he was a papist, he pretended (which was certainly not true) to be a
+zealous and bigoted papist; and the uneasiness of his conscience at
+so long delaying a public avowal of his conversion, was more than
+once urged by him as an argument to increase the pension, and to
+accelerate the assistance, he was to receive from France.  In a
+later period of his reign, when his interest, as he thought, lay the
+other way, that he might at once continue to earn his wages, and yet
+put off a public conversion, he stated some scruples, contracted, no
+doubt, by his affection to the Protestant churches, in relation to
+the popish mode of giving the sacrament, and pretended a wish that
+the pope might be induced by Louis to consider of some alterations
+in that respect, to enable him to reconcile himself to the Roman
+church with a clear and pure conscience.
+
+The ministry known by the name of the Cabal seems to have consisted
+of characters so unprincipled, as justly to deserve the severity
+with which they have been treated by all writers who have mentioned
+them; but if it is probable that they were ready to betray their
+king, as well as their country, it is certain that the king betrayed
+them, keeping from them the real state of his connexion with France,
+and from some of them, at least, the secret of what he was pleased
+to call his religion.  Whether this concealment on his part arose
+from his habitual treachery, and from the incapacity which men of
+that character feel of being open and honest, even when they know it
+is their interest to be so, or from an apprehension that they might
+demand for themselves some share of the French money, which he was
+unwilling to give them, cannot now be determined.  But to the want
+of genuine and reciprocal confidence between him and those ministers
+is to be attributed, in a great measure, the escape which the nation
+at that time experienced--an escape, however, which proved to be
+only a reprieve from that servitude to which they were afterwards
+reduced in the latter years of the reign.
+
+The first Dutch war had been undertaken against all maxims of policy
+as well as of justice; but the superior infamy of the second,
+aggravated by the disappointment of all the hopes entertained by
+good men from the triple alliance, and by the treacherous attempt at
+piracy with which it was commenced, seems to have effaced the
+impression of it, not only from the minds of men living at the time,
+but from most of the writers who have treated of this reign.  The
+principle, however, of both was the same, and arbitrary power at
+home was the object of both.  The second Dutch war rendered the
+king's system and views so apparent to all who were not determined
+to shut their eyes against conviction, that it is difficult to
+conceive how persons who had any real care or regard either for the
+liberty or honour of the country, could trust him afterwards.  And
+yet even Sir William Temple, who appears to have been one of the
+most honest, as well as of the most enlightened, statesmen of his
+time, could not believe his treachery to be quite so deep as it was
+in fact, and seems occasionally to have hoped that he was in earnest
+in his professed intentions of following the wise and just system
+that was recommended to him.  Great instances of credulity and
+blindness in wise men are often liable to the suspicion of being
+pretended, for the purpose of justifying the continuing in
+situations of power and employment longer than strict honour would
+allow.  But to Temple's sincerity his subsequent conduct gives
+abundant testimony.  When he had reason to think that his services
+could no longer be useful to his country he withdrew wholly from
+public business, and resolutely adhered to the preference of
+philosophical retirement, which, in his circumstances, was just, in
+spite of every temptation which occurred to bring him back to the
+more active scene.  The remainder of his life he seems to have
+employed in the most noble contemplations and the most elegant
+amusements; every enjoyment heightened, no doubt, by reflecting on
+the honourable part he had acted in public affairs, and without any
+regret on his own account (whatever he might feel for his country)
+at having been driven from them.
+
+Besides the important consequences produced by this second Dutch war
+in England, it gave birth to two great events in Holland; the one as
+favourable as the other was disastrous to the cause of general
+liberty.  The catastrophe of De Witt, the wisest, best, and most
+truly patriotic minister that ever appeared upon the public stage,
+as it was an act of the most crying injustice and ingratitude, so,
+likewise, is it the most completely discouraging example that
+history affords to the lovers of liberty.  If Aristides was
+banished, he was also recalled; if Dion was repaid for his services
+to the Syracusans by ingratitude, that ingratitude was more than
+once repented of; if Sidney and Russell died upon the scaffold, they
+had not the cruel mortification of falling by the hands of the
+people; ample justice was done to their memory, and the very sound
+of their names is still animating to every Englishman attached to
+their glorious cause.  But with De Witt fell also his cause and his
+party; and although a name so respected by all who revere virtue and
+wisdom, when employed in their noblest sphere, the political service
+of the public, must undoubtedly be doubly dear to his countrymen,
+yet I do not know that, even to this day, any public honours have
+been paid by them to his memory.
+
+On the other hand, the circumstances attending the first appearance
+of the Prince of Orange in public affairs, were, in every respect,
+most fortunate for himself, for England, for Europe.  Of an age to
+receive the strongest impressions, and of a character to render such
+impressions durable, he entered the world in a moment when the
+calamitous situation of the United Provinces could not but excite in
+every Dutchman the strongest detestation of the insolent ambition of
+Louis XIV., and the greatest contempt of an English government,
+which could so far mistake or betray the interests of the country as
+to lend itself to his projects.  Accordingly, the circumstances
+attending his outset seem to have given a lasting bias to his
+character; and through the whole course of his life the prevailing
+sentiments of his mind seem to have been those which he imbibed at
+this early period.  These sentiments were most peculiarly adapted to
+the positions in which this great man was destined to be placed.
+The light in which he viewed Louis rendered him the fittest champion
+of the independence of Europe; and in England, French influence and
+arbitrary power were in those times so intimately connected, that he
+who had not only seen with disapprobation, but had so sensibly felt
+the baneful effects of Charles's connection with France, seemed
+educated, as it were, to be the defender of English liberty.  This
+prince's struggles in defence of his country, his success in
+rescuing it from a situation to all appearance so desperate, and the
+consequent failure and mortification of Louis XIV., form a scene in
+history upon which the mind dwells with unceasing delight.  One
+never can read Louis's famous declaration against the Hollanders,
+knowing the event which is to follow, without feeling the heart
+dilate with exultation, and a kind of triumphant contempt, which,
+though not quite consonant to the principles of pure philosophy,
+never fails to give the mind inexpressible satisfaction.  Did the
+relation of such events form the sole, or even any considerable part
+of the historian's task, pleasant indeed would be his labours; but,
+though far less agreeable, it is not a less useful or necessary part
+of his business, to relate the triumphs of successful wickedness,
+and the oppression of truth, justice, and liberty.
+
+The interval from the separate peace between England and the United
+Provinces, to the peace of Nymwegen, was chiefly employed by Charles
+in attempts to obtain money from France and other foreign powers, in
+which he was sometimes more, sometimes less successful; and in
+various false professions, promises, and other devices to deceive
+his parliament and his people, in which he uniformly failed.  Though
+neither the nature and extent of his connection with France, nor his
+design of introducing popery into England, were known at that time
+as they now are, yet there were not wanting many indications of the
+king's disposition, and of the general tendency of his designs.
+Reasonable persons apprehended that the supplies asked were intended
+to be used, not for the specious purpose of maintaining the balance
+of Europe, but for that of subduing the parliament and people who
+should give them; and the great antipathy of the bulk of the nation
+to popery caused many to be both more clear-sighted in discovering,
+and more resolute in resisting the designs of the court, than they
+would probably have shown themselves, if civil liberty alone had
+been concerned.
+
+When the minds of men were in the disposition which such a state of
+things was naturally calculated to produce, it is not to be wondered
+at that a ready, and, perhaps, a too facile belief should have been
+accorded to the rumour of a popish plot.  But with the largest
+possible allowance for the just apprehensions which were
+entertained, and the consequent irritation of the country, it is
+wholly inconceivable how such a plot as that brought forward by
+Tongue and Oates could obtain any general belief.  Nor can any
+stretch of candour make us admit it to be probable, that all who
+pretended a belief of it did seriously entertain it.  On the other
+hand, it seems an absurdity, equal almost in degree to the belief of
+the plot itself, to suppose that it was a story fabricated by the
+Earl of Shaftesbury and the other leaders of the Whig party; and it
+would be highly unjust, as well as uncharitable, not to admit that
+the generality of those who were engaged in the prosecution of it
+were probably sincere in their belief of it, since it is
+unquestionable that at the time very many persons, whose political
+prejudices were of a quite different complexion, were under the same
+delusion.  The unanimous votes of the two houses of parliament, and
+the names, as well as the number of those who pronounced Lord
+Strafford to be guilty, seem to put this beyond a doubt.  Dryden,
+writing soon after the time, says, in his "Absalom and Achitophel,"
+that the plot was
+
+
+"Bad in itself, but represented wore:"
+
+
+that
+
+
+"Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies:"
+
+
+and that
+
+
+"Succeeding times did equal folly call,
+Believing nothing, or believing all."
+
+
+and Dryden will not, by those who are conversant in the history and
+works of that immortal writer, be suspected either of party
+prejudice in favour of Shaftesbury and the Whigs, or of any view to
+prejudice the country against the Duke of York's succession to the
+crown.  The king repeatedly declared his belief of it.  These
+declarations, if sincere, would have some weight; but if insincere,
+as may be reasonably suspected, they afford a still stronger
+testimony to prove that such belief was not exclusively a party
+opinion, since it cannot be supposed that even the crooked politics
+of Charles could have led him to countenance fictions of his
+enemies, which were not adopted by his own party.  Wherefore, if
+this question were to be decided upon the ground of authority, the
+reality of the plot would be admitted; and it must be confessed,
+that, with regard to facts remote, in respect either of time or
+place, wise men generally diffide in their own judgment, and defer
+to that of those who have had a nearer view of them.  But there are
+cases where reason speaks so plainly as to make all argument drawn
+from authority of no avail, and this is surely one of them.  Not to
+mention correspondence by post on the subject of regicide, detailed
+commissions from the pope, silver bullets, &c. &c., and other
+circumstances equally ridiculous, we need only advert to the part
+attributed to the Spanish government in this conspiracy, and to the
+alleged intention of murdering the king, to satisfy ourselves that
+it was a forgery.
+
+Rapin, who argues the whole of this affair with a degree of weakness
+as well as disingenuity very unusual to him, seems at last to offer
+us a kind of compromise, and to be satisfied if we will admit that
+there was a design or project to introduce popery and an arbitrary
+power, at the head of which were the king and his brother.  Of this
+I am as much convinced as he can be; but how does this justify the
+prosecution and execution of those who suffered, since few if any of
+them, were in a situation to be trusted by the royal conspirators
+with their designs?  When he says, therefore, that that is precisely
+what was understood by the conspiracy, he by no means justifies
+those who were the principal prosecutors of the plot.  The design to
+murder the king he calls the appendage of the plot:  a strange
+expression this, to describe the projected murder of a king; though
+not more strange than the notion itself when applied to a plot, the
+object of which was to render that very king absolute, and to
+introduce the religion which he most favoured.  But it is to be
+observed, that though in considering the bill of exclusion, the
+militia bill, and other legislative proceedings, the plot, as he
+defines it--that is to say, the design of introducing popery and
+arbitrary power--was the important point to be looked to; yet in
+courts of justice, and for juries and judges, that which he calls
+the appendage was, generally speaking, the sole consideration.
+
+Although, therefore, upon a review of this truly shocking
+transaction, we may be fairly justified in adopting the milder
+alternative, and in imputing to the greater part of those concerned
+in it rather an extraordinary degree of blind credulity than the
+deliberate wickedness of planning and assisting in the perpetration
+of legal murders, yet the proceedings on the popish plot must always
+be considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in
+which king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have
+all their respective, though certainly not equal, shares.
+Witnesses, of such a character as not to deserve credit in the most
+trifling cause, upon the most immaterial facts, gave evidence so
+incredible, or, to speak more properly, so impossible to be true,
+that it ought not to have been believed if it had come from the
+mouth of Cato; and upon such evidence, from such witnesses, were
+innocent men condemned to death and executed.  Prosecutors, whether
+attorneys and solicitors-general, or managers of impeachment, acted
+with the fury which in such circumstances might be expected; juries
+partook naturally enough of the national ferment; and judges, whose
+duty it was to guard them against such impressions, were
+scandalously active in confirming them in their prejudices and
+inflaming their passions.  The king, who is supposed to have
+disbelieved the whole of the plot, never once exercised his glorious
+prerogative of mercy.  It is said he dared not.  His throne, perhaps
+his life, was at stake; and history does not furnish us with the
+example of any monarch with whom the lives of innocent or even
+meritorious subjects ever appeared to be of much weight, when put in
+balance against such considerations.
+
+The measures of the prevailing party in the House of Commons, in
+these times, appear (with the exception of their dreadful
+proceedings in the business of the pretended plot, and of their
+violence towards those who petitioned and addressed against
+parliament) to have been, in general, highly laudable and
+meritorious; and yet I am afraid it may be justly suspected that it
+was precisely to that part of their conduct which related to the
+plot, and which is most reprehensible, that they were indebted for
+their power to make the noble, and, in some instances, successful
+struggles for liberty, which do so much honour to their memory.  The
+danger to be apprehended from military force being always, in the
+view of wise men, the most urgent, they first voted the disbanding
+of the army, and the two houses passed a bill for that purpose, to
+which the king found himself obliged to consent.  But to the bill
+which followed, for establishing the regular assembling of the
+militia, and for providing for their being in arms six weeks in the
+year, he opposed his royal negative; thus making his stand upon the
+same point on which his father had done; a circumstance which, if
+events had taken a turn against him, would not have failed of being
+much noticed by historians.  Civil securities for freedom came to be
+afterwards considered; and it is to be remarked, that to these times
+of heat and passion, and to one of those parliaments which so
+disgraced themselves and the nation by the countenance given to
+Oates and Bedloe, and by the persecution of so many innocent
+victims, we are indebted for the Habeas Corpus act, the most
+important barrier against tyranny, and best framed protection for
+the liberty of individuals, that has ever existed in any ancient or
+modern commonwealth.
+
+But the inefficacy of mere laws in favour of the subjects, in the
+case of the administration of them falling into the hands of persons
+hostile to the spirit in which they had been provided, had been so
+fatally evinced by the general history of England, ever since the
+grant of the Great Charter, and more especially by the transactions
+of the preceding reign, that the parliament justly deemed their work
+incomplete unless the Duke of York were excluded from the succession
+to the crown.  A bill, therefore, for the purpose of excluding that
+prince was prepared, and passed the House of Commons; but being
+vigorously resisted by the court, by the church, and by the Tories,
+was lost in the House of Lords.  The restrictions offered by the
+king to be put upon a popish successor are supposed to have been
+among the most powerful of those means to which he was indebted for
+his success.
+
+The dispute was no longer, whether or not the dangers resulting from
+James's succession were real, and such as ought to be guarded
+against by parliamentary provisions, but whether the exclusion or
+restrictions furnished the most safe and eligible mode of compassing
+the object which both sides pretended to have in view.  The argument
+upon this state of the question is clearly, forcibly, and, I think,
+convincingly, stated by Rapin, who exposes very ably the extreme
+folly of trusting to measures, without consideration of the men who
+are to execute them.  Even in Hume's statement of the question,
+whatever may have been his intention, the arguments in favour of the
+exclusion appear to me greatly to preponderate.  Indeed, it is not
+easy to conceive upon what principles even the Tories could justify
+their support of the restrictions.  Many among them, no doubt, saw
+the provisions in the same light in which the Whigs represented
+them, as an expedient, admirably, indeed, adapted to the real object
+of upholding the present king's power, by the defeat of the
+exclusion, but never likely to take effect for their pretended
+purpose of controlling that of his successor, and supported them for
+that very reason.  But such a principle of conduct was too
+fraudulent to be avowed; nor ought it, perhaps, in candour to be
+imputed to the majority of the party.  To those who acted with good
+faith, and meant that the restrictions should really take place and
+be effectual, surely it ought to have occurred (and to those who
+most prized the prerogatives of the crown it ought most forcibly to
+have occurred), that in consenting to curtail the powers of the
+crown, rather than to alter the succession, they were adopting the
+greater in order to avoid the lesser evil.  The question of what are
+to be the powers of the crown, is surely of superior importance to
+that of who shall wear it?  Those, at least, who consider the royal
+prerogative as vested in the king, not for his sake but for that of
+his subjects, must consider the one of these questions as much above
+the other in dignity as the rights of the public are more valuable
+than those of an individual.  In this view the prerogatives of the
+crown are, in substance and effect, the rights of the people; and
+these rights of the people were not to be sacrificed to the purpose
+of preserving the succession to the most favoured prince much less
+to one who, on account of his religious persuasion, was justly
+feared and suspected.  In truth, the question between the exclusion
+and restrictions seems peculiarly calculated to ascertain the
+different views in which the different parties in this country have
+seen, and perhaps ever will see, the prerogatives of the crown.  The
+Whigs, who consider them as a trust for the people--a doctrine which
+the Tories themselves, when pushed in argument, will sometimes
+admit--naturally think it their duty rather to change the manager of
+the trust than to impair the subject of it; while others, who
+consider them as the right or property of the king, will as
+naturally act as they would do in the case of any other property,
+and consent to the loss or annihilation of any part of it, for the
+purpose of preserving the remainder to him whom they style the
+rightful owner.  If the people be the sovereign and the king the
+delegate, it is better to change the bailiff than to injure the
+farm; but if the king be the proprietor, it is better the farm
+should be impaired--nay, part of it destroyed--than that the whole
+should pass over to an usurper.  The royal prerogative ought,
+according to the Whigs (not in the case of a popish successor only,
+but in all cases), to be reduced to such powers as are in their
+exercise beneficial to the people; and of the benefit of these they
+will not rashly suffer the people to be deprived, whether the
+executive power be in the hands of an hereditary or of an elected
+king, of a regent, or of any other denomination of magistrate;
+while, on the other hand, they who consider prerogative with
+reference only to royalty, will, with equal readiness, consent
+either to the extension or the suspension of its exercise, as the
+occasional interests of the prince may seem to require.  The
+senseless plea of a divine and indefeasible right in James, which
+even the legislature was incompetent to set aside, though as
+inconsistent with the declarations of parliament in the statute
+book, and with the whole practice of the English constitution, as it
+is repugnant to nature and common sense, was yet warmly insisted
+upon by the high church party.  Such an argument, as might naturally
+be expected, operated rather to provoke the Whigs to perseverance
+than to dissuade them from their measure:  it was, in their eyes, an
+additional merit belonging to the exclusion bill that it
+strengthened, by one instance more, the authority of former statutes
+in reprobating a doctrine which seems to imply that man can have a
+property in his fellow-creatures.  By far the best argument in
+favour of the restrictions, is the practical one that they could be
+obtained, and that the exclusion could not; but the value of this
+argument is chiefly proved by the event.  The exclusionists had a
+fair prospect of success, and their plan being clearly the best,
+they were justified in pursuing it.
+
+The spirit of resistance which the king showed in the instance of
+the militia and the exclusion bills, seems to have been
+systematically confined to those cases where he supposed his power
+to be more immediately concerned.  In the prosecution of the aged
+and innocent Lord Stafford, he was so far from interfering in behalf
+of that nobleman, that many of those most in his confidence, and, as
+it is affirmed, the Duchess of Portsmouth herself, openly favoured
+the prosecution.  Even after the dissolution of him last parliament,
+when he had so far subdued his enemies as to be no longer under any
+apprehensions from them, he did not think it worth while to save the
+life of Plunket, the popish Archbishop of Armagh, of whose innocence
+no doubt could be entertained.  But this is not to be wondered at,
+since, in all transactions relative to the popish plot, minds of a
+very different cast from Charles's became, as by some fatality,
+divested of all their wonted sentiments of justice and humanity.
+Who can read without horror, the account of that savage murmur of
+applause, which broke out upon one of the villains at the bar,
+swearing positively to Stafford's having proposed the murder of the
+king?  And how is this horror deepened, when we reflect, that in
+that odious cry were probably mingled the voices of men to whose
+memory every lover of the English constitution is bound to pay the
+tribute of gratitude and respect!  Even after condemnation, Lord
+Russell himself, whose character is wholly (this instance excepted)
+free from the stain of rancour or cruelty, stickled for the severer
+mode of executing the sentence, in a manner which his fear of the
+king's establishing a precedent of pardoning in cases of impeachment
+(for this, no doubt, was his motive) cannot satisfactorily excuse.
+
+In an early period of the king's difficulties, Sir William Temple,
+whose life and character is a refutation of the vulgar notion that
+philosophy and practical good sense in business are incompatible
+attainments, recommended to him the plan of governing by a council,
+which was to consist in great part of the most popular noblemen and
+gentlemen in the kingdom.  Such persons being the natural, as well
+as the safest, mediators between princes and discontented subjects,
+this seems to have been the best possible expedient.  Hume says it
+was found too feeble a remedy; but he does not take notice that it
+was never in fact tried, inasmuch as not only the king's confidence
+was withheld from the most considerable members of the council, but
+even the most important determinations were taken without consulting
+the council itself.  Nor can there be a doubt but the king's views,
+in adopting Temple's advice, were totally different from those of
+the adviser, whose only error in this transaction seems to have
+consisted in recommending a plan, wherein confidence and fair
+dealing were of necessity to be principal ingredients, to a prince
+whom he well knew to be incapable of either.  Accordingly, having
+appointed the council in April, with a promise of being governed in
+important matters by their advice, he in July dissolved one
+parliament without their concurrence, and in October forbade them
+even to give their opinions upon the propriety of a resolution which
+he had taken of proroguing another.  From that time he probably
+considered the council to be, as it was, virtually dissolved; and it
+was not long before means presented themselves to him, better
+adapted, in his estimation, even to his immediate objects, and
+certainly more suitable to his general designs.  The union between
+the court and the church party, which had been so closely cemented
+by their successful resistance to the Exclusion Bill, and its
+authors, had at length acquired such a degree of strength and
+consistency, that the king ventured first to appoint Oxford, instead
+of London, for the meeting of parliament; and then, having secured
+to himself a good pension from France, to dissolve the parliament
+there met, with a full resolution never to call another; to which
+resolution, indeed, Louis had bound him, as one of the conditions on
+which he was to receive a stipend.  No measure was ever attended
+with more complete success.  The most flattering addresses poured in
+from all parts of the kingdom; divine right, and indiscriminate
+obedience, were everywhere the favourite doctrines; and men seemed
+to vie with each other who should have the honour of the greatest
+share in the glorious work of slavery, by securing to the king, for
+the present, and after him to the duke, absolute and uncontrollable
+power.  They who, either because Charles had been called a forgiving
+prince by his flatterers (upon what ground I could never discover),
+or from some supposed connection between indolence and good nature,
+had deceived themselves into a hope that his tyranny would be of the
+milder sort, found themselves much disappointed in their
+expectations.
+
+The whole history of the remaining part of his reign exhibits an
+uninterrupted series of attacks upon the liberty, property, and
+lives of his subjects.  The character of the government appeared
+first, and with the most marked and prominent features, in Scotland.
+The condemnation of Argyle and Weir, the one for having subjoined an
+explanation when he took the test oath, the other for having kept
+company with a rebel, whom it was not proved he knew to be such, and
+who had never been proclaimed, resemble more the acts of Tiberius
+and Domitian, than those of even the most arbitrary modern
+governments.  It is true, the sentences were not executed; Weir was
+reprieved; and whether or not Argyle, if he had not deemed it more
+prudent to escape by flight, would have experienced the same
+clemency, cannot now be ascertained.  The terror of these examples
+would have been, in the judgment of most men, abundantly sufficient
+to teach the people of Scotland their duty, and to satisfy them that
+their lives, as well as everything else they had been used to call
+their own, were now completely in the power of their masters.  But
+the government did not stop here, and having outlawed thousands,
+upon the same pretence upon which Weir had been condemned, inflicted
+capital punishment upon such criminals of both sexes as refused to
+answer, or answered otherwise than was prescribed to them to the
+most ensnaring questions.
+
+In England, the city of London seemed to hold out for a certain
+time, like a strong fortress in a conquered country; and, by means
+of this citadel, Shaftesbury and others were saved from the
+vengeance of the court.  But this resistance, however honourable to
+the corporation who made it, could not be of long duration.  The
+weapons of law and justice were found feeble, when opposed to the
+power of a monarch who was at the head of a numerous and bigoted
+party of the nation, and who, which was most material of all, had
+enabled himself to govern without a parliament.  Civil resistance in
+this country, even to the most illegal attacks of royal tyranny, has
+never, I believe, been successful, unless when supported by
+parliament, or at least by a great party in one or other of the two
+houses.  The court having wrested from the livery of London, partly
+by corruption, and partly by violence, the free election of their
+mayor and sheriffs, did not wait the accomplishment of their plan
+for the destruction of the whole corporation, which, from their
+first success, they justly deemed certain, but immediately proceeded
+to put in execution their system of oppression.  Pilkington, Colt,
+and Oates, were fined a hundred thousand pounds each for having
+spoken disrespectfully of the Duke of York; Barnardiston, ten
+thousand, for having in a private letter expressed sentiments deemed
+improper; and Sidney, Russell, and Armstrong, found that the just
+and mild principles which characterise the criminal law of England
+could no longer protect their lives, when the sacrifice was called
+for by the policy or vengeance of the king.  To give an account of
+all the oppression of this period would be to enumerate every
+arrest, every trial, every sentence, that took place in questions
+between the crown and the subjects.
+
+Of the Rye House plot it may be said, much more truly than of the
+popish, that there was in it some truth, mixed with much falsehood;
+and though many of the circumstances in Kealing's account are nearly
+as absurd and ridiculous as those in Oates's, it seems probable that
+there was among some of those accused a notion of assassinating the
+king; but whether this notion was over ripened into what may be
+called a design, and, much more, whether it were ever evinced by
+such an overt act as the law requires for conviction, is very
+doubtful.  In regard to the conspirators of higher ranks, from whom
+all suspicion of participation in the intended assassination has
+been long since done away, there is unquestionably reason to believe
+that they had often met and consulted, as well for the purpose of
+ascertaining the means they actually possessed as for that of
+devising others for delivering their country from the dreadful
+servitude into which it had fallen; and thus far their conduct
+appears clearly to have been laudable.  If they went further, and
+did anything which could be fairly construed into an actual
+conspiracy to levy war against the king, they acted, considering the
+disposition of the nation at that period, very indiscreetly.  But
+whether their proceedings had ever gone this length, is far from
+certain.  Monmouth's communications with the king, when we reflect
+upon all the circumstances of those communications, deserve not the
+smallest attention; nor indeed, if they did, does the letter which
+he afterwards withdrew prove anything upon this point.  And it is an
+outrage to common-sense to call Lord Grey's narrative written, as he
+himself states in his letter to James II., while the question of his
+pardon was pending, an authentic account.  That which is most
+certain in this affair is, that they had committed no overt act,
+indicating the imagining of the king's death, even according to the
+most strained construction of the statute of Edward III.; much less
+was any such act legally proved against them.  And the conspiring to
+levy war was not treason, except by a recent statute of Charles II.,
+the prosecutions upon which were expressly limited to a certain
+time, which in these cases had elapsed so that it is impossible not
+to assent to the opinion of those who have ever stigmatised the
+condemnation and execution of Russell as a most flagrant violation
+of law and justice.
+
+The proceedings in Sidney's case were still more detestable.  The
+production of papers, containing speculative opinions upon
+government and liberty, written long before, and perhaps never even
+intended to be published, together with the use made of those
+papers, in considering them as a substitute for the second witness
+to the overt act, exhibited such a compound of wickedness and
+nonsense as is hardly to be paralleled in the history of juridical
+tyranny.  But the validity of pretences was little attended to at
+that time, in the case of a person whom the court had devoted to
+destruction, and upon evidence such as has been stated was this
+great and excellent man condemned to die.  Pardon was not to be
+expected.  Mr. Hume says, that such an interference on the part of
+the king, though it might have been an act of heroic generosity,
+could not be regarded as an indispensable duty.  He might have said
+with more propriety, that it was idle to expect that the government,
+after having incurred so much guilt in order to obtain the sentence,
+should, by remitting it, relinquish the object just when it was
+within its grasp.  The same historian considers the jury as highly
+blamable, and so do I; but what was their guilt in comparison of
+that of the court who tried, and of the government who prosecuted,
+in this infamous cause?  Yet the jury, being the only party that can
+with any colour be stated as acting independently of the government,
+is the only one mentioned by him as blamable.  The prosecutor is
+wholly omitted in his censure, and so is the court; this last, not
+from any tenderness for the judge (who, to do this author justice,
+is no favourite with him), but lest the odious connection between
+that branch of the judicature and the government should strike the
+reader too forcibly; for Jeffreys, in this instance, ought to be
+regarded as the mere tool and instrument (a fit one, no doubt), of
+the prince who had appointed him for the purpose of this and similar
+services.  Lastly, the king is gravely introduced on the question of
+pardon, as if he had had no prior concern in the cause, and were now
+to decide upon the propriety of extending mercy to a criminal
+condemned by a court of judicature; nor are we once reminded what
+that judicature was, by whom appointed, by whom influenced, by whom
+called upon, to receive that detestable evidence, the very
+recollection of which, even at this distance of time, fires every
+honest heart with indignation.  As well might we palliate the
+murders of Tiberius, who seldom put to death his victims without a
+previous decree of his senate.  The moral of all this seems to be,
+that whenever a prince can, by intimidation, corruption, illegal
+evidence, or other such means, obtain a verdict against a subject
+whom he dislikes, he may cause him to be executed without any breach
+of indispensable duty; nay, that it is an act of heroic generosity
+if he spares him.  I never reflect on Mr. Hume's statement of this
+matter but with the deepest regret.  Widely as I differ from him
+upon many other occasions, this appears to me to be the most
+reprehensible passage of his whole work.  A spirit of adulation
+towards deceased princes, though in a good measure free from the
+imputation of interested meanness, which is justly attached to
+flattery when applied to living monarchs, yet, as it is less
+intelligible with respect to its motives than the other, so is it in
+its consequences still more pernicious to the general interests of
+mankind.  Fear of censure from contemporaries will seldom have much
+effect upon men in situations of unlimited authority:  they will too
+often flatter themselves that the same power which enables them to
+commit the crime will secure them from reproach.  The dread of
+posthumous infamy, therefore, being the only restraint, their
+consciences excepted, upon the passions of such persons, it is
+lamentable that this last defence (feeble enough at best) should in
+any degree be impaired; and impaired it must be, if not totally
+destroyed, when tyrants can hope to find in a man like Hume, no less
+eminent for the integrity and benevolence of his heart than for the
+depth and soundness of his understanding, an apologist for even
+their foulest murders.
+
+Thus fell Russell and Sidney, two names that will, it is hoped, be
+for ever dear to every English heart.  When their memory shall cease
+to be an object of respect and veneration, it requires no spirit of
+prophecy to foretell that English liberty will be fast approaching
+to its final consummation.  Their department was such as might be
+expected from men who knew themselves to be suffering, not for their
+crimes, but for their virtues.  In courage they were equal, but the
+fortitude of Russell, who was connected with the world by private
+and domestic ties, which Sidney had not, was put to the severer
+trial; and the story of the last days of this excellent man's life
+fills the mind with such a mixture of tenderness and admiration,
+that I know not any scene in history that more powerfully excites
+our sympathy, or goes more directly to the heart.
+
+The very day on which Russell was executed, the University of Oxford
+passed their famous decree, condemning formally, as impious and
+heretical propositions, every principle upon which the constitution
+of this or any other free country can maintain itself.  Nor was this
+learned body satisfied with stigmatising such principles as contrary
+to the Holy Scriptures, to the decrees of councils, to the writings
+of the fathers, to the faith and profession of the primitive church,
+as destructive of the kingly government, the safety of his majesty's
+person, the public peace, the laws of nature, and bounds of human
+society; but after enumerating the several obnoxious propositions,
+among which was one declaring all civil authority derived from the
+people; another, asserting a mutual contract, tacit or express,
+between the king and his subjects; a third, maintaining the
+lawfulness of changing the succession to the crown; with many others
+of a like nature, they solemnly decreed all and every of those
+propositions to be not only false and seditious, but impious, and
+that the books which contained them were fitted to lead to
+rebellion, murder of princes, and atheism itself.  Such are the
+absurdities which men are not ashamed to utter in order to cast
+odious imputations upon their adversaries; and such the manner in
+which churchmen will abuse, when it suits their policy, the holy
+name of that religion whose first precept is to love one another,
+for the purpose of teaching us to hate our neighbours with more than
+ordinary rancour.  If Much Ado about Nothing had been published in
+those days, the town-clerk's declaration, that receiving a thousand
+ducats for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully, was flat burglary,
+might be supposed to be a satire upon this decree; yet Shakespeare,
+well as he knew human nature, not only as to its general course, but
+in all its eccentric deviations, could never dream that, in the
+persons of Dogberry, Verges, and their followers, he was
+representing the vice-chancellors and doctors of our learned
+university.
+
+Among the oppressions of this period, most of which were attended
+with consequences so much more important to the several objects of
+persecution, it may seem scarcely worth while to notice the
+expulsion of John Locke from Christ Church College, Oxford.  But
+besides the interest which every incident in the life of a person so
+deservedly eminent naturally excites, there appears to have been
+something in the transaction itself characteristic of the spirit of
+the times, as well as of the general nature of absolute power.  Mr.
+Locke was known to have been intimately connected with Lord
+Shaftesbury, and had very prudently judged it advisable for him to
+prolong for some time his residence upon the Continent, to which he
+had resorted originally on account of his health.  A suspicion, as
+it has been since proved unfounded, that he was the author of a
+pamphlet which gave offence to the government, induced the king to
+insist upon his removal from his studentship at Christ Church.
+Sunderland writes, by the king's command, to Dr. Fell, bishop of
+Oxford and dean of Christ Church.  The reverend prelate answers that
+he has long had an eye upon Mr. Locke's behaviour; but though
+frequent attempts had been made (attempts of which the bishop
+expresses no disapprobation), to draw him into imprudent
+conversation, by attacking, in his company, the reputation, and
+insulting the memory of his late patron and friend, and thus to make
+his gratitude and all the best feelings of his heart instrumental to
+his ruin, these attempts all proved unsuccessful.  Hence the bishop
+infers, not the innocence of Mr. Locke, but that he was a great
+master of concealment both as to words and looks; for looks, it is
+to be supposed, would have furnished a pretext for his expulsion,
+more decent than any which had yet been discovered.  An expedient is
+then suggested to drive Mr. Locke to a dilemma, by summoning him to
+attend the college on the first of January ensuing.  If he do not
+appear, he shall be expelled for contumacy; if he come, matter of
+charge may be found against him for what he shall have said at
+London or elsewhere, where he will have been less upon his guard
+than at Oxford.  Some have ascribed Fell's hesitation, if it can be
+so called, in executing the king's order, to his unwillingness to
+injure Locke, who was his friend; others, with more reason, to the
+doubt of the legality of the order.  However this may have been,
+neither his scruple nor his reluctance was regarded by a court who
+knew its own power.  A peremptory order was accordingly sent, and
+immediate obedience ensued.  Thus, while without the shadow of a
+crime, Mr. Locke lost a situation attended with some emolument and
+great convenience, was the university deprived of, or rather thus,
+from the base principles of servility, did she cast away the man,
+the having produced whom is now her chiefest glory; and thus, to
+those who are not determined to be blind, did the true nature of
+absolute power discover itself, against which the middling station
+is not more secure than the most exalted.  Tyranny, when glutted
+with the blood of the great, and the plunder of the rich, will
+condescend to bent humbler game, and make a peaceable and innocent
+fellow of a college the object of its persecution.  In this instance
+one would almost imagine there was some instinctive sagacity in the
+government of that time, which pointed out to them, even before he
+had made himself known to the world, the man who was destined to be
+the most successful adversary of superstition and tyranny.
+
+The king, during the remainder of his reign, seems, with the
+exception of Armstrong's execution, which must be added to the
+catalogue of his murders, to have directed his attacks more against
+the civil rights, properties, and liberties, than against the lives
+of his subjects.  Convictions against evidence, sentences against
+law, enormous fines, cruel imprisonments, were the principal engines
+employed for the purpose of breaking the spirit of individuals, and
+fitting their necks for the yoke.  But it was not thought fit to
+trust wholly to the effect which such examples would produce upon
+the public.  That the subjugation of the people might be complete,
+and despotism be established upon the most solid foundation,
+measures of a more general nature and effect were adopted; and
+first, the charter of London, and then those of almost all the other
+corporations in England, were either forfeited or forced to a
+surrender.  By this act of violence two important points were
+thought to be gained; one, that in every regular assemblage of the
+people in any part of the kingdom the crown would have a commanding
+influence; the other, that in case the king should find himself
+compelled to break his engagement to France, and to call a
+parliament, a great majority of members would be returned by
+electors of his nomination, and subject to his control.  In the
+affair of the charter of London, it was seen, as in the case of
+ship-money, how idle it is to look to the integrity of judges for a
+barrier against royal encroachments, when the courts of justice are
+not under the constant and vigilant control of parliament.  And it
+is not to be wondered at, that, after such a warning, and with no
+hope of seeing a parliament assemble, even they who still retained
+their attachment to the true constitution of their country, should
+rather give way to the torrent than make a fruitless and dangerous
+resistance.
+
+Charles being thus completely master, was determined that the
+relative situation of him and his subjects should be clearly
+understood, for which purpose he ordered a declaration to be framed,
+wherein, after having stated that he considered the degree of
+confidence they had reposed in him as an honour particular to his
+reign, which not one of his predecessors had ever dared even to hope
+for, he assured them he would use it with all possible moderation,
+and convince even the most violent republicans, that as the crown
+was the origin of the rights and liberties of the people, so was it
+their most certain and secure support.  This gracious declaration
+was ready for the press at the time of the king's death, and if he
+had lived to issue it, there can be little doubt how it would have
+been received at a time when
+
+
+   "nunquam libertas gratior extat
+Quam sub rege pio,"
+
+
+was the theme of every song, and, by the help of some perversion of
+Scripture, the text of every sermon.  But whatever might be the
+language of flatterers, and how loud soever the cry of a triumphant,
+but deluded party, there were not wanting men of nobler sentiments
+and of more rational views.  Minds once thoroughly imbued with the
+love of what Sidney, in his last moments, so emphatically called the
+good old cause, will not easily relinquish their principles:  nor
+was the manner in which absolute power was exercised, such as to
+reconcile to it, in practice, those who had always been averse to it
+in speculation.  The hatred of tyranny must, in such persons, have
+been exasperated by the experience of its effects, and their
+attachment to liberty proportionably confirmed.  To them the state
+of their country must have been intolerable:  to reflect upon the
+efforts of their fathers, once their pride and glory, and whom they
+themselves had followed with no unequal steps, and to see the result
+of all in the scenes that now presented themselves, must have filled
+their minds with sensations of the deepest regret, and feelings
+bordering at least on despondency.  To us, who have the opportunity
+of combining in our view of this period, not only the preceding but
+subsequent transactions, the consideration of it may suggest
+reflections far different and speculations more consolatory.
+Indeed, I know not that history can furnish a more forcible lesson
+against despondency, than by recording that within a short time from
+those dismal days in which men of the greatest constancy despaired,
+and had reason to do so, within five years from the death of Sidney
+arose the brightest era of freedom known to the annals of our
+country.
+
+It is said that the king, when at the summit of his power, was far
+from happy; and a notion has been generally entertained that not
+long before his death he had resolved upon the recall of Monmouth,
+and a correspondent change of system.  That some such change was
+apprehended seems extremely probable, from the earnest desire which
+the court of France, as well as the Duke of York's party in England,
+entertained, in the last years of Charles's life, to remove the
+Marquis of Halifax, who was supposed to have friendly dispositions
+to Monmouth.  Among the various objections to that nobleman's
+political principles, we find the charge most relied upon, for the
+purpose of injuring him in the mind of the king, was founded on the
+opinion he had delivered in council, in favour of modelling the
+charters of the British colonies in North America upon the
+principles of the rights and privileges of Englishmen.  There was no
+room to doubt (he was accused of saying) that the same laws under
+which we live in England, should be established in a country
+composed of Englishmen.  He even dilated upon this, and omitted none
+of the reasons by which it can be proved that an absolute government
+is neither so happy nor so safe as that which is tempered by laws,
+and which limits the authority of the prince.  He exaggerated, it
+was said, the mischiefs of a sovereign power, and declared plainly
+that he could not make up his mind to live under a king who should
+have it in his power to take, when he pleased, the money he might
+have in his pocket.  All the other ministers had combated, as might
+be expected, sentiments so extraordinary; and without entering into
+the general question of the comparative value of different forms of
+government, maintained that his majesty could and ought to govern
+countries so distant in the manner that should appear to him most
+suitable for preserving or augmenting the strength and riches of the
+mother country.  It had been, therefore, resolved that the
+government and council of the provinces under the new charter should
+not be obliged to call assemblies of the colonists for the purpose
+of imposing taxes, or making other important regulations, but should
+do what they thought fit, without rendering any account of their
+actions except to his Britannic Majesty.  The affair having been so
+decided with a concurrence only short of unanimity, was no longer
+considered as a matter of importance, nor would it be worth
+recording, if the Duke of York and the French court had not fastened
+upon it, as affording the best evidence of the danger to be
+apprehended from having a man of Halifax's principles in any
+situation of trust or power.  There is something curious in
+discovering that even at this early period a question relative to
+North American liberty, and even to North American taxation, was
+considered as the test of principles friendly or adverse to
+arbitrary power at home.  But the truth is, that among the several
+controversies which have arisen there is no other wherein the
+natural rights of man on the one hand, and the authority of
+artificial institution on the other, as applied respectively by the
+Whigs and Tories to the English constitution, are so fairly put in
+issue, nor by which the line of separation between the two parties
+is so strongly and distinctly marked.
+
+There is some reason for believing that the court of Versailles had
+either wholly discontinued, or, at least, had become very remiss in,
+the payments of Charles's pension; and it is not unlikely that this
+consideration induced him either really to think of calling a
+parliament, or at least to threaten Louis with such a measure, in
+order to make that prince more punctual in performing his part of
+their secret treaty.  But whether or not any secret change was
+really intended, or if it were to what extent, and to what objects
+directed, are points which cannot now be ascertained, no public
+steps having ever been taken in this affair, and his majesty's
+intentions, if in truth he had any such, becoming abortive by the
+sudden illness which seized him on the 1st of February, 1685, and
+which, in a few days afterwards, put an end to his reign and life.
+His death was by many supposed to have been the effect of poison;
+but although there is reason to believe that this suspicion was
+harboured by persons very near to him, and, among others, as I have
+heard, by the Duchess of Portsmouth, it appears, upon the whole, to
+rest upon very slender foundations.
+
+With respect to the character of this prince, upon the delineation
+of which so much pains have been employed, by the various writers
+who treat of the history of his time, it must be confessed that the
+facts which have been noticed in the foregoing pages furnish but too
+many illustrations of the more unfavourable parts of it.  From these
+we may collect that his ambition was directed solely against his
+subjects, while he was completely indifferent concerning the figure
+which he or they might make in the general affairs of Europe; and
+that his desire of power was more unmixed with love of glory than
+that of any other man whom history has recorded; that he was
+unprincipled, ungrateful, mean, and treacherous, to which may be
+added, vindictive and remorseless.  For Burnet, in refusing to him
+the praise of clemency and forgiveness, seems to be perfectly
+justifiable, nor is it conceivable upon what pretence his partisans
+have taken this ground of panegyric.  I doubt whether a single
+instance can be produced of his having spared the life of any one
+whom motives either of policy, or of revenge, prompted him to
+destroy.  To allege that of Monmouth as it would be an affront to
+human nature, so would it likewise imply the most severe of all
+satires against the monarch himself, and we may add, too, an
+undeserved one; for, in order to consider it as an act of
+meritorious forbearance on his part, that he did not follow the
+example of Constantine and Philip II., by imbruing his hands in the
+blood of his son, we must first suppose him to have been wholly void
+of every natural affection, which does not appear to have been the
+case.  His declaration that he would have pardoned Essex, being made
+when that nobleman was dead, and not followed by any act evincing
+its sincerity, can surely obtain no credit from men of sense.  If he
+had really had the intention, he ought not to have made such a
+declaration, unless he accompanied it with some mark of kindness to
+the relations, or with some act of mercy to the friends of the
+deceased.  Considering it as a mere piece of hypocrisy, we cannot
+help looking upon it as one of the most odious passages of his life.
+This ill-timed boast of his intended mercy, and the brutal taunt
+with which he accompanied his mitigation (if so it may be called) of
+Russell's sentence, show his insensibility and hardness to have been
+such, that in questions where right feelings were concerned, his
+good sense, and even the good taste for which he has been so much
+extolled, seemed wholly to desert him.
+
+On the other hand, it would be want of candour to maintain that
+Charles was entirely destitute of good qualities; nor was the
+propriety of Burnet's comparison between him and Tiberius ever felt,
+I imagine, by any one but its author.  He was gay and affable, and,
+if incapable of the sentiments belonging to pride of a laudable
+sort, he was at least free from haughtiness and insolence.  The
+praise of politeness, which the stoics are not perhaps wrong in
+classing among the moral virtues, provided they admit it to be one
+of the lowest order, has never been denied him, and he had in an
+eminent degree that facility of temper which, though considered by
+some moralists as nearly allied to vice, yet, inasmuch as it
+contributes greatly to the happiness of those around us, is in
+itself not only an engaging but an estimable quality.  His support
+of the queen during the heats raised by the popish plot ought to be
+taken rather as a proof that he was not a monster than to be
+ascribed to him as a merit; but his steadiness to his brother,
+though it may and ought, in a great measure, to be accounted for
+upon selfish principles, had at least a strong resemblance to
+virtue.
+
+The best part of this prince's character seems to have been his
+kindness towards his mistresses, and his affection for his children,
+and others nearly connected to him by the ties of blood.  His
+recommendation of the Duchess of Portsmouth and Mrs. Gwyn, upon his
+death-bed, to his successor is much to his honour; and they who
+censure it seem, in their zeal to show themselves strict moralists,
+to have suffered their notions of vice and virtue to have fallen
+into strange confusion.  Charles's connection with those ladies
+might be vicious, but at a moment when that connection was upon the
+point of being finally and irrevocably dissolved, to concern himself
+about their future welfare and to recommend them to his brother with
+earnest tenderness was virtue.  It is not for the interest of
+morality that the good and evil actions, even of bad men, should be
+confounded.  His affection for the Duke of Gloucester and for the
+Duchess of Orleans seems to have been sincere and cordial.  To
+attribute, as some have done, his grief for the loss of the first to
+political considerations, founded upon an intended balance of power
+between his two brothers, would be an absurd refinement, whatever
+were his general disposition; but when we reflect upon that
+carelessness which, especially in his youth, was a conspicuous
+feature of his character, the absurdity becomes still more striking.
+And though Burnet more covertly, and Ludlow more openly, insinuate
+that his fondness for his sister was of a criminal nature, I never
+could find that there was any ground whatever for such a suspicion;
+nor does the little that remains of their epistolary correspondence
+give it the smallest countenance.  Upon the whole, Charles II. was a
+bad man and a bad king; let us not palliate his crimes, but neither
+let us adopt false or doubtful imputations for the purpose of making
+him a monster.
+
+Whoever reviews the interesting period which we have been
+discussing, upon the principle recommended in the outset of this
+chapter, will find that, from the consideration of the past, to
+prognosticate the future would at the moment of Charles's demise be
+no easy task.  Between two persons, one of whom should expect that
+the country would remain sunk in slavery, the other, that the cause
+of freedom would revive and triumph, it would be difficult to decide
+whose reasons were better supported, whose speculations the more
+probable.  I should guess that he who desponded had looked more at
+the state of the public, while he who was sanguine had fixed his
+eyes more attentively upon the person who was about to mount the
+throne.  Upon reviewing the two great parties of the nation, one
+observation occurs very forcibly, and that is, that the great
+strength of the Whigs consisted in their being able to brand their
+adversaries as favourers of popery; that of the Tories (as far as
+their strength depended upon opinion, and not merely upon the power
+of the crown), in their finding colour to represent the Whigs as
+republicans.  From this observation we may draw a further inference,
+that, in proportion to the rashness of the crown in avowing and
+pressing forward the cause of popery, and to the moderation and
+steadiness of the Whigs in adhering to the form of monarchy, would
+be the chance of the people of England for changing an ignominious
+despotism for glory, liberty, and happiness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+Accession of James II.--His declaration in council; acceptable to
+the nation--Arbitrary designs of his reign--Former ministers
+continued--Money transactions with France--Revenue levied without
+authority of Parliament--Persecution of Dissenters--Character of
+Jeffreys--The King's affectation of independence--Advances to the
+Prince of Orange--The primary object of this reign--Transactions in
+Scotland--Severe persecutions there--Scottish Parliament--Cruelties
+of government--English Parliament; its proceedings--Revenue--Votes
+concerning religion--Bill for preservation of the King's person--
+Solicitude for the Church of England--Reversal of Stafford's
+attainder rejected--Parliament adjourned--Character of the Tories--
+Situation of the Whigs.
+
+Charles II. expired on the 6th of February, 1684-85, and on the same
+day his successor was proclaimed king in London, with the usual
+formalities, by the title of James the Second.  The great influence
+which this prince was supposed to have possessed in the government
+during the latter years of his brother's reign, and the expectation
+which was entertained in consequence, that his measures, when
+monarch, would be of the same character and complexion with those
+which he was known to have highly approved, and of which he was
+thought by many to have been the principal author, when a subject
+left little room for that spirit of speculation which generally
+attends a demise of the crown.  And thus an event, which when
+apprehended a few years before had, according to a strong expression
+of Sir William Temple, been looked upon as the end of the world, was
+now deemed to be of small comparative importance.
+
+Its tendency, indeed, was rather to ensure perseverance than to
+effect any change in the system which had been of late years
+pursued.  As there are, however, some steps indispensably necessary
+on the accession of a new prince to the throne, to these the public
+attention was directed, and though the character of James had been
+long so generally understood as to leave little doubt respecting the
+political maxims and principles by which his reign would be
+governed, there was probably much curiosity, as upon such occasions
+there always is, with regard to the conduct he would pursue in
+matters of less importance, and to the general language and
+behaviour which he would adopt in his new situation.  His first step
+was, of course, to assemble the privy council, to whom he spoke as
+follows:-
+
+"Before I enter upon any other business, I think fit to say
+something to you.  Since it hath pleated Almighty God to place me in
+this station, and I am now to succeed so good and gracious a king,
+as well as so very kind a brother, I think it fit to declare to you
+that I will endeavour to follow his example, and most especially in
+that of his great clemency and tenderness to his people.  I have
+been reported to be a man for arbitrary power; but that is not the
+only story that has been made of me; and I shall make it my
+endeavour to preserve this government, both in Church and State, as
+it is now by law established.  I know the principles of the Church
+of England are for monarchy, and the members of it have shown
+themselves good and loyal subjects; therefore I shall always take
+care to defend and support it.  I know, too, that the laws of
+England are sufficient to make the king as great a monarch as I can
+wish; and as I shall never depart from the just rights and
+prerogatives of the crown, so I shall never invade any man's
+property.  I have often heretofore ventured my life in defence of
+this nation and I shall go as far as any man in preserving it in all
+its just rights and liberties."
+
+With this declaration the council were so highly satisfied, that
+they supplicated his majesty to make it public, which was
+accordingly done; and it is reported to have been received with
+unbounded applause by the greater part of the nation.  Some,
+perhaps, there were, who did not think the boast of having ventured
+his life very manly, and who, considering the transactions of the
+last years of Charles's reign, were not much encouraged by the
+promise of imitating that monarch in clemency and tenderness to his
+subjects.  To these it might appear, that whatever there was of
+consolatory in the king's disclaimer of arbitrary power and
+professed attachment to the laws, was totally done away, as well by
+the consideration of what his majesty's notions of power and law
+were, as by his declaration that he would follow the example of a
+predecessor, whose government had not only been marked with the
+violation, in particular cases, of all the most sacred laws of the
+realm, but had latterly, by the disuse of parliaments, in defiance
+of the statute of the sixteenth year of his reign, stood upon a
+foundation radically and fundamentally illegal.  To others it might
+occur that even the promise to the Church of England, though express
+with respect to the condition of it, which was no other than perfect
+acquiescence in what the king deemed to be the true principles of
+monarchy, was rather vague with regard to the nature or degree of
+support to which the royal speaker might conceive himself engaged.
+The words, although in any interpretation of them they conveyed more
+than he possibly ever intended to perform, did by no means express
+the sense which at that time, by his friends, and afterwards by his
+enemies, was endeavoured to be fixed on them.  There was, indeed, a
+promise to support the establishment of the Church, and consequently
+the laws upon which that establishment immediately rested; but by no
+means an engagement to maintain all the collateral provisions which
+some of its more zealous members might judge necessary for its
+security.
+
+But whatever doubts or difficulties might be felt, few or none were
+expressed.  The Whigs, as a vanquished party, were either silent or
+not listened to, and the Tories were in a temper of mind which does
+not easily admit suspicion.  They were not more delighted with the
+victory they had obtained over their adversaries, than with the
+additional stability which, as they vainly imagined, the accession
+of the new monarch was likely to give to their system.  The truth is
+that, his religion excepted (and that objection they were sanguine
+enough to consider as done away by a few gracious words in favour of
+the Church), James was every way better suited to their purpose than
+his brother.  They had entertained continual apprehensions, not
+perhaps wholly unfounded, of the late king's returning kindness to
+Monmouth, the consequences of which could not easily be calculated;
+whereas, every occurrence that had happened, as well as every
+circumstance in James's situation, seemed to make him utterly
+irreconcilable with the Whigs.  Besides, after the reproach, as well
+as alarm, which the notoriety of Charles's treacherous character
+must so often have caused them, the very circumstance of having at
+their head a prince, of whom they could with any colour hold out to
+their adherents that his word was to be depended upon, was in itself
+a matter of triumph and exultation.  Accordingly, the watchword of
+the party was everywhere--"We have the word of a king, and a word
+never yet broken;" and to such a length was the spirit of adulation,
+or perhaps the delusion, carried, that this royal declaration was
+said to be a better security for the liberty and religion of the
+nation than any which the law could devise.
+
+The king, though much pleased, no doubt, with the popularity which
+seemed to attend the commencement of his reign, as a powerful medium
+for establishing the system of absolute power, did not suffer
+himself, by any show of affection from his people, to be diverted
+from his design of rendering his government independent of them.  To
+this design we must look as the mainspring of all his actions at
+this period; for with regard to the Roman Catholic religion, it is
+by no means certain that he yet thought of obtaining for it anything
+more than a complete toleration.  With this view, therefore, he
+could not take a more judicious resolution than that which he had
+declared in his speech to the privy council, and to which he seems,
+at this time, to have steadfastly adhered, of making the government
+of his predecessor the model for his own.  He therefore continued in
+their offices, notwithstanding the personal objections he might have
+to some of them, those servants of the late king, during whose
+administration that prince had been so successful in subduing his
+subjects, and eradicating almost from the minds of Englishmen every
+sentiment of liberty.
+
+Even the Marquis of Halifax, who was supposed to have remonstrated
+against many of the late measures, and to have been busy in
+recommending a change of system to Charles, was continued in high
+employment by James, who told him that, of all his past conduct, he
+should remember only his behaviour upon the exclusion bill, to which
+that nobleman had made a zealous and distinguished opposition; a
+handsome expression, which has been the more noticed, as well
+because it is almost the single instance of this prince's showing
+any disposition to forget injuries, as on account of a delicacy and
+propriety in the wording of it, by no means familiar to him.
+
+Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, whom he appointed lord treasurer,
+was in all respects calculated to be a fit instrument for the
+purposes then in view.  Besides being upon the worst terms with
+Halifax, in whom alone, of all his ministers, James was likely to
+find any bias in favour of popular principles, he was, both from
+prejudice of education, and from interest, inasmuch as he had
+aspired to be the head of the Tories, a great favourer of those
+servile principles of the Church of England which had been lately so
+highly extolled from the throne.  His near relation to the Duchess
+of York might also be some recommendation, but his privity to the
+late pecuniary transactions between the courts of Versailles and
+London, and the cordiality with which he concurred in them, were by
+far more powerful titles to his new master's confidence.  For it
+must be observed of this minister, as well as of many others of his
+party, that his HIGH notions, as they are frequently styled, of
+power, regarded only the relation between the king and his subjects,
+and not that in which he might stand with respect to foreign
+princes; so that, provided he could, by a dependence, however
+servile, upon Louis XIV., be placed above the control of his
+parliament and people at home, he considered the honour of the crown
+unsullied.
+
+Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, who was continued as secretary
+of state, had been at one period a supporter of the exclusion bill,
+and had been suspected of having offered the Duchess of Portsmouth
+to obtain the succession to the crown for her son, the Duke of
+Richmond.  Nay more, King James, in his "Memoirs," charges him with
+having intended, just at the time of Charles's death, to send him
+into a second banishment; but with regard to this last point, it
+appears evident to me, that many things in those "Memoirs," relative
+to this earl, were written after James's abdication, and in the
+greatest bitterness of spirit, when he was probably in a frame of
+mind to believe anything against a person by whom he conceived
+himself to have been basely deserted.  The reappointment, therefore,
+of this nobleman to so important an office, is to be accounted for
+partly upon the general principle above-mentioned, of making the new
+reign a mere continuation of the former, and partly upon
+Sunderland's extraordinary talents for ingratiating himself with
+persons in power, and persuading them that he was the fittest
+instrument for their purposes; a talent in which he seems to have
+surpassed all the intriguing statesmen of his time, or perhaps of
+any other.
+
+An intimate connection with the court of Versailles being the
+principal engine by which the favourite project of absolute monarchy
+was to be effected, James, for the purpose of fixing and cementing
+that connection, sent for M. de Barillon, the French ambassador, the
+very day after his accession, and entered into the most confidential
+discourse with him.  He explained to him his motives for intending
+to call a parliament, as well as his resolution to levy by authority
+the revenue which his predecessor had enjoyed in virtue of a grant
+of parliament which determined with his life.  He made general
+professions of attachment to Louis, declared that in all affairs of
+importance it was his intention to consult that monarch, and
+apologised, upon the ground of the urgency of the case, for acting
+in the instance mentioned without his advice.  Money was not
+directly mentioned, owing, perhaps, to some sense of shame upon that
+subject, which his brother had never experienced; but lest there
+should be a doubt whether that object were implied in the desire of
+support and protection, Rochester was directed to explain the matter
+more fully, and to give a more distinct interpretation of these
+general terms.  Accordingly, that minister waited the next morning
+upon Barillon, and after having repeated and enlarged upon the
+reasons for calling a parliament, stated, as an additional argument
+in defence of the measure, that without it his master would become
+too chargeable to the French king; adding, however, that the
+assistance which might be expected from a parliament, did not exempt
+him altogether from the necessity of resorting to that prince for
+pecuniary aids; for that without such, he would be at the mercy of
+his subjects, and that upon this beginning would depend the whole
+fortune of the reign.  If Rochester actually expressed himself as
+Barillon relates, the use intended to be made of parliament cannot
+but cause the most lively indignation, while it furnishes a complete
+answer to the historians who accuse the parliaments of those days of
+unseasonable parsimony in their grants to the Stuart kings; for the
+grants of the people of England were not destined, it seems, to
+enable their kings to oppose the power of France, or even to be
+independent of her, but to render the influence which Louis was
+resolved to preserve in this country less chargeable to him, by
+furnishing their quota to the support of his royal dependant.
+
+The French ambassador sent immediately a detailed account of these
+conversations to his court, where, probably, they were not received
+with the less satisfaction on account of the request contained in
+them having been anticipated.  Within a very few days from that in
+which the latter of them had passed, he was empowered to accompany
+the delivery of a letter from his master, with the agreeable news of
+having received from him bills of exchange to the amount of five
+hundred thousand livres, to be used in whatever manner might be
+convenient to the king of England's service.  The account which
+Barillon gives, of the manner in which this sum was received, is
+altogether ridiculous:  the king's eyes were full of tears, and
+three of his ministers, Rochester, Sunderland, and Godolphin, came
+severally to the French ambassador, to express the sense their
+master had of the obligation, in terms the most lavish.  Indeed,
+demonstrations of gratitude from the king directly, as well as
+through his ministers, for this supply were such, as if they had
+been used by some unfortunate individual, who, with his whole
+family, had been saved, by the timely succour of some kind and
+powerful protector, from a gaol and all its horrors, would be deemed
+rather too strong than too weak.  Barillon himself seems surprised
+when he relates them; but imputes them to what was probably their
+real cause, to the apprehensions that had been entertained (very
+unreasonable ones!) that the king of France might no longer choose
+to interfere in the affairs of England, and consequently that his
+support could not be relied on for the grand object of assimilating
+this government to his own.
+
+If such apprehensions did exist, it is probable that they were
+chiefly owing to the very careless manner, to say the least, in
+which Louis had of late fulfilled his pecuniary engagements to
+Charles, so as to amount, in the opinion of the English ministers,
+to an actual breach of promise.  But the circumstances were in some
+respects altered.  The French king had been convinced that Charles
+would never call a parliament; nay, further perhaps, that if he did,
+he would not be trusted by one; and considering him therefore
+entirely in his power, acted from that principle in insolent minds
+which makes them fond of ill-treating and insulting those whom they
+have degraded to a dependence on them.  But James would probably be
+obliged at the commencement of a new reign to call a parliament, and
+if well used by such a body, and abandoned by France, might give up
+his project of arbitrary power, and consent to govern according to
+the law and constitution.  In such an event, Louis easily foresaw,
+that, instead of a useful dependent, he might find upon the throne
+of England a formidable enemy.  Indeed, this prince and his
+ministers seem all along, with a sagacity that does them credit, to
+have foreseen, and to have justly estimated, the dangers to which
+they would be liable, if a cordial union should ever take place
+between a king of England and his parliament, and the British
+councils be directed by men enlightened and warmed by the genuine
+principles of liberty.  It was therefore an object of great moment
+to bind the new king, as early as possible, to the system of
+dependency upon France; and matter of less triumph to the court of
+Versailles to have retained him by so moderate a fee, than to that
+of London to receive a sum which, though small, was thought
+valuable, no as an earnest of better wages and future protection.
+
+It had for some time been Louis's favourite object to annex to his
+dominion what remained of the Spanish Netherlands, as well on
+account of their own intrinsic value, as to enable him to destroy
+the United Provinces and the Prince of Orange; and this object
+Charles had bound himself, by treaty with Spain, to oppose.  In the
+joy, therefore, occasioned by this noble manner of proceeding (for
+such it was called by all the parties concerned), the first step was
+to agree, without hesitation, that Charles's treaty with Spain
+determined with his life, a decision which, if the disregard that
+had been shown to it did not render the question concerning it
+nugatory, it would be difficult to support upon any principles of
+national law or justice.  The manner in which the late king had
+conducted himself upon the subject of this treaty, that is to say,
+the violation of it, without formally renouncing it, was gravely
+commended, and stated to be no more than what might justly be
+expected from him; but the present king was declared to be still
+more free, and in no way bound by a treaty, from the execution of
+which his brother had judged himself to be sufficiently dispensed.
+This appears to be a nice distinction, and what that degree of
+obligation was, from which James was exempt, but which had lain upon
+Charles, who neither thought himself bound, nor was expected by
+others to execute the treaty, it is difficult to conceive.
+
+This preliminary being adjusted, the meaning of which, through all
+this contemptible shuffling, was, that James, by giving up all
+concern for the Spanish Netherlands, should be at liberty to
+acquiesce in, or to second, whatever might be the ambitious projects
+of the court of Versailles, it was determined that Lord Churchill
+should be sent to Paris to obtain further pecuniary aids.  But such
+was the impression made by the frankness and generosity of Louis,
+that there was no question of discussing or capitulating, but
+everything was remitted to that prince, and to the information his
+ministers might give him, respecting the exigency of affairs in
+England.  He who had so handsomely been beforehand, in granting the
+assistance of five hundred thousand livres, was only to be thanked
+for past, not importuned for future, munificence.  Thus ended, for
+the present, this disgusting scene of iniquity and nonsense, in
+which all the actors seemed to vie with each other in prostituting
+the sacred names of friendship, generosity, and gratitude, in one of
+the meanest and most criminal transactions which history records.
+
+The principal parties in the business, besides the king himself, to
+whose capacity, at least, if not to his situation it was more
+suitable, and Lord Churchill, who acted as an inferior agent, were
+Sunderland, Rochester, and Godolphin, all men of high rank and
+considerable abilities, but whose understandings, as well as their
+principles, seem to have been corrupted by the pernicious schemes in
+which they were engaged.  With respect to the last-mentioned
+nobleman in particular, it is impossible, without pain, to see him
+engaged in such transactions.  With what self-humiliation must he
+not have reflected upon them in subsequent periods of his life!  How
+little could Barillon guess that he was negotiating with one who was
+destined to be at the head of an administration which, in a few
+years, would send the same Lord Churchill not to Paris, to implore
+Louis for succours towards enslaving England, or to thank him for
+pensions to her monarch, but to combine all Europe against him in
+the cause of liberty, to rout his armies, to take his towns, to
+humble his pride, and to shake to the foundation that fabric of
+power which it had been the business of a long life to raise, at the
+expense of every sentiment of tenderness to his subjects, and of
+justice and good faith to foreign nations.  It is with difficulty
+the reader can persuade himself that the Godolphin and Churchill
+here mentioned are the same persons who were afterwards one in the
+cabinet, one in the field, the great conductors of the war of the
+succession.  How little do they appear in one instance! how great in
+the other!  And the investigation of the cause to which this
+excessive difference is principally owing, will produce a most
+useful lesson.  Is the difference to be attributed to any
+superiority of genius in the prince whom they served in the latter
+period of their lives?  Queen Anne's capacity appears to have been
+inferior even to her father's.  Did they enjoy in a greater degree
+her favour and confidence?  The very reverse is the fact.  But in
+one case they were the tools of a king plotting against his people;
+in the other, the ministers of a free government acting upon
+enlarged principles, and with energies which no state that is not in
+some degree republican can supply.  How forcibly must the
+contemplation of these men, in such opposite situations, teach
+persons engaged in political life that a free and popular government
+is desirable, not only for the public good, but for their own
+greatness and consideration, for every object of generous ambition!
+
+The king having, as has been related, first privately communicated
+his intentions to the French ambassador, issued proclamations for
+the meeting of parliament, and for levying, upon his sole authority,
+the customs and other duties which had constituted part of the late
+king's revenue, but to which, the acts granting them having expired
+with the prince, James was not legally entitled.  He was advised by
+Lord Guildford, whom he had continued in the office of keeper of the
+great seal, and who upon such a subject, therefore, was a person
+likely to have the greatest weight, to satisfy himself with
+directing the money to be kept in the exchequer for the disposal of
+parliament, which was shortly to meet; and by others, to take bonds
+from the merchants for the duties, to be paid when parliament should
+legalise them.  But these expedients were not suited to the king's
+views, who, as well on account of his engagement with France, as
+from his own disposition, was determined to take no step that might
+indicate an intention of governing by parliaments, or a
+consciousness of his being dependent upon them for his revenue, he
+adopted, therefore, the advice of Jeffreys, advice not resulting so
+much, probably, either from ignorance or violence of disposition, as
+from his knowledge that it would be most agreeable to his master,
+and directed the duties to be paid as in the former reign.  It was
+pretended, that an interruption in levying some of the duties might
+be hurtful to trade; but as every difficulty of that kind was
+obviated by the expedients proposed, this arbitrary and violent
+measure can with no colour be ascribed to a regard to public
+convenience, nor to any other motive than to a desire of reviving
+Charles I.'s claims to the power of taxation, and of furnishing a
+most intelligible comment upon his speech to the council on the day
+of his accession.  It became evident what the king's notions were,
+with respect to that regal prerogative from which he professed
+himself determined never to depart, and to that property which he
+would never invade.  What were the remaining rights and liberties of
+the nation, which he was to preserve, might be more difficult to
+discover; but that the laws of England, in the royal interpretation
+of them, were sufficient to make the king as great a monarch as he,
+or, indeed, any prince could desire, was a point that could not be
+disputed.  This violation of law was in itself most flagrant; it was
+applied to a point well understood, and thought to have been so
+completely settled by repeated and most explicit declarations of the
+legislature, that it must have been doubtful whether even the most
+corrupt judges, if the question had been tried, would have had the
+audacity to decide it against the subject.  But no resistance was
+made; nor did the example of Hampden, which a half century before
+had been so successful, and rendered that patriot's name so
+illustrious, tempt any one to emulate his fame, so completely had
+the crafty and sanguinary measures of the late reign attained the
+object to which they were directed, and rendered all men either
+afraid or unwilling to exert themselves in the cause of liberty.
+
+On the other hand, addresses the most servile were daily sent to the
+throne.  That of the University of Oxford stated that the religion
+which they professed bound them to unconditional obedience to their
+sovereign without restrictions or limitations; and the Society of
+Barristers and Students of the Middle Temple thanked his majesty for
+the attention he had shown to the trade of the kingdom, concerning
+which, and its balance (and upon this last article they laid
+particular stress), they seemed to think themselves peculiarly
+called upon to deliver their opinion.  But whatever might be their
+knowledge in matters of trade, it was at least equal to that which
+these addressers showed in the laws and constitution of their
+country, since they boldly affirmed the king's right to levy the
+duties, and declared that it had never been disputed but by persons
+engaged, in what they were pleased to call rebellion against his
+royal father.  The address concluded with a sort of prayer that all
+his majesty's subjects might be as good lawyers as themselves, and
+disposed to acknowledge the royal prerogative in all its extent.
+
+If these addresses are remarkable for their servility, that of the
+gentlemen and freeholders of the county of Suffolk was no less so
+for the spirit of party violence that was displayed in it.  They
+would take care, they said, to choose representatives who should no
+more endure those who had been for the Exclusion Bill, than the last
+parliament had the abhorrers of the association; and thus not only
+endeavoured to keep up his majesty's resentment against a part of
+their fellow-subjects, but engaged themselves to imitate, for the
+purpose of retaliation, that part of the conduct of their
+adversaries which they considered as most illegal and oppressive.
+
+It is a remarkable circumstance, that among all the adulatory
+addresses of this time, there is not to be found, in any one of
+them, any declaration of disbelief in the popish plot, or any charge
+upon the late parliament for having prosecuted it, though it could
+not but be well known that such topics would, of all others, be most
+agreeable to the court.  Hence we may collect that the delusion on
+this subject was by no means at an end, and that they who, out of a
+desire to render history conformable to the principles of poetical
+justice, attribute the unpopularity and downfall of the Whigs to the
+indignation excited by their furious and sanguinary prosecution of
+the plot, are egregiously mistaken.  If this had been in any degree
+the prevailing sentiment, it is utterly unaccountable that, so far
+from its appearing in any of the addresses of these times, this most
+just ground of reproach upon the Whig party, and the parliament in
+which they had had the superiority, was the only one omitted in
+them.  The fact appears to have been the very reverse of what such
+historians suppose, and that the activity of the late parliamentary
+leaders, in prosecuting the popish plot, was the principal
+circumstance which reconciled the nation, for a time, to their other
+proceedings; that their conduct in that business (now so justly
+condemned) was the grand engine of their power, and that when that
+failed, they were soon overpowered by the united forces of bigotry
+and corruption.  They were hated by a great part of the nation, not
+for their crimes, but for their virtues.  To be above corruption is
+always odious to the corrupt, and to entertain more enlarged and
+juster notions of philosophy and government, is often a cause of
+alarm to the narrow-minded and superstitious.  In those days
+particularly it was obvious to refer to the confusion, greatly
+exaggerated of the times of the commonwealth; and it was an
+excellent watchword of alarm, to accuse every lover of law and
+liberty of designs to revive the tragical scene which had closed the
+life of the first Charles.  In this spirit, therefore, the Exclusion
+Bill, and the alleged conspiracies of Sidney and Russell, were, as
+might naturally be expected, the chief charges urged against the
+Whigs; but their conduct on the subject of the popish plot was so
+far from being the cause of the hatred born to them, that it was not
+even used as a topic of accusation against them.
+
+In order to keep up that spirit in the nation, which was thought to
+be manifested in the addresses, his majesty ordered the declaration,
+to which allusion was made in the last chapter, to be published,
+interwoven with a history of the Rye House Plot, which is said to
+have been drawn by Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester.  The principal
+drift of this publication was, to load the memory of Sidney and
+Russell, and to blacken the character of the Duke of Monmouth, by
+wickedly confounding the consultations holden by them with the plot
+for assassinating the late king, and in this object it seems in a
+great measure to have succeeded.  He also caused to be published an
+attestation of his brother's having died a Roman Catholic, together
+with two papers, drawn up by him, in favour of that persuasion.
+This is generally considered to have been a very ill-advised
+instance of zeal; but probably James thought, that at a time when
+people seemed to be so in love with his power, he might safely
+venture to indulge himself in a display of his attachment to his
+religion; and perhaps, too, it might be thought good policy to show
+that a prince, who had been so highly complimented as Charles had
+been, for the restoration and protection of the Church, had, in
+truth, been a Catholic, and thus to inculcate an opinion that the
+Church of England might not only be safe, but highly favoured, under
+the reign of a popish prince.
+
+Partly from similar motives, and partly to gratify the natural
+vindictiveness of his temper, he persevered in a most cruel
+persecution of the Protestant dissenters, upon the most frivolous
+pretences.  The courts of justice, as in Charles's days, were
+instruments equally ready, either for seconding the policy or for
+gratifying the bad passions of the monarch; and Jeffreys, whom the
+late king had appointed chief justice of England a little before
+Sidney's trial, was a man entirely agreeable to the temper, and
+suitable to the purposes, of the present government.  He was thought
+not to be very learned in his profession; but what might be wanting
+in knowledge he made up in positiveness; and, indeed, whatever might
+be the difficulties in questions between one subject and another,
+the fashionable doctrine, which prevailed at that time, of
+supporting the king's prerogative in its full extent, and without
+restriction or limitation, rendered, to such as espoused it, all
+that branch of law which is called constitutional extremely easy and
+simple.  He was as submissive and mean to those above him as he was
+haughty and insolent to those who were in any degree in his power;
+and if in his own conduct he did not exhibit a very nice regard for
+morality, or even for decency, he never failed to animadvert upon,
+and to punish, the most slight deviation in others with the utmost
+severity, especially if they were persons whom he suspected to be no
+favourites of the court.
+
+Before this magistrate was brought for trial, by a jury sufficiently
+prepossessed in favour of Tory politics, the Rev. Richard Baxter, a
+dissenting minister, a pious and learned man, of exemplary
+character, always remarkable for his attachment to monarchy, and for
+leaning to moderate measures in the differences between the Church
+and those of his persuasion.  The pretence for this prosecution was
+a supposed reference of some passages in one of his works to the
+bishops of the Church of England; a reference which was certainly
+not intended by him, and which could not have been made out to any
+jury that had been less prejudiced, or under any other direction
+than that of Jeffreys.  The real motive was, the desire of punishing
+an eminent dissenting teacher, whose reputation was high among his
+sect, and who was supposed to favour the political opinions of the
+Whigs.  He was found guilty, and Jeffreys, in passing sentence upon
+him, loaded him with the coarsest reproaches and bitterest taunts.
+He called him sometimes, by way of derision, a saint, sometimes, in
+plainer terms, an old rogue; and classed this respectable divine, to
+whom the only crime imputed was the having spoken disrespectfully of
+the bishops of a communion to which he did not belong, with the
+infamous Oates, who had been lately convicted of perjury.  He
+finished with declaring, that it was a matter of public notoriety
+that there was a formed design to ruin the king and the nation, in
+which this old man was the principal incendiary.  Nor is it
+improbable that this declaration, absurd as it was, might gain
+belief at a time when the credulity of the triumphant party was at
+its height.
+
+Of this credulity it seems to be no inconsiderable testimony, that
+some affected nicety which James had shown with regard to the
+ceremonies to be used towards the French ambassador, was highly
+magnified, and represented to be an indication of the different tone
+that was to be taken by the present king, in regard to foreign
+powers, and particularly to the court of Versailles.  The king was
+represented as a prince eminently jealous of the national honour,
+and determined to preserve the balance of power in Europe, by
+opposing the ambitious projects of France at the very time when he
+was supplicating Louis to be his pensioner, and expressing the most
+extravagant gratitude for having been accepted as such.  From the
+information which we now have, it appears that his applications to
+Louis for money were incessant, and that the difficulties were all
+on the side of the French court.  Of the historians who wrote prior
+to the inspection of the papers in the foreign office in France,
+Burnet is the only one who seems to have known that James's
+pretensions of independency with respect to the French king were (as
+he terms them) only a show; but there can now be no reason to doubt
+the truth of the anecdote which he relates, that Louis soon after
+told the Duke of Villeroy, that if James showed any apparent
+uneasiness concerning the balance of power (and there is some reason
+to suppose he did) in his conversations with the Spanish and other
+foreign ambassadors, his intention was, probably, to alarm the court
+of Versailles, and thereby to extort pecuniary assistance to a
+greater extent; while, on the other hand, Louis, secure in the
+knowledge that his views of absolute power must continue him in
+dependence upon France, seems to have refused further supplies, and
+even in some measure to have withdrawn those which had been
+stipulated, as a mark of his displeasure with his dependant, for
+assuming a higher tone than he thought becoming.
+
+Whether with a view of giving some countenance to those who were
+praising him upon the above mentioned topic, or from what other
+motive it is now not easy to conjecture, James seems to have wished
+to be upon apparent good terms, at least, with the Prince of Orange;
+and after some correspondence with that prince concerning the
+protection afforded by him and the states-general to Monmouth, and
+other obnoxious persons, it appears that he declared himself, in
+consequence of certain explanations and concessions, perfectly
+satisfied.  It is to be remarked, however, that he thought it
+necessary to give the French ambassador an account of this
+transaction, and in a manner to apologise to him for entering into
+any sort of terms with a son-in-law, who was supposed to be hostile
+in disposition to the French king.  He assured Barillon that a
+change of system on the part of the Prince of Orange in regard to
+Louis, should be a condition of his reconciliation:  he afterwards
+informed him that the Prince of Orange had answered him
+satisfactorily in all other respects, but had not taken notice of
+his wish that he should connect himself with France; but never told
+him that he had, notwithstanding the prince's silence on that
+material point, expressed himself completely satisfied with him.
+That a proposition to the Prince of Orange, to connect himself in
+politics with Louis would, if made, have been rejected, in the
+manner in which the king's account to Barillon implies that it was,
+there can be no doubt; but whether James ever had the assurance to
+make it is more questionable; for as he evidently acted
+disingenuously with the ambassador, in concealing from him the
+complete satisfaction he had expressed of the Prince of Orange's
+present conduct, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he deceived
+him still further, and pretended to have made an application, which
+he had never hazarded.
+
+However, the ascertaining of this fact is by no means necessary for
+the illustration, either of the general history or of James's
+particular character, since it appears that the proposition, if
+made, was rejected; and James is, in any case, equally convicted of
+insincerity, the only point in question being, whether he deceived
+the French ambassador, in regard to the fact of his having made the
+proposition, or to the sentiments he expressed upon its being
+refused.  Nothing serves more to show the dependence in which he
+considered himself to be upon Louis than these contemptible shifts
+to which he condescended, for the purposes of explaining and
+apologising for such parts of his conduct as might be supposed to be
+less agreeable to that monarch than the rest.  An English parliament
+acting upon constitutional principles, and the Prince of Orange,
+were the two enemies whom Louis most dreaded; and, accordingly,
+whenever James found it necessary to make approaches to either of
+them, an apology was immediately to be offered to the French
+ambassador, to which truth sometimes and honour was always
+sacrificed.
+
+Mr. Hume says the king found himself, by degrees, under the
+necessity of falling into an union with the French monarch, who
+could alone assist him in promoting the Catholic religion in
+England.  But when that historian wrote, those documents had not
+been made public, from which the account of the communications with
+Barillon has been taken, and by which it appears that a connection
+with France was, as well in point of time as in importance, the
+first object of his reign, and that the immediate specific motive to
+that connection was the same as that of his brother; the desire of
+rendering himself independent of parliament, and absolute, not that
+of establishing popery in England, which was considered as a more
+remote contingency.  That this was the case is evident from all the
+circumstances of the transaction, and especially from the zeal with
+which he was served in it by ministers who were never suspected of
+any leaning towards popery, and not one of whom (Sunderland
+excepted) could be brought to the measures that were afterwards
+taken in favour of that religion.  It is the more material to attend
+to this distinction, because the Tory historians, especially such of
+them as are not Jacobites, have taken much pains to induce us to
+attribute the violences and illegalities of this reign to James's
+religion, which was peculiar to him, rather than to that desire of
+absolute power which so many other princes have had, have, and
+always will have, in common with him.  The policy of such
+misrepresentation is obvious.  If this reign is to be considered as
+a period insulated, as it were, and unconnected with the general
+course of history, and if the events of it are to be attributed
+exclusively to the particular character and particular attachments
+of the monarch, the sole inference will be that we must not have a
+Catholic for our king; whereas, if we consider it, which history
+well warrants us to do, as a part of that system which had been
+pursued by all the Stuart kings, as well prior as subsequent to the
+restoration, the lesson which it affords is very different, as well
+as far more instructive.  We are taught, generally, the dangers
+Englishmen will always be liable to, if, from favour to a prince
+upon the throne, or from a confidence, however grounded, that his
+views are agreeable to our own notions of the constitution, we in
+any considerable degree abate of that vigilant and unremitting
+jealousy of the power of the crown, which can alone secure to us the
+effect of those wise laws that have been provided for the benefit of
+the subject:  and still more particularly, that it is in vain to
+think of making a compromise with power, and by yielding to it in
+other points, preserving some favourite object, such, for instance,
+as the Church in James's case, from its grasp.
+
+Previous to meeting his English parliament, James directed a
+parliament which had been summoned in the preceding reign, to
+assemble at Edinburgh, and appointed the Duke of Queensbury his
+commissioner.  This appointment is, in itself, a strong indication
+that the king's views, with regard to Scotland at least, were
+similar to those which I have ascribed to him in England; and that
+they did not at that time extend to the introduction of popery, but
+were altogether directed to the establishment of absolute power as
+the END, and to the support of an episcopal church, upon the model
+of the Church of England, as the MEANS.  For Queensbury had
+explained himself to his majesty in the fullest manner upon the
+subject of religion; and while he professed himself to be ready (as,
+indeed, his conduct in the late reign had sufficiently proved) to go
+any length in supporting royal power and in persecuting the
+Presbyterians, had made it a condition of his services, that he
+might understand from his majesty that there was no intention of
+changing the established religion; for if such was the object, he
+could not make any one step with him in that matter.  James received
+this declaration most kindly, assured him he had no such intention,
+and that he would have a parliament, to which he, Queensbury, should
+go as commissioner, and giving all possible assurances in the matter
+of religion, get the revenue to be settled, and such other laws to
+be passed as might be necessary for the public safety.  With these
+promises the duke was not only satisfied at the time, but declared,
+at a subsequent period, that they had been made in so frank and
+hearty a manner, as made him conclude that it was impossible the
+king should be acting a part.  And this nobleman was considered, and
+is handed down to us by contemporary writers, as a man of a
+penetrating genius, nor has it ever been the national character of
+the country to which he belonged to be more liable to be imposed
+upon than the rest of mankind.
+
+The Scottish parliament met on the 23rd of April, and was opened by
+the commissioner, with the following letter from the king:-
+
+
+"My Lords and Gentlemen,--The many experiences we have had of the
+loyalty and exemplary forwardness of that our ancient kingdom, by
+their representatives in parliament assembled, in the reign of our
+deceased and most entirely beloved brother of ever blessed memory,
+made us desirous to call you at this time, in the beginning of our
+reign, to give you an opportunity, not only of showing your duty to
+us in the same manner, but likewise of being exemplary to others in
+your demonstrations of affection to our person and compliance with
+our desires, as you have most eminently been in times past, to a
+degree never to be forgotten by us, nor (we hope) to be contradicted
+by your future practices.  That which we are at this time to propose
+unto you is what is as necessary for your safety as our service, and
+what has a tendency more to secure your own privileges and
+properties than the aggrandising our power and authority (though in
+it consists the greatest security of your rights and interests,
+these never having been in danger, except when the royal power was
+brought too low to protect them), which now we are resolved to
+maintain, in its greatest lustre, to the end we may be the more
+enabled to defend and protect your religion as established by law,
+and your rights and properties (which was our design in calling this
+parliament) against fanatical contrivances, murderers, and
+assassins, who having no fear of God, more than honour for us, have
+brought you into such difficulties as only the blessing of God upon
+the steady resolutions and actings of our said dearest royal
+brother, and those employed by him (in prosecution of the good and
+wholesome laws, by you heretofore offered), could have saved you
+from the most horrid confusions and inevitable ruin.  Nothing has
+been left unattempted by those wild and inhuman traitors for
+endeavouring to overturn your peace; and therefore we have good
+reason to hope that nothing will be wanting in you to secure
+yourselves and us from their outrages and violence in time coming,
+and to take care that such conspirators meet with their just
+deservings, so as others may thereby be deterred from courses so
+little agreeable to religion, or their duty and allegiance to us.
+These things we considered to be of so great importance to our
+royal, as well as the universal, interest of that our kingdom, that
+we were fully resolved, in person, to have proposed the needful
+remedies to you.  But things having so fallen out as render this
+impossible for us, we have now thought fit to send our right trusty
+and right entirely beloved cousin and councillor, William, Duke of
+Queensbury, to be our commissioner amongst you, of whose abilities
+and qualifications we have reason to be fully satisfied, and of
+whose faithfulness to us, and zeal for our interest, we have had
+signal proofs in the times of our greatest difficulties.  Him we
+have fully intrusted in all things relating to our service and your
+own prosperity and happiness, and therefore you are to give him
+entire trust and credit, as you now see we have done, from whose
+prudence and your most dutiful affection to us, we have full
+confidence of your entire compliance and assistance in all those
+matters, wherein he is instructed as aforesaid.  We do, therefore,
+not only recommend unto you that such things be done as are
+necessary in this juncture for your own peace, and the support of
+our royal interest, of which we had so much experience when amongst
+you, that we cannot doubt of your full and ample expressing the same
+on this occasion, by which the great concern we have in you, our
+ancient and kindly people, may still increase, and you may transmit
+your loyal actions (as examples of duty) to your posterity.  In full
+confidence whereof we do assure you of your royal favour and
+protection in all your concerns, and so we bid you heartily
+farewell."
+
+
+This letter deserves the more attention because, as the proceedings
+of the Scotch parliament, according to a remarkable expression in
+the letter itself, were intended to be an example to others, there
+is the greatest reason to suppose the matter of it must have been
+maturely weighed and considered.  His majesty first compliments the
+Scotch parliament upon their peculiar loyalty and dutiful behaviour
+in past times, meaning, no doubt, to contrast their conduct with
+that of those English parliaments who had passed the Exclusion Bill,
+the Disbanding Act, the Habeas Corpus Act, and other measures
+hostile to his favourite principles of government.  He states the
+granting of an independent revenue, and the supporting the
+prerogative in its greatest lustre, if not the aggrandising of it,
+to be necessary for the preservation of their religion, established
+by law (that is, the Protestant episcopacy), as well as for the
+security of their properties against fanatical assassins and
+murderers; thus emphatically announcing a complete union of
+interests between the crown and the Church.  He then bestows a
+complete and unqualified approbation of the persecuting measures of
+the last reign, in which he had borne so great a share; and to those
+measures, and to the steadiness with which they had been persevered
+in, he ascribes the escape of both Church and State from the
+fanatics, and expresses his regret that he could not be present, to
+propose in person the other remedies of a similar nature, which he
+recommended as needful in the present conjuncture.
+
+Now it is proper in this place to inquire into the nature of the
+measures thus extolled, as well for the purpose of elucidating the
+characters of the king and his Scottish minsters, as for that of
+rendering more intelligible the subsequent proceedings of the
+parliament, and the other events which soon after took place in that
+kingdom.  Some general notions may be formed of that course of
+proceedings which, according to his majesty's opinion, had been so
+laudably and resolutely pursued during the late reign, from the
+circumstances alluded to in the preceding chapter, when it is
+understood that the sentences of Argyle and Laurie of Blackwood were
+not detached instances of oppression, but rather a sample of the
+general system of administration.  The covenant, which had been so
+solemnly taken by the whole kingdom, and, among the rest, by the
+king himself, had been declared to be unlawful, and a refusal to
+abjure it had been made subject to the severest penalties.
+Episcopacy, which was detested by a great majority of the nation,
+had been established, and all public exercise of religion, in the
+forms to which the people were most attached, had been prohibited.
+The attendance upon field conventicles had been made highly penal,
+and the preaching at them capital, by which means, according to the
+computation of a late writer, no less remarkable for the accuracy of
+his facts than for the force and justness of his reasonings, at
+least seventeen thousand persons in one district were involved in
+criminality, and became the objects of persecution.  After this
+letters had been issued by government, forbidding the intercommuning
+with persons who had neglected or refused to appear before the Privy
+Council, when cited for the above crimes, a proceeding by which not
+only all succour or assistance to such persons, but, according to
+the strict sense of the word made use of, all intercourse with them,
+was rendered criminal, and subjected him who disobeyed the
+prohibition to the same penalties, whether capital or others, which
+were affixed to the alleged crimes of the party with whom he had
+intercommuned.
+
+These measures not proving effectual for the purpose for which they
+were intended, or, as some say, the object of Charles II.'s
+government being to provoke an insurrection, a demand was made upon
+the landholders in the district supposed to be most disaffected of
+bonds, whereby they were to become responsible for their wives,
+families, tenants, and servants, and likewise for the wives,
+families, and servants of their tenants, and, finally, for all
+persons living upon their estates, that they should not withdraw
+from the Church, frequent or preach at conventicles, nor give any
+succour, or have any intercourse with persons with whom it was
+forbidden to intercommune; and the penalties attached to the breach
+of this engagement, the keeping of which was obviously out of the
+power of him who was required to make it, were to be the same as
+those, whether capital or other, to which the several persons for
+whom he engaged might be liable.  The landholders, not being willing
+to subscribe to their own destruction, refused to execute the bonds,
+and this was thought sufficient grounds for considering the district
+to which they belonged as in a state of rebellion.  English and
+Irish armies were ordered to the frontiers; a train of artillery and
+the militia were sent into the district itself; and six thousand
+Highlanders, who were let loose upon its inhabitants, to exercise
+every species of pillage and plunder were connived at, or rather
+encouraged, in excesses of a still more atrocious nature.
+
+The bonds being still refused, the government had recourse to an
+expedient of a most extraordinary nature, and issued what the Scotch
+called a writ of Lawburrows against the whole district.  This writ
+of Lawburrows is somewhat analogous to what we call "swearing the
+peace" against any one, and had hitherto been supposed, as the other
+is with us, to be applicable to the disputes of private individuals,
+and to the apprehensions which, in consequence of such disputes,
+they may mutually entertain of each other.  A government swearing
+the peace against its subjects was a new spectacle; but if a private
+subject, under fear of another, hath a right to such a security, how
+much more the government itself? was thought an unanswerable
+argument.  Such are the sophistries which tyrants deem satisfactory.
+Thus are they willing even to descend from their loftiness into the
+situation of subjects or private men, when it is for the purpose of
+acquiring additional powers of persecution; and thus truly
+formidable and terrific are they, when they pretend alarm and fear.
+By these writs the persons against whom they were directed were
+bound, as in case of the former bonds, to conditions which were not
+in their power to fulfil, such as the preventing of conventicles and
+the like, under such penalties as the Privy Council might inflict,
+and a disobedience to them was followed by outlawry and
+confiscation.
+
+The conduct of the Duke of Lauderdale, who was the chief actor in
+these scenes of violence and iniquity, was completely approved and
+justified at court; but in consequence probably of the state of
+politics in England at a time when the Whigs were strongest in the
+House of Commons, some of these grievances were in part redressed,
+and the Highlanders, and writs of Lawburrows were recalled.  But the
+country was still treated like a conquered country.  The Highlanders
+were replaced by an army of five thousand regulars, and garrisons
+were placed in private houses.  The persecution of conventicles
+continued, and ample indemnity was granted for every species of
+violence that might be exercised by those employed to suppress them.
+In this state of things the assassination and murder of Sharp,
+Archbishop of St. Andrews, by a troop of fanatics, who had been
+driven to madness by the oppression of Carmichael, one of that
+prelate's instruments, while it gave an additional spur to the
+vindictive temper of the government, was considered by it as a
+justification for every mode and degree of cruelty and persecution.
+The outrage committed by a few individuals was imputed to the whole
+fanatic sect, as the government termed them, or, in other words, to
+a description of people which composed a great majority of the
+population in the Lowlands of Scotland; and those who attended field
+or armed conventicles were ordered to be indiscriminately massacred.
+
+By such means an insurrection was at last produced, which, from the
+weakness, or, as some suppose, from the wicked policy of an
+administration eager for confiscations, and desirous of such a state
+of the country as might, in some measure, justify their course of
+government, made such a progress that the insurgents became masters
+of Glasgow and the country adjacent.  To quell these insurgents,
+who, undisciplined as they were, had defeated Graham, afterwards
+Viscount Dundee, the Duke of Monmouth was sent with an army from
+England; but, lest the generous mildness of his nature should
+prevail, he had sealed orders which he was not to open till in sight
+of the rebels, enjoining him not to treat with them, but to fall
+upon them without any previous negotiation.  In pursuance of these
+orders the insurgents were attacked at Bothwell Bridge, where,
+though they were entirely routed and dispersed, yet because those
+who surrendered at discretion were not put to death, and the army,
+by the strict enforcing of discipline, were prevented from plunder
+and other outrages, it was represented by James, and in some degree
+even by the king, that Monmouth had acted as if he had meant rather
+to put himself at the head of the fanatics than to repel them, and
+were inclined rather to court their friendship than to punish their
+rebellion.  All complaints against Lauderdale were dismissed, his
+power confirmed, and an act of indemnity, which had been procured at
+Monmouth's intercession, was so clogged with exceptions as to be of
+little use to any but to the agents of tyranny.  Several persons,
+who were neither directly nor indirectly concerned in the murder of
+the archbishop, were executed as an expiation for that offence; but
+many more were obliged to compound for their lives by submitting to
+the most rapacious extortion, which at this particular period seems
+to have been the engine of oppression most in fashion, and which was
+extended not only to those who had been in any way concerned in the
+insurrection, but to those who had neglected to attend the standard
+of the king, when displayed against what was styled, in the usual
+insulting language of tyrants, a most unnatural rebellion.
+
+The quiet produced by such means was, as might be expected, of no
+long duration.  Enthusiasm was increased by persecution, and the
+fanatic preachers found no difficulty in persuading their flocks to
+throw off all allegiance to a government which afforded them no
+protection.  The king was declared to be an apostate from the
+government, a tyrant, and an usurper; and Cargill, one of the most
+enthusiastic among the preachers, pronounced a formal sentence of
+excommunication against him, his brother the Duke of York, and
+others, their ministers and abettors.  This outrage upon majesty
+together with an insurrection contemptible in point of numbers and
+strength, in which Cameron, another field-preacher, had been killed,
+furnished a pretence which was by no means neglected for new
+cruelties and executions; but neither death nor torture were
+sufficient to subdue the minds of Cargill and his intrepid
+followers.  They all gloried in their sufferings; nor could the
+meanest of them be brought to purchase their lives by a retractation
+of their principles, or even by any expression that might be
+construed into an approbation of their persecutors.  The effect of
+this heroic constancy upon the minds of their oppressors was to
+persuade them not to lessen the numbers of executions, but to render
+them more private, whereby they exposed the true character of their
+government, which was not severity, but violence; not justice, but
+vengeance:  for example being the only legitimate end of punishment,
+where that is likely to encourage rather than to deter (as the
+government in these instances seems to have apprehended), and
+consequently to prove more pernicious than salutary, every
+punishment inflicted by the magistrate is cruelty, every execution
+murder.  The rage of punishment did not stop even here, but
+questions were put to persons, and in many instances to persons
+under torture, who had not been proved to have been in any of the
+insurrections, whether they considered the archbishop's
+assassination as murder, the rising at Bothwell Bridge rebellion,
+and Charles a lawful king.  The refusal to answer these questions,
+or the answering of them in an unsatisfactory manner, was deemed a
+proof of guilt, and immediate execution ensued.
+
+These last proceedings had taken place while James himself had the
+government in his hands, and under his immediate directions.  Not
+long after, and when the exclusionists in England were supposed to
+be entirely defeated, was passed (James being the king's
+commissioner), the famous bill of succession, declaring that no
+difference of religion, nor any statute or law grounded upon such,
+or any other pretence, could defeat the hereditary right of the heir
+to the crown, and that to propose any limitation upon the future
+administration of such heir was high treason.  But the Protestant
+religion was to be secured; for those who were most obsequious to
+the court, and the most willing and forward instruments of its
+tyranny, were, nevertheless, zealous Protestants.  A test was
+therefore framed for this purpose, which was imposed upon all
+persons exercising any civil or military functions whatever, the
+royal family alone excepted; but to the declaration of adherence to
+the Protestant religion was added a recognition of the king's
+supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, and a complete renunciation in
+civil concerns of every right belonging to a free subject.  An
+adherence to the Protestant religion, according to the confession of
+it referred to in the test, seemed to some inconsistent with the
+acknowledgment of the king's supremacy and that clause of the oath
+which related to civil matters, inasmuch as it declared against
+endeavouring at any alteration in the Church or State, seemed
+incompatible with the duties of a counsellor or a member of
+parliament.  Upon these grounds the Earl of Argyle, in taking the
+oath, thought fit to declare as follows:-
+
+"I have considered the test, and I am very desirous to give
+obedience as far as I can.  I am confident the parliament never
+intended to impose contradictory oaths; therefore I think no man can
+explain it but for himself.  Accordingly I take it, as far as it is
+consistent with itself and the Protestant religion.  And I do
+declare that I mean not to bind up myself in my station, and in a
+lawful way, to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the
+advantage of the Church or State, not repugnant to the Protestant
+religion and my loyalty.  And this I understand as a part of the
+oath."  And for this declaration, though unnoticed at the time, he
+was in a few days afterwards committed, and shortly after sentenced
+to die.  Nor was the test applied only to those for whom it had been
+originally instituted, but by being offered to those numerous
+classes of people who were within the reach of the late severe
+criminal laws, as an alternative for death or confiscation, it might
+fairly be said to be imposed upon the greater part of the country.
+
+Not long after these transactions James took his final leave of the
+government, and in his parting speech recommended, in the strongest
+terms, the support of the Church.  This gracious expression, the
+sincerity of which seemed to be evinced by his conduct to the
+conventiclers and the severity with which he had enforced the test,
+obtained him a testimonial from the bishops of his affection to
+their Protestant Church, a testimonial to which, upon the principle
+that they are the best friends to the Church who are most willing to
+persecute such as dissent from it, he was, notwithstanding his own
+nonconformity, most amply entitled.
+
+Queensbury's administration ensued, in which the maxims that had
+guided his predecessors were so far from being relinquished, that
+they were pursued, if possible, with greater steadiness and
+activity.  Lawrie of Blackwood was condemned for having holden
+intercourse with a rebel, whose name was not to be found in any of
+the lists of the intercommuned or proscribed; and a proclamation was
+issued, threatening all who were in like circumstances with a
+similar fate.  The intercourse with rebels having been in great
+parts of the kingdom promiscuous and universal, more than twenty
+thousand persons were objects of this menace.  Fines and extortions
+of all kinds were employed to enrich the public treasury, to which,
+therefore, the multiplication of crimes became a fruitful source of
+revenue; and lest it should not be sufficiently so, husbands were
+made answerable (and that too with a retrospect) for the absence of
+their wives from church; a circumstance which the Presbyterian
+women's aversion to the episcopal form of worship had rendered very
+general.
+
+This system of government, and especially the rigour with which
+those concerned in the late insurrections, the excommunication of
+the king, or the other outrages complained of, were pursued and
+hunted sometimes by bloodhounds, sometimes by soldiers almost
+equally savage, and afterwards shot like wild beasts, drove some of
+those sectaries who were styled Cameronians, and other proscribed
+persons, to measures of absolute desperation.  They made a
+declaration, which they caused to be affixed to different churches,
+importing, that they would use the law of retaliation, and "we
+will," said they, "punish as enemies to God, and to the covenant,
+such persons as shall make it their work to imbrue their hands in
+our blood; and chiefly, if they shall continue obstinately and with
+habitual malice to proceed against us," with more to the like
+effect.  Upon such an occasion the interference of government became
+necessary.  The government did indeed interfere, and by a vote of
+council ordered, that whoever owned, or refused to disown, the
+declaration on oath, should be put to death in the presence of two
+witnesses, though unarmed when taken.  The execution of this
+massacre in the welvet counties which were principally concerned,
+was committed to the military, and exceeded, if possible, the order
+itself.  The disowning the declaration was required to be in a
+particular form prescribed.  Women, obstinate in their fanaticism,
+lest female blood should be a stain upon the swords of soldiers
+engaged in this honourable employment, were drowned.  The
+habitations, as well of those who had fled to save themselves, as of
+those who suffered, were burnt and destroyed.  Such members of the
+families of the delinquents as were above twelve years old were
+imprisoned for the purpose of being afterwards transported.  The
+brutality of the soldiers was such as might be expected from an army
+let loose from all restraint, and employed to execute the royal
+justice, as it was called, upon wretches.  Graham who has been
+mentioned before, and who, under the title of Lord Dundee, a title
+which was probably conferred upon him by James for these or similar
+services, was afterwards esteemed such a hero among the Jacobite
+party, particularly distinguished himself.  Of six unarmed fugitives
+whom he seized, he caused four to be shot in his presence, nor did
+the remaining two experience any other mercy from him than a delay
+of their doom; and at another time, having intercepted the flight of
+one of these victims, he had him shown to his family, and then
+murdered in the arms of his wife.  The example of persons of such
+high rank, and who must be presumed to have had an education in some
+degree correspondent to their station, could not fail of operating
+upon men of a lower order in society.  The carnage became every day
+more general and more indiscriminate, and the murder of peasants in
+their houses, or while employed at their usual work in the fields,
+by the soldiers, was not only not reproved or punished, but deemed a
+meritorious service by their superiors.  The demise of King Charles,
+which happened about this time, caused no suspension or relaxation
+in these proceedings, which seemed to have been the crowning
+measure, as it were, or finishing stroke of that system, for the
+steady perseverance in which James so much admired the resolution of
+his brother.
+
+It has been judged necessary to detail these transactions in a
+manner which may, to some readers, appear an impertinent digression
+from the narrative in which this history is at present engaged, in
+order to set in a clearer light some points of the greatest
+importance.  In the first place, from the summary review of the
+affairs of Scotland, and from the complacency with which James looks
+back to his own share of them, joined to the general approbation he
+expressed of the conduct of government in that kingdom, we may form
+a pretty just notion, as well of his maxims of policy, as of his
+temper and disposition in matters where his bigotry to the Roman
+Catholic religion had no share.  For it is to be observed and
+carefully kept in mind, that the Church, of which he not only
+recommends the support, but which be showed himself ready to
+maintain by the most violent means, is the Episcopalian Church of
+the Protestants; that the test which he enforced at the point of the
+bayonet was a Protestant test, so much so indeed, that he himself
+could not take it; and that the more marked character of the
+conventicles, the objects of his persecution, was not so much that
+of heretics excommunicated by the Pope, as of dissenters from the
+Church of England, and irreconcilable enemies to the Protestant
+liturgy and the Protestant episcopacy.  But he judged the Church of
+England to be a most fit instrument for rendering the monarchy
+absolute.  On the other hand, the Presbyterians were thought
+naturally hostile to the principles of passive obedience, and to one
+or other, or with more probability to both of these considerations,
+joined to the natural violence of his temper, is to be referred the
+whole of his conduct in this part of his life, which in this view is
+rational enough; but on the supposition of his having conceived thus
+early the intention of introducing popery upon the ruins of the
+Church of England, is wholly unaccountable, and no less absurd, than
+if a general were to put himself to great cost and pains to furnish
+with ammunition and to strengthen with fortifications a place of
+which he was actually meditating the attack.
+
+The next important observation that occurs, and to which even they
+who are most determined to believe that this prince had always
+popery in view, and held every other consideration as subordinate to
+that primary object, must nevertheless subscribe, is that the most
+confidential advisors, as well as the most furious supporters of the
+measures we have related, were not Roman Catholics.  Lauderdale and
+Queensbury were both Protestants.  There is no reason, therefore, to
+impute any of James's violence afterwards to the suggestions of his
+Catholic advisers, since he who had been engaged in the series of
+measures above related with Protestant counsellors and coadjutors,
+had surely nothing to learn from papists (whether priests, jesuits,
+or others) in the science of tyranny.  Lastly, from this account we
+are enabled to form some notion of the state of Scotland at a time
+when the parliament of that kingdom was called to set an example for
+this, and we find it to have been a state of more absolute slavery
+than at that time subsisted in any part of Christendom.
+
+The affairs of Scotland being in the state which we have described,
+it is no wonder that the king's letter was received with
+acclamations of applause, and that the parliament opened, not only
+with approbation of the government, but even with an enthusiastic
+zeal to signalise their loyalty, as well by a perfect acquiescence
+to the king's demands, as by the most fulsome expressions of
+adulation.  "What prince in Europe, or in the whole world," said the
+chancellor Perth, "was ever like the late king, except his present
+majesty, who had undergone every trial of prosperity and adversity,
+and whose unwearied clemency was not among the least conspicuous of
+his virtues?  To advance his honour and greatness was the duty of
+all his subjects, and ought to be the endeavour of their lives
+without reserve."  The parliament voted an address, scarcely less
+adulatory than the chancellor's speech.
+
+
+"May it please your sacred majesty--Your majesty's gracious and kind
+remembrance of the services done by this, your ancient kingdom, to
+the late king your brother, of ever glorious memory, shall rather
+raise in us ardent desires to exceed whatever we have done formerly,
+than make us consider them as deserving the esteem your majesty is
+pleased to express of them in your letter to us dated the twenty-
+eighth of March.  The death of that our excellent monarch is
+lamented by us to all the degrees of grief that are consistent with
+our great joy for the succession of your sacred majesty, who has not
+only continued, but secured the happiness which his wisdom, his
+justice, and clemency procured to us:  and having the honour to be
+the first parliament which meets by your royal authority, of which
+we are very sensible, your majesty may be confident that we will
+offer such laws as may best secure your majesty's sacred person, the
+royal family and government, and be so exemplary loyal, as to raise
+your honour and greatness to the utmost of our power, which we shall
+ever esteem both our duty and interest.  Nor shall we leave anything
+undone for extirpating all fanaticism, but especially those
+fanatical murderers and assassins, and for detecting and punishing
+the late conspirators, whose pernicious and execrable designs did so
+much tend to subvert your majesty's government, and ruin us and all
+your majesty's faithful subjects.  We can assure your majesty, that
+the subjects of this your majesty's ancient kingdom are so desirous
+to exceed all their predecessors in extraordinary marks of affection
+and obedience to your majesty, that (God be praised) the only way to
+be popular with us is to be eminently loyal.  Your majesty's care of
+us, when you took us to be your special charge, your wisdom in
+extinguishing the seeds of rebellion and faction amongst us, your
+justice, which was so great as to be for ever exemplary, but above
+all, your majesty's free and cheerful securing to us our religion,
+when your were the late king's, your royal brother's commissioner,
+now again renewed, when you are our sovereign, are what your
+subjects here can never forget, and therefore your majesty may
+expect that we will think your commands sacred as your person, and
+that your inclination will prevent our debates; nor did ever any who
+represented our monarchs as their commissioners (except your royal
+self) meet with greater respect, or more exact observance from a
+parliament, than the Duke of Queensbury (whom your majesty has so
+wisely chosen to represent you in this, and of whose eminent loyalty
+and great abilities in all his former employments this nation hath
+seen so many proofs) shall find from
+
+"May it please your sacred majesty, your majesty's most humble, most
+faithful, and most obedient subjects and servants, "PERTH, Cancell."
+
+
+Nor was this spirit of loyalty (as it was then called) of abject
+slavery, and unmanly subservience to the will of a despot, as it has
+been justly denominated by the more impartial judgment of posterity,
+confined to words only.  Acts were passed to ratify all the late
+judgments, however illegal or iniquitous, to indemnify the privy
+council, judges, and all officers of the crown, civil or military,
+for all the violences they had committed; to authorise the privy
+council to impose the test upon all ranks of people under such
+penalties as that board might think fit to impose; to extend the
+punishment of death which had formerly attached upon the preachers
+at field conventicles only, to all their auditors, and likewise to
+the preachers at house conventicles; to subject to the penalties of
+treason all persons who should give or take the covenant, or write
+in defence thereof, or in any other way own it to be obligatory; and
+lastly, in a strain of tyranny, for which there was, it is believed,
+no precedent, and which certainly has never been surpassed, to enact
+that all such persons as being cited in cases of high treason, field
+or house conventicles, or church irregularities, should refuse to
+give testimony, should be liable to the punishment due by law to the
+criminals against whom they refused to be witnesses.  It is true
+that an act was also passed for confirming all former statutes in
+favour of the Protestant religion as then established, in their
+whole strength and tenour, as if they were particularly set down and
+expressed in the said act; but when we recollect the notions which
+Queensbury at that time entertained of the king's views, this
+proceeding forms no exception to the general system of servility
+which characterised both ministers and parliament.  All matters in
+relation to revenue were of course settled in the manner most
+agreeable to his majesty's wishes and the recommendation of his
+commissioner.
+
+While the legislature was doing its part, the executive government
+was not behindhand in pursuing the system which had been so much
+commended.  A refusal to abjure the declaration in the terms
+prescribed, was everywhere considered as sufficient cause for
+immediate execution.  In one part of the country information having
+been received that a corpse had been clandestinely buried, an
+inquiry took place; it was dug up, and found to be that of a person
+proscribed.  Those who had interred him were suspected, not of
+having murdered, but of having harboured him.  For this crime their
+house was destroyed, and the women and children of the family being
+driven out to wander as vagabonds, a young man belonging to it was
+executed by the order of Johnston of Westerraw.  Against this murder
+even Graham himself is said to have remonstrated, but was content
+with protesting that the blood was not upon his head; and not being
+able to persuade a Highland officer to execute the order of
+Johnston, ordered his own men to shoot the unhappy victim.  In
+another county three females, one of sixty-three years of age, one
+of eighteen, and one of twelve, were charged with rebellion; and
+refusing to abjure the declaration, were sentenced to be drowned.
+The last was let off upon condition of her father's giving a bond
+for a hundred pounds.  The elderly woman, who is represented as a
+person of eminent piety, bore her fate with the greatest constancy,
+nor does it appear that her death excited any strong sensations in
+the minds of her savage executioners.  The girl of eighteen was more
+pitied, and after many entreaties, and having been once under water,
+was prevailed upon to utter some words which might be fairly
+construed into blessing the king, a mode of obtaining pardon not
+unfrequent in cases where the persecutors were inclined to relent.
+Upon this it was thought she was safe, but the merciless barbarian
+who superintended this dreadful business was not satisfied; and upon
+her refusing the abjuration, she was again plunged into the water,
+where she expired.  It is to be remarked that being at Bothwell
+Bridge and Air's Moss were among the crimes stated in the indictment
+of all the three, though, when the last of these affairs happened,
+one of the girls was only thirteen, and the other not eight years of
+age.  At the time of the Bothwell Bridge business, they were still
+younger.  To recite all the instances of cruelty which occurred
+would be endless; but it may be necessary to remark that no
+historical facts are better ascertained than the accounts of them
+which are to be found in Woodrow.  In every instance where there has
+been an opportunity of comparing these accounts with records, and
+other authentic monuments, they appear to be quite correct.
+
+The Scottish parliament having thus set, as they had been required
+to do, an eminent example of what was then thought duty to the
+crown, the king met his English parliament on the 19th of May, 1685,
+and opened it with the following speech:-
+
+
+"My lords and gentlemen,--After it pleased Almighty God to take to
+his mercy the late king, my dearest brother, and to bring me to the
+peaceable possession of the throne of my ancestors, I immediately
+resolved to call a parliament, as the best means to settle
+everything upon these foundations as may make my reign both easy and
+happy to you; towards which I am disposed to contribute all that is
+fit for me to do.
+
+"What I said to my privy council at my first coming there I am
+desirous to renew to you, wherein I fully declare my opinion
+concerning the principles of the Church of England, whose members
+have showed themselves so eminently loyal in the worst of times in
+defence of my father and support of my brother (of blessed memory),
+that I will always take care to defend and support it.  I will make
+it my endeavour to preserve this government, both in Church and
+State, as it is by law established:  and as I will never depart from
+the just rights and prerogatives of the crown, so I will never
+invade any man's property; and you may be sure that having
+heretofore ventured my life in the defence of this nation, I will
+still go as far as any man in preserving it in all its just rights
+and liberties.
+
+"And having given this assurance concerning the care I will have of
+your religion and property, which I have chose to do in the same
+words which I used at my first coming to the crown, the better to
+evidence to you that I spoke them not by chance, and consequently
+that you may firmly rely upon a promise so solemnly made, I cannot
+doubt that I shall fail of suitable returns from you, with all
+imaginable duty and kindness on your part, and particularly to what
+relates to the settling of my revenue, and continuing it during my
+life, as it was in the lifetime of my brother.  I might use many
+arguments to enforce this demand for the benefit of trade, the
+support of the navy, the necessity of the crown, and the well-being
+of the government itself, which I must not suffer to be precarious;
+but I am confident your own consideration of what is just and
+reasonable will suggest to you whatsoever might be enlarged upon
+this occasion.
+
+"There is one popular argument which I foresee may be used against
+what I ask of you, from the inclination men have for frequent
+parliaments, which some may think would be the best security, by
+feeding me from time to time by such proportions as they shall think
+convenient.  And this argument, it being the first time I speak to
+you from the throne, I will answer, once for all, that this would be
+a very improper method to take with me; and that the best way to
+engage me to meet you often is always to use me well.
+
+"I expect, therefore, that you will comply with me in what I have
+desired, and that you will do it speedily, that this may be a short
+session, and that we may meet again to all our satisfactions.
+
+"My lords and gentlemen,--I must acquaint you that I have had news
+this morning from Scotland that Argyle is landed in the West
+Highlands, with the men he brought with him from Holland:  that
+there are two declarations published, one in the name of all those
+in arms, the other in his own.  It would be too long for me to
+repeat the substance of them; it is sufficient to tell you I am
+charged with usurpation and tyranny.  The shorter of them I have
+directed to be forthwith communicated to you.
+
+"I will take the best care I can that this declaration of their own
+faction and rebellion may meet with the reward it deserves; and I
+will not doubt but you will be the more zealous to support the
+government, and give me my revenue, as I have desired it, without
+delay."
+
+
+The repetition of the words made use of in his first speech to the
+privy council shows that, in the opinion of the court, at least,
+they had been well chosen, and had answered their purpose; and even
+the haughty language which was added, and was little less than a
+menace to parliament if it should not comply with his wishes, was
+not, as it appears, unpleasing to the party which at that time
+prevailed, since the revenue enjoyed by his predecessor was
+unanimously, and almost immediately, voted to him for life.  It was
+not remarked, in public at least, that the king's threat of
+governing without parliament was an unequivocal manifestation of his
+contempt of the law of the country, so distinctly established,
+though so ineffectually secured, by the statute of the sixteenth of
+Charles II., for holding triennial parliaments.  It is said Lord-
+keeper Guildford had prepared a different speech for his majesty,
+but that this was preferred, as being the king's own words; and,
+indeed, that part of it in which he says that he must answer once
+for all that the Commons giving such proportions as they might think
+convenient would be a very improper way with him, bears, as well as
+some others, the most evident marks of its royal origin.  It is to
+be observed, however, that in arguing for his demand, as he styles
+it, of revenue, he says, not that the parliament ought not, but that
+he must not, suffer the well-being of the government depending upon
+such revenue to be precarious; whence it is evident that he intended
+to have it understood that if the parliament did not grant, he
+purposed to levy a revenue without their consent.  It is impossible
+that any degree of party spirit should so have blinded men as to
+prevent them from perceiving in this speech a determination on the
+part of the king to conduct his government upon the principles of
+absolute monarchy, and to those who were not so possessed with the
+love of royalty, which creates a kind of passionate affection for
+whoever happens to be the wearer of the crown, the vindictive manner
+in which he speaks of Argyle's invasion might afford sufficient
+evidence of the temper in which his power would be administered.  In
+that part of his speech he first betrays his personal feelings
+towards the unfortunate nobleman, whom, in his brother's reign, he
+had so cruelly and treacherously oppressed, by dwelling upon his
+being charged by Argyle with tyranny and usurpation, and then
+declares that he will take the best care, not according to the usual
+phrases to protect the loyal and well disposed, and to restore
+tranquillity, but that the declaration of the factious and
+rebellions may meet with the reward it deserves, thus marking out
+revenge and punishment as the consequences of victory, upon which he
+was most intent.
+
+It is impossible that in a House of Commons, however composed, there
+should not have been many members who disapproved the principles of
+government announced in the speech, and who were justly alarmed at
+the temper in which it was conceived.  But these, overpowered by
+numbers, and perhaps afraid of the imputation of being concerned in
+plots and insurrections (an imputation which, if they had shown any
+spirit of liberty, would most infallibly have been thrown on them),
+declined expressing their sentiments; and in the short session which
+followed there was an almost uninterrupted unanimity in granting
+every demand, and acquiescing in every wish of the government.  The
+revenue was granted without any notice being taken of the illegal
+manner in which the king had levied it upon his own authority.
+Argyle was stigmatised as a traitor; nor was any desire expressed to
+examine his declarations, one of which seemed to be purposely
+withheld from parliament.  Upon the communication of the Duke of
+Monmouth's landing in the west that nobleman was immediately
+attainted by bill.  The king's assurance was recognised as a
+sufficient security for the national religion; and the liberty of
+the press was destroyed by the revival of the statute of the 13th
+and 14th of Charles II.  This last circumstance, important as it is,
+does not seem to have excited much attention at the time, which,
+considering the general principles then in fashion, is not
+surprising.  That it should have been scarcely noticed by any
+historian is more wonderful.  It is true, however, that the terror
+inspired by the late prosecutions for libels, and the violent
+conduct of the courts upon such occasions, rendered a formal
+destruction of the liberty of the press a matter of less importance.
+So little does the magistracy, when it is inclined to act
+tyrannically, stand in need of tyrannical laws to effect its
+purpose.  The bare silence and acquiescence of the legislature is in
+such a case fully sufficient to annihilate, practically speaking,
+every right and liberty of the subject.
+
+As the grant of revenue was unanimous, so there does not appear to
+have been anything which can justly be styled a debate upon it,
+though Hume employs several pages in giving the arguments which, he
+affirms, were actually made use of, and, as he gives us to
+understand, in the House of Commons, for and against the question;
+arguments which, on both sides, seem to imply a considerable love of
+freedom and jealousy of royal power, and are not wholly unmixed even
+with some sentiments disrespectful to the king.  Now I cannot find,
+either from tradition, or from contemporary writers, any ground to
+think that either the reasons which Hume has adduced, or indeed any
+other, were urged in opposition to the grant.  The only speech made
+upon the occasion seems to have been that of Mr. (afterwards Sir
+Edward) Seymour, who, though of the Tory party, a strenuous opposer
+of the Exclusion Bill, and in general supposed to have been an
+approver, if not an adviser, of the tyrannical measures of the late
+reign, has the merit of having stood forward singly, to remind the
+House of what they owed to themselves and their constituents.  He
+did not, however, directly oppose the grant, but stated, that the
+elections had been carried on under so much court influence, and in
+other respects so illegally, that it was the duty of the House first
+to ascertain who were the legal members, before they proceeded to
+other business of importance.  After having pressed this point, he
+observed that if ever it were necessary to adopt such an order of
+proceeding, it was more peculiarly so now, when the laws and
+religion of the nation were in evident peril; that the aversion of
+the English people to popery, and their attachment to the laws were
+such, as to secure these blessings from destruction by any other
+instrumentality than that of parliament itself, which, however,
+might be easily accomplished, if there were once a parliament
+entirely dependent upon the persons who might harbour such designs;
+that it was already rumoured that the Test and Habeas Corpus Acts,
+the two bulwarks of our religion and liberties, were to be repealed;
+that what he stated was so notorious as to need no proof.  Having
+descanted with force and ability upon these and other topics of a
+similar tendency, he urged his conclusion, that the question of
+royal revenue ought not to be the first business of the parliament.
+Whether, as Burnet thinks, because he was too proud to make any
+previous communication of his intentions, or that the strain of his
+argument was judged to be too bold for the times, this speech,
+whatever secret approbation it might excite, did not receive from
+any quarter either applause or support.  Under these circumstances
+it was not thought necessary to answer him, and the grant was voted
+unanimously, without further discussion.
+
+As Barillon, in the relation of parliamentary proceedings,
+transmitted by him to his court, in which he appears at this time to
+have been very exact, gives the same description of Seymour's speech
+and its effects with Burnet, there can be little doubt but their
+account is correct.  It will be found as well in this, as in many
+other instances, that an unfortunate inattention on the part of the
+reverend historian to forms has made his veracity unjustly called in
+question.  He speaks of Seymour's speech as if it had been a motion
+in the technical sense of the word, for inquiring into the
+elections, which had no effect.  Now no traces remaining of such a
+motion, and, on the other hand, the elections having been at a
+subsequent period inquired into, Ralph almost pronounces the whole
+account to be erroneous; whereas the only mistake consists in giving
+the name of motion to a suggestion, upon the question of a grant.
+It is whimsical enough, that it should be from the account of the
+French ambassador that we are enabled to reconcile to the records
+and to the forms of the English House of Commons, a relation made by
+a distinguished member of the English House of Lords.  Sir John
+Reresby does indeed say, that among the gentlemen of the House of
+Commons whom he accidentally met, they in general seemed willing to
+settle a handsome revenue upon the king, and to give him money; but
+whether their grant should be permanent, or only temporary, and to
+be renewed from time to time by parliament, that the nation might be
+often consulted, was the question.  But besides the looseness of the
+expression, which may only mean that the point was questionable, it
+is to be observed, that he does not relate any of the arguments
+which were brought forward even in the private conversations to
+which he refers; and when he afterwards gives an account of what
+passed in the House of Commons (where he was present), he does not
+hint at any debate having taken place, but rather implies the
+contrary.
+
+This misrepresentation of Mr. Hume's is of no small importance,
+inasmuch as, by intimating that such a question could be debated at
+all, and much more, that it was debated with the enlightened views
+and bold topics of argument with which his genius has supplied him,
+he gives us a very false notion of the character of the parliament
+and of the times which he is describing.  It is not improbable, that
+if the arguments had been used, which this historian supposes, the
+utterer of them would have been expelled, or sent to the Tower; and
+it is certain that he would not have been heard with any degree of
+attention or even patience.
+
+The unanimous vote for trusting the safety of religion to the king's
+declaration passed not without observation, the rights of the Church
+of England being the only point upon which, at this time, the
+parliament were in any degree jealous of the royal power.  The
+committee of religion had voted unanimously, "That it is the opinion
+of the committee, that this House will stand by his majesty with
+their lives and fortunes, according to their bounden duty and
+allegiance, in defence of the reformed Church of England, as it is
+now by law established; and that an humble address be presented to
+his majesty, to desire him to issue forth his royal proclamation, to
+cause the penal laws to be put in execution against all dissenters
+from the Church of England whatsoever."  But upon the report of the
+House, the question of agreeing with the committee was evaded by a
+previous question, and the House, with equal unanimity, resolved:
+"That this House doth acquiesce, and entirely rely, and rest wholly
+satisfied, on his majesty's gracious word, and repeated declaration
+to support and defend the religion of the Church of England, as it
+is now by law established, which is dearer to us than our lives."
+Mr. Echard, and Bishop Kennet, two writers of different principles,
+but both churchmen, assign, as the motive of this vote, the
+unwillingness of the party then prevalent in parliament to adopt
+severe measures against the Protestant dissenters; but in this
+notion they are by no means supported by the account, imperfect as
+it is, which Sir John Reresby gives of the debate, for he makes no
+mention of tenderness towards dissenters, but states as the chief
+argument against agreeing with the committee, that it might excite a
+jealousy of the king; and Barillon expressly says, that the first
+vote gave great offence to the king, still more to the queen, and
+that orders were, in consequence, issued to the court members of the
+House of Commons to devise some means to get rid of it.  Indeed, the
+general circumstances of the times are decisive against the
+hypothesis of the two reverend historians; nor is it, as far as I
+know, adopted by any other historians.  The probability seems to be,
+that the motion in the committee had been originally suggested by
+some Whig member, who could not, with prudence, speak his real
+sentiments openly, and who thought to embarrass the government, by
+touching upon a matter where the union between the church party and
+the king would be put to the severest test.  The zeal of the Tories
+for persecution made them at first give into the snare; but when,
+upon reflection, it occurred that the involving of the Catholics in
+one common danger with the Protestant dissenters must be displeasing
+to the king, they drew back without delay, and passed the most
+comprehensive vote of confidence which James could desire.
+
+Further to manifest their servility to the king, as well as their
+hostility to every principle that could by implication be supposed
+to be connected with Monmouth or his cause, the House of Commons
+passed a bill for the preservation of his majesty's person, in
+which, after enacting that a written or verbal declaration of a
+treasonable intention should be tantamount to a treasonable act,
+they inserted two remarkable clauses, by one of which to assert the
+legitimacy of Monmouth's birth, by the other, to propose in
+parliament any alteration in the succession of the crown, were made
+likewise high treason.  We learn from Burnet, that the first part of
+this bill was strenuously and warmly debated, and that it was
+chiefly opposed by Serjeant Maynard, whose arguments made some
+impression even at that time; but whether the serjeant was supported
+in his opposition, as the word CHIEFLY would lead us to imagine, or
+if supported, by whom, that historian does not mention; and,
+unfortunately, neither of Maynard's speech itself, nor indeed of any
+opposition whatever to the bill, is there any other trace to be
+found.  The crying injustice of the clause which subjected a man to
+the pains of treason merely for delivering his opinion upon a
+controverted fact, though he should do no act in consequence of such
+opinion, was not, as far as we are informed, objected to or at all
+noticed, unless indeed the speech above alluded to, in which the
+speaker is said to have descanted upon the general danger of making
+words treasonable, be supposed to have been applied to this clause
+as well as to the former part of the bill.  That the other clause
+should have passed without opposition or even observation, must
+appear still more extraordinary, when we advert, not only to the
+nature of the clause itself, but to the circumstances of there being
+actually in the House no inconsiderable number of members who had in
+the former reign repeatedly voted for the Exclusion Bill.
+
+It is worthy of notice, however, that while every principle of
+criminal jurisprudence, and every regard to the fundamental rights
+of the deliberative assemblies, which make part of the legislature
+of the nation, were thus shamelessly sacrificed to the eagerness
+which, at this disgraceful period, so generally prevailed of
+manifesting loyalty, or rather abject servility to the sovereign,
+there still remained no small degree of tenderness for the interests
+and safety of the Church of England, and a sentiment approaching to
+jealousy upon any matter which might endanger, even by the most
+remote consequences, or put any restriction upon her ministers.
+With this view, as one part of the bill did not relate to treasons
+only, but imposed new penalties upon such as should, by writing,
+printing, preaching, or other speaking, attempt to bring the king or
+his government into hatred or contempt, there was a special proviso
+added, "that the asserting and maintaining, by any writing,
+printing, preaching, or any other speaking, the doctrine,
+discipline, divine worship, or government of the Church of England
+as it is now by law established, against popery or any other
+different or dissenting opinions, is not intended, and shall not be
+interpreted or construed to be any offence within the words or
+meaning of this Act."  It cannot escape the reader, that only such
+attacks upon popery as were made in favour of the doctrine and
+discipline of the Church of England, and no other, were protected by
+this proviso, and consequently that, if there were any real occasion
+for such a guard, all Protestant dissenters who should write or
+speak against the Roman superstition were wholly unprotected by it,
+and remained exposed to the danger, whatever it might be, from which
+the Church was so anxious to exempt her supporters.
+
+This bill passed the House of Commons, and was sent up to the House
+of Lords on the 30th of June.  It was read a first time on that day,
+but the adjournment of both houses taking place on the 2nd of July,
+it could not make any further progress at that time; and when the
+parliament met afterwards in autumn, there was no longer that
+passionate affection for the monarch, nor consequently that ardent
+zeal for servitude which were necessary to make a law with such
+clauses and provisoes palatable or even endurable.
+
+It is not to be considered as an exception to the general
+complaisance of parliament, that the Speaker, when he presented the
+Revenue Bill, made use of some strong expressions, declaring the
+attachment of the Commons to the national religion.  Such sentiments
+could not be supposed to be displeasing to James, after the
+assurances he had given of his regard for the Church of England.
+Upon this occasion his majesty made the following speech:-
+
+
+"My lords and gentlemen,--I thank you very heartily for the bill you
+have presented me this day; and I assure you, the readiness and
+cheerfulness that has attended the despatch of it is as acceptable
+to me as the bill itself.
+
+"After so happy a beginning, you may believe I would not call upon
+you unnecessarily for an extraordinary supply; but when I tell you
+that the stores of the navy and ordnance are extremely exhausted,
+that the anticipations upon several branches of the revenue are
+great and burthensome; that the debts of the king, my brother, to
+his servants and family, are such as deserve compassion; that the
+rebellion in Scotland, without putting more weight upon it than it
+really deserves, must oblige me to a considerable expense
+extraordinary:  I am sure, such considerations will move you to give
+me an aid to provide for those things, wherein the security, the
+ease, and the happiness of my government are so much concerned.  But
+above all, I must recommend you to the care of the navy, the
+strength and glory of this nation; that you will put it into such a
+condition as may make us considered and respected abroad.  I cannot
+express my concern upon this occasion more suitable to my own
+thoughts of it than by assuring you I have a true English heart, as
+jealous of the honour of the nation as you can be; and I please
+myself with the hopes that by God's blessing and your assistance, I
+may carry the reputation of it yet higher in the world than ever it
+has been in the time of any of my ancestors; and as I will not call
+upon you for supplies but when they are of public use and advantage,
+so I promise you, that what you give me upon such occasions shall be
+managed with good husbandry; and I will take care it shall be
+employed to the uses for which I ask them."
+
+
+Rapin, Hume, and Ralph observe upon this speech, that neither the
+generosity of the Commons' grant, nor the confidence they expressed
+upon religious matters, could extort a kind word in favour of their
+religion.  But this observation, whether meant as a reproach to him
+for his want of gracious feeling to a generous parliament, or as an
+oblique compliment to his sincerity, has no force in it.  His
+majesty's speech was spoken immediately upon, passing the bills
+which the Speaker presented, and he could not therefore take notice
+of the Speaker's words unless he had spoken extempore; for the
+custom is not, nor I believe ever was, for the Speaker to give
+beforehand copies of addresses of this nature.  James would not
+certainly have scrupled to repeat the assurances which he had so
+lately made in favour of the Protestant religion, as he did not
+scruple to talk of his true English heart, honour of the nation,
+&c., at a time when he was engaged with France; but the speech was
+prepared for an answer to a money bill, not for a question of the
+Protestant religion and church, and the false professions in it are
+adapted to what was supposed to be the only subject of it.
+
+The only matter in which the king's views were in any degree
+thwarted was the reversal of Lord Stafford's attainder, which,
+having passed the House of Lords, not without opposition, was lost
+in the House of Commons; a strong proof that the popish plot was
+still the subject upon which the opposers of the court had most
+credit with the public.  Mr. Hume, notwithstanding his just
+indignation at the condemnation of Stafford, and his general
+inclination to approve of royal politics, most unaccountably
+justifies the Commons in their rejection of this bill, upon the
+principle of its being impolitic at that time to grant so full a
+justification of the Catholics, and to throw so foul an imputation
+upon the Protestants.  Surely if there be one moral duty that is
+binding upon men in all times, places, and circumstances, and from
+which no supposed views of policy can excuse them, it is that of
+granting a full justification to the innocent; and such Mr. Hume
+considers the Catholics, and especially Lord Stafford, to have been.
+The only rational way of accounting for this solitary instance of
+non-compliance on the part of the Commons is either to suppose that
+they still believed in the reality of the popish plot, and
+Stafford's guilt, or that the Church party, which was uppermost, had
+such an antipathy to popery, as indeed to every sect whose tenets
+differed from theirs, that they deemed everything lawful against its
+professors.
+
+On the 2nd of July parliament was adjourned for the purpose of
+enabling the principal gentlemen to be present in their respective
+counties at a time when their services and influence might be so
+necessary to government.  It is said that the House of Commons
+consisted of members so devoted to James, that he declared there
+were not forty in it whom he would not himself have named.  But
+although this may have been true, and though from the new modelling
+of the corporations, and the interference of the court in elections,
+this parliament, as far as regards the manner of its being chosen,
+was by no means a fair representative of the legal electors of
+England, yet there is reason to think that it afforded a tolerably
+correct sample of the disposition of the nation, and especially of
+the Church party, which was then uppermost.
+
+The general character of the party at this time appears to have been
+a high notion of the king's constitutional power, to which was
+superadded a kind of religious abhorrence of all resistance to the
+monarch, not only in cases where such resistance was directed
+against the lawful prerogative, but even in opposition to
+encroachments which the monarch might make beyond the extended
+limits which they assigned to his prerogative.  But these tenets,
+and still more the principle of conduct naturally resulting from
+them, were confined to the civil, as contra-distinguished from the
+ecclesiastical polity of the country.  In Church matters they
+neither acknowledged any very high authority in the crown, nor were
+they willing to submit to any royal encroachment on that side; and a
+steady attachment to the Church of England, with a proportionable
+aversion to all dissenters from it, whether Catholic or Protestant,
+was almost universally prevalent among them.  A due consideration of
+these distinct features in the character of a party so powerful in
+Charles's and in James's time, and even when it was lowest (that is,
+during the reigns of the two first princes of the House of
+Brunswick), by no means inconsiderable, is exceedingly necessary to
+the right understanding of English history.  It affords a clue to
+many passages otherwise unintelligible.  For want of a proper
+attention to this circumstance, some historians have considered the
+conduct of the Tories in promoting the revolution as an instance of
+great inconsistency.  Some have supposed, contrary to the clearest
+evidence, that their notions of passive obedience, even in civil
+matters, were limited, and that their support of the government of
+Charles and James was founded upon a belief that those princes would
+never abuse their prerogative for the purpose of introducing
+arbitrary sway.  But this hypothesis is contrary to the evidence
+both of their declarations and their conduct.  Obedience without
+reserve, an abhorrence of all resistance, as contrary to the tenets
+of their religion, are the principles which they professed in their
+addresses, their sermons, and their decrees at Oxford; and surely
+nothing short of such principles could make men esteem the latter
+years of Charles II., and the opening of the reign of his successor,
+an era of national happiness and exemplary government.  Yet this is
+the representation of that period, which is usually made by
+historians and other writers of the Church party.  "Never were
+fairer promises on one side, nor greater generosity on the other,"
+says Mr. Echard.  "The king had as yet, in no instance, invaded the
+rights of his subjects," says the author of the Caveat against the
+Whigs.  Thus, as long as James contented himself with absolute power
+in civil matters, and did not make use of his authority against the
+Church, everything went smooth and easy; nor is it necessary, in
+order to account for the satisfaction of the parliament and people,
+to have recourse to any implied compromise by which the nation was
+willing to yield its civil liberties as the price of retaining its
+religious constitution.  The truth seems to be, that the king, in
+asserting his unlimited power, rather fell in with the humour of the
+prevailing party than offered any violence to it.  Absolute power in
+civil matters, under the specious names of monarchy and prerogative,
+formed a most essential part of the Tory creed; but the order in
+which Church and king are placed in the favourite device of the
+party is not accidental, and is well calculated to show the genuine
+principles of such among them as are not corrupted by influence.
+Accordingly, as the sequel of this reign will abundantly show, when
+they found themselves compelled to make an option, they preferred,
+without any degree of inconsistency, their first idol to their
+second, and when they could not preserve both Church and king,
+declared for the former.
+
+It gives certainly no very flattering picture of the country to
+describe it as being in some sense fairly represented by this
+servile parliament, and not only acquiescing in, but delighted with
+the early measures of James's reign; the contempt of law exhibited
+in the arbitrary mode of raising his revenue; his insulting menace
+to the parliament, that if they did not use him well, he would
+govern without them; his furious persecution of the Protestant
+dissenters, and the spirit of despotism which appeared in all his
+speeches and actions.  But it is to be remembered that these
+measures were in nowise contrary to the principles or prejudices of
+the Church party, but rather highly agreeable to them; and that the
+Whigs, who alone were possessed of any just notions of liberty, were
+so outnumbered and discomforted by persecution, that such of them as
+did not think fit to engage in the rash schemes of Monmouth or
+Argyle, held it to be their interest to interfere as little as
+possible in public affairs, and by no means to obtrude upon
+unwilling hearers opinions and sentiments which, ever since the
+dissolution of the Oxford parliament, in 1681, had been generally
+discountenanced, and of which the peaceable, or rather triumphant,
+accession of James to the throne was supposed to seal the
+condemnation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+Attempts of Argyle and Monmouth--Account of their followers--
+Argyle's expedition discovered--His descent in Argyleshire--
+Dissensions among his followers--Loss of his shipping--His army
+dispersed, and himself taken prisoner--His behaviour in prison--His
+execution--The fate of his followers--Rumbold's last declaration
+examined--Monmouth's invasion of England--His first success and
+reception--His delays, disappointment, and despondency--Battle of
+Sedgmoor--He is discovered and taken--His letter to the king--His
+interview with James--His preparations for death--Circumstances
+attending his execution--His character.
+
+It is now necessary to give some account of those attempts in
+Scotland by the Earl of Argyle, and in England by the Duke of
+Monmouth, of which the king had informed his parliament in the
+manner recited in the preceding chapter.  The Earl of Argyle was son
+to the Marquis of Argyle, of whose unjust execution, and the
+treacherous circumstances accompanying it, notice has already been
+taken.  He had in his youth been strongly attached to the royal
+cause, and had refused to lay down his arms till he had the exiled
+king's positive orders for that purpose.  But the merit of his early
+services could neither save the life of his father, nor even procure
+for himself a complete restitution of his family honours and
+estates; and not long after the restoration, upon an accusation of
+leasing-making, an accusation founded, in this instance, upon a
+private letter to a fellow-subject, in which he spoke with some
+freedom of his majesty's Scottish ministry, he was condemned to
+death.  The sentence was suspended and finally remitted, but not
+till after an imprisonment of twelve months and upwards.  In this
+affair he was much assisted by the friendship of the Duke of
+Lauderdale, with whom he ever afterwards lived upon terms of
+friendship, though his principles would not permit him to give
+active assistance to that nobleman in his government of Scotland.
+Accordingly, we do not, during that period, find Argyle's name among
+those who held any of those great employments of State to which, by
+his rank and consequence, he was naturally entitled.  When James,
+then Duke of York, was appointed to the Scottish government, it
+seems to have been the earl's intention to cultivate his royal
+highness's favour, and he was a strenuous supporter of the bill
+which condemned all attempts at exclusions or other alterations in
+the succession of the crown.  But having highly offended that prince
+by insisting, on the occasion of the test, that the royal family,
+when in office, should not be exempted from taking that oath which
+they imposed upon subjects in like situations, his royal highness
+ordered a prosecution against him, for the explanation with which he
+had taken the test oath at the council-board, and the earl was, as
+we have seen, again condemned to death.  From the time of his escape
+from prison he resided wholly in foreign countries, and was looked
+to as a principal ally by such of the English patriots as had at any
+time entertained thoughts, whether more or less ripened, of
+delivering their country.
+
+James, Duke of Monmouth, was the eldest of the late king's natural
+children.  In the early parts of his life he held the first place in
+his father's affections; and even in the height of Charles's
+displeasure at his political conduct, attentive observers thought
+they could discern that the traces of paternal tenderness were by no
+means effaced.  Appearing at court in the bloom of youth, with a
+beautiful figure and engaging manners, known to be the darling of
+the monarch, it is no wonder that he was early assailed by the arts
+of flattery; and it is rather a proof that he had not the strongest
+of all minds, than of any extraordinary weakness of character, that
+he was not proof against them.  He had appeared with some
+distinction in the Flemish campaigns, and his conduct had been
+noticed with the approbation of the commanders as well as Dutch as
+French, under whom he had respectively served.  His courage was
+allowed by all, his person admired, his generosity loved, his
+sincerity confided in.  If his talents were not of the first rate,
+they were by no means contemptible; and he possessed, in an eminent
+degree, qualities which, in popular government, are far more
+effective than the most splendid talents; qualities by which he
+inspired those who followed him, not only with confidence and
+esteem, but with affection, enthusiasm, and even fondness.  Thus
+endowed, it is not surprising that his youthful mind was fired with
+ambition, or that he should consider the putting himself at the head
+of a party (a situation for which he seems to have been peculiarly
+qualified by so many advantages) as the means by which he was most
+likely to attain his object.
+
+Many circumstances contributed to outweigh the scruples which must
+have harassed a man of his excellent nature, when he considered the
+obligations of filial duty and gratitude, and when he reflected that
+the particular relation in which he stood to the king rendered a
+conduct, which in any other subject would have been meritorious,
+doubtful, if not extremely culpable in him.  Among these, not the
+least was the declared enmity which subsisted between him and his
+uncle, the Duke of York.  The Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Duke of
+Buckinghamshire, boasted in his "Memoirs," that this enmity was
+originally owing to his contrivances; and while he is relating a
+conduct, upon which the only doubt can be, whether the object or the
+means were the most infamous, seems to applaud himself as if he had
+achieved some notable exploit.  While, on the one hand, a prospect
+of his uncle's succession to the crown was intolerable to him, as
+involving in it a certain destruction of even the most reasonable
+and limited views of ambition which he might entertain, he was
+easily led to believe, on the other hand, that no harm, but the
+reverse, was intended towards his royal father, whose reign and life
+might become precarious if he obstinately persevered in supporting
+his brother; whereas, on the contrary, if he could be persuaded, or
+even forced, to yield to the wishes of his subjects, he might long
+reign a powerful, happy, and popular prince.
+
+It is also reasonable to believe, that with those personal and
+private motives others might co-operate of a public nature and of a
+more noble character.  The Protestant religion, to which he seems to
+have been sincerely attached, would be persecuted, or perhaps
+exterminated, if the king should be successful in his support of the
+Duke of York and his faction.  At least, such was the opinion
+generally prevalent, while, with respect to the civil liberties of
+the country, no doubt could be entertained, that if the court party
+prevailed in the struggle then depending they would be completely
+extinguished.  Something may be attributed to his admiration of the
+talents of some, to his personal friendship for others among the
+leaders of the Whigs, more to the aptitude of a generous nature to
+adopt, and, if I may so say, to become enamoured of those principles
+of justice, benevolence, and equality, which form the true creed of
+the party which he espoused.  I am not inclined to believe that it
+was his connection with Shaftesbury that inspired him with ambitious
+views, but rather to reverse cause and effect, and to suppose that
+his ambitious views produced his connection with that nobleman; and
+whoever reads with attention Lord Grey's account of one of the party
+meetings at which he was present, will perceive that there was not
+between them that perfect cordiality which has been generally
+supposed; but that Russell, Grey, and Hampden, were upon a far more
+confidential footing with him.  It is far easier to determine
+generally, that he had high schemes of ambition, than to discover
+what was his precise object; and those who boldly impute to him the
+intention of succeeding to the crown, seem to pass by several
+weighty arguments, which make strongly against their hypothesis;
+such as his connection with the Duchess of Portsmouth, who, if the
+succession were to go to the king's illegitimate children, must
+naturally have been for her own son; his unqualified support of the
+Exclusion Bill, which, without indeed mentioning her, most
+unequivocally settled the crown, in case of a demise, upon the
+Princess of Orange; and, above all, the circumstance of his having,
+when driven from England, twice chosen Holland for his asylum.  By
+his cousins he was received, not so much with the civility and
+decorum of princes, as with the kind familiarity of near relations,
+a reception to which he seemed to make every return of reciprocal
+cordiality.  It is not rashly to be believed, that he, who has never
+been accused of hardened wickedness, could have been upon such terms
+with, and so have behaved to, persons whom he purposed to disappoint
+in their dearest and best grounded hopes, and to defraud of their
+inheritance.
+
+Whatever his views might be, it is evident that they were of a
+nature wholly adverse, not only to those of the Duke of York, but to
+the schemes of power entertained by the king, with which the support
+of his brother was intimately connected.  Monmouth was therefore, at
+the suggestion of James, ordered by his father to leave the country,
+and deprived of all his offices, civil and military.  The pretence
+for this exile was a sort of principle of impartiality, which
+obliged the king, at the same time that he ordered his brother to
+retire to Flanders, to deal equal measure to his son.  Upon the Duke
+of York's return (which was soon after), Monmouth thought he might
+without blame return also; and persevering in his former measures
+and old connections, became deeply involved in the cabals to which
+Essex, Russell, and Sidney fell martyrs.  After the death of his
+friends, he surrendered himself; and upon a promise that nothing
+said by him should be used to the prejudice of any of his surviving
+friends, wrote a penitentiary letter to his father, consenting, at
+the same time, to ask pardon of his uncle.  A great parade was made
+of this by the court, as if it was designed by all means to goad the
+feelings of Monmouth:  his majesty was declared to have pardoned him
+at the request of the Duke of York, and his consent was required to
+the publication of what was called his confession.  This he
+resolutely refused at all hazards, and was again obliged to seek
+refuge abroad, where he had remained to the period of which we are
+now treating.
+
+A little time before Charles's death he had indulged hopes of being
+recalled; and that his intelligence to that effect was not quite
+unfounded, or if false, was at least mixed with truth, is clear from
+the following circumstance: --From the notes found when he was
+taken, in his memorandum book, it appears that part of the plan
+concerted between the king and Monmouth's friend (probably Halifax),
+was that the Duke of York should go to Scotland, between which, and
+his being sent abroad again, Monmouth and his friends saw no
+material difference.  Now in Barillon's letters to his court, dated
+the 7th of December, 1684, it appears that the Duke of York had told
+that ambassador of his intended voyage to Scotland though he
+represented it in a very different point of view, and said that it
+would not be attended with any diminution of his favour or credit.
+This was the light in which Charles, to whom the expressions, "to
+blind my brother, not to make the Duke of York fly out," and the
+like, were familiar, would certainly have shown the affair to his
+brother, and therefore of all the circumstances adduced, this
+appears to me to be the strongest in favour of the supposition, that
+there was in the king's mind a real intention of making an
+important, if not a complete, change in his councils and measures.
+
+Besides these two leaders, there were on the continent at that time
+several other gentlemen of great consideration.  Sir Patrick Hume,
+of Polworth, had early distinguished himself in the cause of
+liberty.  When the privy council of Scotland passed an order,
+compelling the counties to pay the expense of the garrisons
+arbitrarily placed in them, he refused to pay his quota, and by a
+mode of appeal to the court of session, which the Scotch lawyers
+call a bill of suspension, endeavoured to procure redress.  The
+council ordered him to be imprisoned, for no other crime, as it
+should seem, than that of having thus attempted to procure, by a
+legal process, a legal decision upon a point of law.  After having
+remained in close confinement in Stirling Castle for near four
+years, he was set at liberty through the favour and interest of
+Monmouth.  Having afterwards engaged in schemes connected with those
+imputed to Sidney and Russell, orders were issued for seizing him at
+his house in Berwickshire; but having had timely notice of his
+danger from his relation, Hume of Ninewells, a gentleman attached to
+the royal cause, but whom party spirit had not rendered insensible
+to the ties of kindred and private friendship, he found means to
+conceal himself for a time, and shortly after to escape beyond sea.
+His concealment is said to have been in the family burial-place,
+where the means of sustaining life were brought to him by his
+daughter, a girl of fifteen years of age, whose duty and affection
+furnished her with courage to brave the terrors, as well
+superstitious as real, to which she was necessarily exposed in an
+intercourse of this nature.
+
+Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a young man of great spirit, had
+signalised himself in opposition to Lauderdale's administration of
+Scotland, and had afterwards connected himself with Argyle and
+Russell, and what was called the council of six.  He had, of course,
+thought it prudent to leave Great Britain, and could not be supposed
+unwilling to join in any enterprise which might bid fair to restore
+him to his country, and his countrymen to their lost liberties,
+though, upon the present occasion, which he seems to have judged to
+be unfit for the purpose, he endeavoured to dissuade both Argyle and
+Monmouth from their attempts.  He was a man of much thought and
+reading, of an honourable mind, and a fiery spirit, and from his
+enthusiastic admiration of the ancients, supposed to be warmly
+attached, not only to republican principles, but to the form of a
+commonwealth.  Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree had fled his country
+on account of the transactions of 1683.  His property and
+connections were considerable, and he was supposed to possess
+extensive influence in Ayrshire and the adjacent counties.
+
+Such were the persons of chief note among the Scottish emigrants.
+Among the English, by far the most remarkable was Ford, Lord Grey of
+Wark.  A scandalous love intrigue with his wife's sister had fixed a
+very deep stain upon his private character; nor were the
+circumstances attending this affair, which had all been brought to
+light in a court of justice, by any means calculated to extenuate
+his guilt.  His ancient family, however, the extensive influence
+arising from his large possessions, his talents, which appear to
+have been very considerable, and above all, his hitherto unshaken
+fidelity in political attachments, and the general steadiness of his
+conduct in public life, might in some degree countervail the odium
+which he had incurred on account of his private vices.  Of Matthews,
+Wade, and Ayloff, whose names are mentioned as having both joined
+the preliminary councils, and done actual service in the invasions,
+little is known by which curiosity could be either gratified or
+excited.
+
+Richard Rumbold, on every account, merits more particular notice.
+He had formerly served in the republican armies; and adhering to the
+principles of liberty which he had imbibed in his youth, though
+nowise bigoted to the particular form of a commonwealth had been
+deeply engaged in the politics of those who thought they saw an
+opportunity of rescuing their country from the tyrannical government
+of the late king.  He was one of the persons denounced in Keeling's
+narrative, and was accused of having conspired to assassinate the
+royal brothers in their road to Newmarket, an accusation belied by
+the whole tenor of his life and conduct, and which, if it had been
+true, would have proved him, who was never thought a weak or foolish
+man, to be as destitute of common sense as of honour and probity.
+It was pretended that the seizure of the princes was to take place
+at a farm called Rye House, which he occupied in Essex, for the
+purposes of his trade as maltster; and from this circumstance was
+derived the name of the Rye House Plot.  Conscious of having done
+some acts which the law, if even fairly interpreted and equitably
+administered, might deem criminal, and certain that many which he
+had not done would be both sworn and believed against him, he made
+his escape, and passed the remainder of Charles's reign in exile and
+obscurity; nor is his name, as far as I can learn, ever mentioned
+from the time of the Rye House Plot to that of which we are now
+treating.
+
+It is not to be understood that there were no other names upon the
+list of those who fled from the tyranny of the British government,
+or thought themselves unsafe in their native country, on account of
+its violence, besides those of the persons above mentioned, and of
+such as joined in their bold and hazardous enterprise.  Another
+class of emigrants, not less sensible probably to the wrongs of
+their country, but less sanguine in their hopes of immediate
+redress, is ennobled by the names of Burnet the historian and Mr.
+Locke.  It is difficult to accede to the opinion which the first of
+these seems to entertain, that though particular injustices had been
+committed, the misgovernment had not been of such a nature as to
+justify resistance by arms.  But the prudential reasons against
+resistance at that time were exceedingly strong; and there is no
+point in human concerns wherein the dictates of virtue and worldly
+prudence are so identified as in this great question of resistance
+by force to established government.  Success, it has been
+invidiously remarked, constitutes in most instances the sole
+difference between the traitor and the deliverer of his country.  A
+rational probability of success, it may be truly said, distinguishes
+the well-considered enterprise of the patriot, from the rash schemes
+of the disturber of the public peace.  To command success is not in
+the power of man; but to deserve success, by choosing a proper time,
+as well as a proper object, by the prudence of his means, no less
+than by the purity of his views, by a cause not only intrinsically
+just, but likely to insure general support, is the indispensable
+duty of him who engages in an insurrection against an existing
+government.  Upon this subject the opinion of Ludlow, who, though
+often misled, appears to have been an honest and enlightened man, is
+striking and forcibly expressed.  "We ought," says he, "to be very
+careful and circumspect in that particular, and at least be assured
+of very probable grounds to believe the power under which we engage
+to be sufficiently able to protect us in our undertaking; otherwise
+I should account myself not only guilty of my own blood, but also,
+in some measure, of the ruin and destruction of all those that I
+should induce to engage with me, though no cause were never so
+just."  Reasons of this nature, mixed more or less with
+considerations of personal caution, and in some, perhaps, with
+dislike and distrust of the leaders, induced many, who could not but
+abhor the British government, to wait for better opportunities, and
+to prefer either submission at home, or exile, to an undertaking
+which, if not hopeless, must have been deemed by all hazardous in
+the extreme.
+
+In the situation in which these two noblemen, Argyle and Monmouth,
+were placed, it is not to be wondered at if they were naturally
+willing to enter into any plan by which they might restore
+themselves to their country; nor can it be doubted but they honestly
+conceived their success to be intimately connected with the welfare,
+and especially with the liberty of the several kingdoms to which
+they respectively belonged.  Monmouth, whether because he had begun
+at this time, as he himself said, to wean his mind from ambition, or
+from the observations he had made upon the apparently rapid turn
+which had taken place in the minds of the English people, seems to
+have been very averse to rash counsels, and to have thought that all
+attempts against James ought at least to be deferred till some more
+favourable opportunity should present itself.  So far from esteeming
+his chance of success the better, on account of there being in
+James's parliament many members who had voted for the Exclusion
+Bill, he considered that circumstance as unfavourable.  These men,
+of whom, however, he seems to have over-rated the number, would, in
+his opinion, be more eager than others to recover the ground they
+had lost, by an extraordinary show of zeal and attachment to the
+crown.  But if Monmouth was inclined to dilatory counsels, far
+different were the views and designs of other exiles, who had been
+obliged to leave their country on account of their having engaged,
+if not with him personally, at least in the same cause with him, and
+who were naturally enough his advisers.  Among these were Lord Grey
+of Wark, and Ferguson; though the latter afterwards denied his
+having had much intercourse with the duke, and the former, in his
+"Narrative," insinuates that he rather dissuaded than pressed the
+invasion.
+
+But if Monmouth was inclined to delay, Argyle seems, on the other
+hand, to have been impatient in the extreme to bring matters to a
+crisis, and was of course anxious that the attempt upon England
+should be made in cooperation with his upon Scotland.  Ralph, an
+historian of great acuteness as well as diligence, but who falls
+sometimes into the common error of judging too much from the event,
+seems to think this impatience wholly unaccountable; but Argyle may
+have had many motives which are now unknown to us.  He may not
+improbably have foreseen that the friendly terms upon which James
+and the Prince of Orange affected at least to be, one with the
+other, might make his stay in the United Provinces impracticable,
+and that, if obliged to seek another asylum, not only he might have
+been deprived, in some measure, of the resources which he derived
+from his connections at Amsterdam, but that the very circumstance of
+his having been publicly discountenanced by the Prince of Orange and
+the states-general, might discredit his enterprise.  His eagerness
+for action may possibly have proceeded from the most laudable
+motives, his sensibility to the horrors which his countrymen were
+daily and hourly suffering, and his ardour to relieve them.  The
+dreadful state of Scotland, while it affords so honourable an
+explanation of his impatience, seems to account also, in a great
+measure, for his acting against the common notions of prudence, in
+making his attack without any previous concert with those whom he
+expected to join him there.  That this was his view of the matter is
+plain, as we are informed by Burnet that he depended not only on an
+army of his own clan and vassals, but that he took it for granted
+that the western and southern counties would all at once come about
+him, when he had gathered a good force together in his own country;
+and surely such an expectation, when we reflect upon the situation
+of those counties, was by no means unreasonable.
+
+Argyle's counsel, backed by Lord Grey and the rest of Monmouth's
+advisers, and opposed by none except Fletcher of Saltoun, to whom
+some add Captain Matthews, prevailed, and it was agreed to invade
+immediately, and at one time, the two kingdoms.  Monmouth had raised
+some money from his jewels, and Argyle had a loan of ten thousand
+pounds from a rich widow in Amsterdam.  With these resources, such
+as they were, ships and arms were provided, and Argyle sailed from
+Vly on the 2nd of May with three small vessels, accompanied by Sir
+Patrick Hume, Sir John Cochrane, a few more Scotch gentlemen, and by
+two Englishmen, Ayloff, a nephew by marriage to Lord Chancellor
+Clarendon, and Rumbold, the maltster, who had been accused of being
+principally concerned in that conspiracy which, from his farm in
+Essex, where it was pretended Charles II. was to have been
+intercepted in his way from Newmarket, and assassinated, had been
+called the Rye House Plot.  Sir Patrick Hume is said to have advised
+the shortest passage, in order to come more unexpectedly upon the
+enemy; but Argyle, who is represented as remarkably tenacious of his
+own opinions, persisted in his plan of sailing round the north of
+Scotland, as well for the purpose of landing at once among his own
+vassals, as for that of being nearer to the western counties, which
+had been most severely oppressed, and from which, of course, he
+expected most assistance.  Each of these plans had, no doubt, its
+peculiar advantages; but, as far as we can judge at this distance of
+time, those belonging to the earl's scheme seemed to preponderate;
+for the force he carried with him was certainly not sufficient to
+enable him, by striking any decisive stroke, to avail himself even
+of the most unprepared state in which he could hope to find the
+king's government.  As he must, therefore, depend entirely upon
+reinforcements from the country, it seemed reasonable to make for
+that part where succour was most likely to be obtained, even at the
+hazard of incurring the disadvantage which must evidently result
+from the enemy's having early notice of his attack, and,
+consequently, proportionable time for defence.
+
+Unfortunately this hazard was converted into a certainty by his
+sending some men on shore in the Orkneys.  Two of these, Spence and
+Blackadder, were seized at Kirkwall by the bishop of the diocese,
+and sent up prisoners to Edinburgh, by which means the government
+was not only satisfied of the reality of the intended invasion, of
+which, however, they had before had some intimation, but could guess
+with a reasonable certainty the part of the coast where the descent
+was to take place, for Argyle could not possibly have sailed so far
+to the north with any other view than that of making his landing
+either on his own estate, or in some of the western counties.  Among
+the numberless charges of imprudence against the unfortunate Argyle,
+charges too often inconsiderately urged against him who fails in any
+enterprise of moment, that which is founded upon the circumstance
+just mentioned appears to me to be the most weighty, though it is
+that which is the least mentioned, and by no author, as far as I
+recollect, much enforced.  If the landing in the north was merely
+for the purpose of gaining intelligence respecting the disposition
+of the country, or for the more frivolous object of making some few
+prisoners, it was indeed imprudent in the highest degree.  That
+prisoners, such as were likely to be taken on this occasion, should
+have been a consideration with any man of common sense is
+impossible.  The desire of gaining intelligence concerning the
+disposition of the people was indeed a natural curiosity, but it
+would be a strong instance of that impatience which has been often
+alleged though in no other case proved to have been part of the
+earl's character, if, for the sake of gratifying such a desire, he
+gave the enemy any important advantage.  Of the intelligence which
+he sought thus eagerly, it was evident that he could not in that
+place and at that time make any immediate use; whereas, of that
+which he afforded his enemies, they could and did avail themselves
+against him.  The most favourable account of this proceeding, and
+which seems to deserve most credit, is, that having missed the
+proper passage through the Orkney Islands, he thought proper to send
+on shore for pilots, and that Spence very imprudently took the
+opportunity of going to confer with a relation at Kirkwall; but it
+is to be remarked that it was not necessary for the purpose of
+getting pilots, to employ men of note, such as Blackadder and
+Spence, the latter of whom was the earl's secretary; and that it was
+an unpardonable neglect not to give the strictest injunctions to
+those who were employed against going a step further into the
+country than was absolutely necessary.
+
+Argyle, with his wonted generosity of spirit, was at first
+determined to lay siege to Kirkwall, in order to recover his
+friends; but, partly by the dissuasions of his followers, and still
+more by the objections made by the masters of the ships to a delay
+which might make them lose the favourable winds for their intended
+voyage, he was induced to prosecute his course.  In the meantime the
+government made the use that it was obvious they would make of the
+information they had obtained, and when the earl arrived at his
+destination, he learned that considerable forces were got together
+to repel any attack that he might meditate.  Being prevented by
+contrary winds from reaching the Isle of Islay, where he had
+purposed to make his first landing, he sailed back to Dunstafnage in
+Lorn, and there sent ashore his son, Mr. Charles Campbell, to engage
+his tenants and other friends and dependants of his family to rise
+in his behalf; but even there he found less encouragement and
+assistance than he had expected, and the laird of Lochniel, who gave
+him the best assurances, treacherously betrayed him, sent his letter
+to the government, and joined the royal forces under the Marquis of
+Athol.  He then proceeded southwards, and landed at Campbelltown in
+Kintyre, where his first step was to publish his declaration, which
+appears to have produced little or no effect.
+
+This bad beginning served, as is usual in such adventures, rather to
+widen than to reconcile the differences which had early begun to
+manifest themselves between the leader and his followers.  Hume and
+Cochrane, partly construing, perhaps too sanguinely, the
+intelligence which was received from Ayrshire, Galloway, and the
+other Lowland districts in that quarter, partly from an expectation
+that where the oppression had been most grievous, the revolt would
+be proportionably the more general, were against any stay, or, as
+they termed it, loss of time in the Highlands, but were for
+proceeding at once, weak as they were in point of numbers, to a
+country where every man endowed with the common feelings of human
+nature must be their well-wisher, every man of spirit their
+coadjutor.  Argyle, on the contrary, who probably considered the
+discouraging accounts from the Lowlands as positive and distinct,
+while those which were deemed more favourable appeared to him to be
+at least uncertain and provisional, thought the most prudent plan
+was to strengthen himself in his own country before he attempted the
+invasion of provinces where the enemy was so well prepared to
+receive him.  He had hopes of gaining time, not only to increase his
+own army, but to avail himself of the Duke of Monmouth's intended
+invasion of England, an event which must obviously have great
+influence upon his affairs, and which, if he could but maintain
+himself in a situation to profit by it, might be productive of
+advantages of an importance and extent of which no man could presume
+to calculate the limits.  Of these two contrary opinions it may be
+difficult at this time of day to appreciate the value, seeing that
+so much depends upon the degree of credit due to the different
+accounts from the Lowland counties, of which our imperfect
+information does not enable us to form any accurate judgment.  But
+even though we should not decide absolutely in favour of the cogency
+of these reasonings which influenced the chief, it must surely be
+admitted that there was, at least, sufficient probability in them to
+account for his not immediately giving way to those of his
+followers, and to rescue his memory from the reproach of any
+uncommon obstinacy, or of carrying things, as Burnet phrases it,
+with an air of authority that was not easy to men who were setting
+up for liberty.  On the other hand, it may be more difficult to
+exculpate the gentlemen engaged with Argyle for not acquiescing more
+cheerfully, and not entering more cordially into the views of a man
+whom they had chosen for their leader and general; of whose honour
+they had no doubt, and whose opinion even those who dissented from
+him must confess to be formed upon no light or trivial grounds.
+
+The differences upon the general scheme of attack led, of course, to
+others upon points of detail.  Upon every projected expedition there
+appeared a contrariety of sentiment, which on some occasions
+produced the most violent disputes.  The earl was often thwarted in
+his plans, and in one instance actually over-ruled by the vote of a
+council of war.  Nor were these divisions, which might of themselves
+be deemed sufficient to mar an enterprise of this nature, the only
+adverse circumstances which Argyle had to encounter.  By the forward
+state of preparation on the part of the government, its friends were
+emboldened; its enemies, whose spirit had been already broken by a
+long series of sufferings, were completely intimidated, and men of
+fickle and time-serving dispositions were fixed in its interests.
+Add to all this, that where spirit was not wanting, it was
+accompanied with a degree and species of perversity wholly
+inexplicable, and which can hardly gain belief from any one whose
+experience has not made him acquainted with the extreme difficulty
+of persuading men who pride themselves upon an extravagant love of
+liberty, rather to compromise upon some points with those who have
+in the main the same views with themselves, than to give power (a
+power which will infallibly be used for their own destruction) to an
+adversary of principles diametrically opposite; in other words,
+rather to concede something to a friend, than everything to an
+enemy.  Hence, those even whose situation was the most desperate,
+who were either wandering about the fields, or seeking refuge in
+rocks and caverns, from the authorised assassins who were on every
+side pursuing them, did not all join in Argyle's cause with that
+frankness and cordiality which was to be expected.  The various
+schisms which had existed among different classes of Presbyterians
+were still fresh in their memory.  Not even the persecution to which
+they had been in common, and almost indiscriminately subjected, had
+reunited them.  According to a most expressive phrase of an eminent
+minister of their church, who sincerely lamented their disunion, the
+furnace had not yet healed the rents and breaches among them.  Some
+doubted whether, short of establishing all the doctrines preached by
+Cargill and Cameron, there was anything worth contending for; while
+others, still further gone in enthusiasm, set no value upon liberty,
+or even life itself, if they were to be preserved by the means of a
+nobleman who had, as well by his serviced to Charles the Second as
+by other instances, been guilty in the former parts of his conduct
+of what they termed unlawful compliances.
+
+Perplexed, no doubt, but not dismayed, by these difficulties, the
+earl proceeded to Tarbet, which he had fixed as the place of
+rendezvous, and there issued a second declaration (that which has
+been mentioned as having been laid before the House of Commons),
+with as little effect as the first.  He was joined by Sir Duncan
+Campbell, who alone, of all his kinsmen, seems to have afforded him
+any material assistance, and who brought with him nearly a thousand
+men; but even with this important reinforcement, his whole army does
+not appear to have exceeded two thousand.  It was here that he was
+over-ruled by a council of war, when he proposed marching to
+Inverary; and after much debate, so far was he from being so self-
+willed as he is represented, that he consented to go over with his
+army to that part of Argyleshire called Cowal, and that Sir John
+Cochrane should make an attempt upon the Lowlands; and he sent with
+him Major Fullarton, one of the offices in whom he most trusted, and
+who appears to have best deserved his confidence.  This expedition
+could not land in Ayrshire, where it had at first been intended,
+owing to the appearance of two king's frigates, which had been sent
+into those seas; and when it did land near Greenock, no other
+advantage was derived from it than the procuring from the town a
+very small supply of provisions.
+
+When Cochrane, with his detachment, returned to Cowal, all hopes of
+success in the Lowlands seemed, for the present at least, to be at
+an end, and Argyle's original plan was now necessarily adopted,
+though under circumstances greatly disadvantageous.  Among these,
+the most important was the approach of the frigates, which obliged
+the earl to place his ships under the protection of the castle of
+Ellengreg, which he fortified and garrisoned as well as his
+contracted means would permit.  Yet even in this situation, deprived
+of the co-operation of his little fleet, as well as of that part of
+his force which he left to defend it, being well seconded by the
+spirit and activity of Rumbold, who had seized the castle of
+Ardkinglass, near the head of Loch Fin, he was not without hopes of
+success in his main enterprise against Inverary, when he was called
+back to Ellengreg, by intelligence of fresh discontents having
+broken out there, upon the nearer approach of the frigates.  Some of
+the most dissatisfied had even threatened to leave both castle and
+ships to their fate; nor did the appearance of the earl himself by
+any means bring with it that degree of authority which was requisite
+in such a juncture.  His first motion was to disregard the superior
+force of the men of war, and to engage them with his small fleet;
+but he soon discovered that he was far indeed from being furnished
+with the materials necessary to put in execution so bold, or, as it
+may possibly be thought, so romantic a resolution.  His associates
+remonstrated, and a mutiny in his ships was predicted as a certain
+consequence of the attempt.  Leaving, therefore, once more,
+Ellengreg with a garrison under the command of the laird of
+Lochness, and strict orders to destroy both ships and fortification,
+rather than suffer them to fall into the hands of the enemy, he
+marched towards Gareloch.  But whether from the inadequacy of the
+provisions with which he was to supply it, or from cowardice,
+misconduct, or treachery, it does not appear, the castle was soon
+evacuated without any proper measures being taken to execute the
+earl's orders, and the military stores in it to a considerable
+amount, as well as the ships which had no other defence, were
+abandoned to the king's forces.
+
+This was a severe blow; and all hopes of acting according to the
+earl's plan of establishing himself strongly in Argyleshire were now
+extinguished.  He therefore consented to pass the Leven, a little
+above Dumbarton, and to march eastwards.  In this march he was
+overtaken, at a place called Killerne, by Lord Dumbarton, at the
+head of a large body of the king's troops; but he posted himself
+with so much skill and judgment, that Dumbarton thought it prudent
+to wait, at least, till the ensuing morning, before he made his
+attack.  Here, again Argyle was for risking an engagement, and in
+his nearly desperate situation, it was probably his best chance, but
+his advice (for his repeated misfortunes had scarcely left him the
+shadow of command) was rejected.  On the other hand, a proposal was
+made to him, the most absurd, as it should seem, that was ever
+suggested in similar circumstances, to pass the enemy in the night,
+and thus exposing his rear, to subject himself to the danger of
+being surrounded, for the sake of advancing he knew not whither, or
+for what purpose.  To this he could not consent; and it was at last
+agreed to deceive the enemies by lighting fires, and to decamp in
+the night towards Glasgow.  The first part of this plan was executed
+with success, and the army went off unperceived by the enemy; but in
+their night march they were misled by the ignorance or the treachery
+of their guides and fell into difficulties which would have caused
+some disorder among the most regular and best-disciplined troops.
+In this case such disorder was fatal, and produced, as among men
+circumstanced as Argyle's were, it necessarily must, an almost
+general dispersion.  Wandering among bogs and morasses, disheartened
+by fatigue, terrified by rumours of an approaching enemy, the
+darkness of the night aggravating at once every real distress, and
+adding terror to every vain alarm; in this situation, when even the
+bravest and the best (for according to one account Rumbold himself
+was missing for a time) were not able to find their leaders, nor the
+corps to which they respectively belonged; it is no wonder that many
+took this opportunity to abandon a cause now become desperate, and
+to effect individually that escape which, as a body, they had no
+longer any hopes to accomplish.
+
+When the small remains of this ill-fated army got together, in the
+morning, at Kilpatrick, a place far distant from their destination,
+its number was reduced to less than five hundred.  Argyle had lost
+all authority; nor, indeed, had he retained any, does it appear that
+he could now have used it to any salutary purpose.  The same bias
+which had influenced the two parties in the time of better hopes,
+and with regard to their early operations, still prevailed now that
+they were driven to their last extremity.  Sir Patrick Hume and Sir
+John Cochrane would not stay even to reason the matter with him
+whom, at the onset of their expedition, they had engaged to obey,
+but crossed the Clyde, with such as would follow them to the number
+of about two hundred, into Renfrewshire.
+
+Argyle, thus deserted, and almost alone, still looked to his own
+country as the sole remaining hope, and sent off Sir Duncan
+Campbell, with the two Duncansons, father and son--persons, all
+three, by whom he seemed to have been served with the most exemplary
+zeal and fidelity--to attempt new levies there.  Having done this,
+and settled such means of correspondence as the state of affairs
+would permit, he repaired to the house of an old servant, upon whose
+attachment he had relied for an asylum, but was peremptorily denied
+entrance.  Concealment in this part of the country seemed now
+impracticable, and he was forced at last to pass the Clyde,
+accompanied by the brave and faithful Fullarton.  Upon coming to a
+ford of the Inchanon they were stopped by some militia-men.
+Fullarton used in vain all the best means which his presence of mind
+suggested to him to save his general.  He attempted one while by
+gentle, and then by harsher language, to detain the commander of the
+party till the earl, who was habited as a common countryman, and
+whom he passed for his guide, should have made his escape.  At last,
+when he saw them determined to go after his pretended guide, he
+offered to surrender himself without a blow, upon condition of their
+desisting from their pursuit.  This agreement was accepted, but not
+adhered to, and two horsemen were detached to seize Argyle.  The
+earl, who was also on horseback, grappled with them till one of them
+and himself came to the ground.  He then presented his pocket
+pistols, on which the two retired, but soon after five more came up,
+who fired without effect, and he thought himself like to get rid of
+them, but they knocked him down with their swords and seized him.
+When they knew whom they had taken they seemed much troubled, but
+dared not let him go.  Fullarton, perceiving that the stipulation on
+which he had surrendered himself was violated, and determined to
+defend himself to the last, or at least to wreak, before he fell,
+his just vengeance upon his perfidious opponents, grasped at the
+sword of one of them, but in vain; he was overpowered, and made
+prisoner.
+
+Argyle was immediately carried to Renfrew, thence to Glasgow, and on
+the 20th of June was led in triumph into Edinburgh.  The order of
+the council was particular:  that he should be led bareheaded in the
+midst of Graham's guards, with their matches cocked, his hands tied
+behind his back, and preceded by the common hangman, in which
+situation, that he might be more exposed to the insults and taunts
+of the vulgar, it was directed that he should be carried to the
+castle by a circuitous route.  To the equanimity with which he bore
+these indignities, as indeed to the manly spirit exhibited by him
+throughout, in these last scenes of his life, ample testimony is
+borne by all the historians who have treated of them, even those who
+are the least partial to him.  He had frequent opportunities of
+conversing, and some of writing, during his imprisonment, and it is
+from such parts of these conversations and writings as have been
+preserved to us, that we can best form to ourselves a just notion of
+his deportment during that trying period; at the same time a true
+representation of the temper of his mind in such circumstances will
+serve, in no small degree, to illustrate his general character and
+disposition.
+
+We have already seen how he expresses himself with regard to the men
+who, by taking him, became the immediate cause of his calamity.  He
+seems to feel a sort of gratitude to them for the sorrow he saw, or
+fancied he saw in them, when they knew who he was, and immediately
+suggests an excuse for them, by saying that they did not dare to
+follow the impulse of their hearts.  Speaking of the supineness of
+his countrymen, and of the little assistance he had received from
+them, he declares with his accustomed piety his resignation to the
+will of God, which was that Scotland should not be delivered at this
+time, nor especially by his hand; and then exclaims, with the regret
+of a patriot, but with no bitterness of disappointment, "But alas!
+who is there to be delivered!  There may," says he, "be hidden ones,
+but there appears no great party in the country who desire to be
+relieved."  Justice, in some degree, but still more that warm
+affection for his own kindred and vassals, which seems to have
+formed a marked feature in this nobleman's character, then induces
+him to make an exception in favour of his poor friends in
+Argyleshire, in treating for whom, though in what particular way
+does not appear, he was employing, and with some hope of success,
+the few remaining hours of his life.  In recounting the failure of
+his expedition it is impossible for him not to touch upon what he
+deemed the misconduct of his friends; and this is the subject upon
+which of all others, his temper must have been most irritable.  A
+certain description of friends (the words describing them are
+omitted) were all of them without exception, his greatest enemies,
+both to betray and destroy him; and . . . and . . . (the names again
+omitted) were the greatest cause of his rout, and his being taken,
+though not designedly, he acknowledges, but by ignorance, cowardice,
+and faction.  This sentence had scarce escaped him when,
+notwithstanding the qualifying words with which his candour had
+acquitted the last-mentioned persons of intentional treachery, it
+appeared too harsh to his gentle nature, and declaring himself
+displeased with the hard epithets he had used, he desires they may
+be put out of any account that is to be given of these transactions.
+The manner in which this request is worded shows that the paper he
+was writing was intended for a letter, and as it is supposed, to a
+Mrs. Smith, who seems to have assisted him with money; but whether
+or not this lady was the rich widow of Amsterdam, before alluded to,
+I have not been able to learn.
+
+When he is told that he is to be put to the torture, he neither
+breaks out into any high-sounding bravado, any premature vaunts of
+the resolution with which he will endure it, nor, on the other hand,
+into passionate exclamations on the cruelty of his enemies, or
+unmanly lamentations of his fate.  After stating that orders were
+arrived that he must be tortured, unless he answers all questions
+upon oath, he simply adds that he hopes God will support him; and
+then leaves off writing, not from any want of spirits to proceed,
+but to enjoy the consolation which was yet left him, in the society
+of his wife, the countess being just then admitted.
+
+Of his interview with Queensbury, who examined him in private,
+little is known, except that he denied his design having been
+concerted with any persons in Scotland; that he gave no information
+with respect to his associates in England; and that he boldly and
+frankly averred his hopes to have been founded on the cruelty of the
+administration, and such a disposition in the people to revolt as he
+conceived to be the natural consequence of oppression.  He owned, at
+the same time, that he had trusted too much to this principle.  The
+precise date of this conversation, whether it took place before the
+threat of the torture, whilst that threat was impending, or when
+there was no longer any intention of putting it into execution, I
+have not been able to ascertain; but the probability seems to be
+that it was during the first or second of these periods.
+
+Notwithstanding the ill success that had attended his enterprise, he
+never expresses, or even hints, the smallest degree of contrition
+for having undertaken it:  on the contrary, when Mr. Charteris, an
+eminent divine, is permitted to wait on him, his first caution to
+that minister is, not to try to convince him of the unlawfulness of
+his attempt, concerning which his opinion was settled, and his mind
+made up.  Of some parts of his past conduct he does indeed confess
+that he repents, but these are the compliances of which he had been
+guilty in support of the king, or his predecessors.  Possibly in
+this he may allude to his having in his youth borne arms against the
+covenant, but with more likelihood to his concurrence, in the late
+reign, with some of the measures of Lauderdale's administration, for
+whom it is certain that he entertained a great regard, and to whom
+he conceived himself to be principally indebted for his escape from
+his first sentence.  Friendship and gratitude might have carried him
+to lengths which patriotism and justice must condemn.
+
+Religious concerns, in which he seems to have been very serious and
+sincere, engaged much of his thoughts; but his religion was of that
+genuine kind which, by representing the performance of our duties to
+our neighbour as the most acceptable service to God, strengthens all
+the charities of social life.  While he anticipates, with a hope
+approaching to certainty, a happy futurity, he does not forget those
+who have been justly dear to him in this world.  He writes, on the
+day of his execution, to his wife, and to some other relations, for
+whom he seems to have entertained a sort of parental tenderness,
+short, but the most affectionate letters, wherein he gives them the
+greatest satisfaction then in his power, by assuring them of his
+composure and tranquillity of mind, and refers them for further
+consolation to those sources from which he derived his own.  In his
+letter to Mrs. Smith, written on the same day, he says, "While
+anything was a burden to me, your concern was; which is a cross
+greater than I can express" (alluding probably to the pecuniary loss
+she had incurred); "but I have, I thank God, overcome all."  Her
+name, he adds, could not be concealed, and that he knows not what
+may have been discovered from any paper which may have been taken;
+otherwise he has named none to their disadvantage.  He states that
+those in whose hands he is, had at first used him hardly, but that
+God had melted their hearts, and that he was now treated with
+civility.  As an instance of this, he mentions the liberty he had
+obtained of sending this letter to her; a liberty which he takes as
+a kindness on their part, and which he had sought that she might not
+think he had forgotten her.
+
+Never, perhaps, did a few sentences present so striking a picture of
+a mind truly virtuous and honourable.  Heroic courage is the least
+part of his praise, and vanishes as it were from our sight, when we
+contemplate the sensibility with which he acknowledges the kindness,
+such as it is, of the very men who are leading him to the scaffold;
+the generous satisfaction which he feels on reflecting that no
+confession of his has endangered his associates; and above all, his
+anxiety, in such moments, to perform all the duties of friendship
+and gratitude, not only with the most scrupulous exactness, but with
+the most considerate attention to the feelings as well as to the
+interests of the person who was the object of them.  Indeed, it
+seems throughout to have been the peculiar felicity of this man's
+mind, that everything was present to it that ought to be so; nothing
+that ought not.  Of his country he could not be unmindful; and it
+was one among other consequences of his happy temper, that on this
+subject he did not entertain those gloomy ideas which the then state
+of Scotland was but too well fitted to inspire.  In a conversation
+with an intimate friend, he says that, though he does not take upon
+him to be a prophet, he doubts not but that deliverance will come,
+and suddenly, of which his failings had rendered him unworthy to be
+the instrument.  In some verses which he composed on the night
+preceding his execution, and which he intended for his epitaph, he
+thus expresses this hope still more distinctly
+
+
+"On my attempt though Providence did frown,
+His oppressed people God at length shall own;
+Another hand, by more successful speed,
+Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head."
+
+
+With respect to the epitaph itself, of which these lines form a
+part, it is probable that he composed it chiefly with a view to
+amuse and relieve his mind, fatigued with exertion, and partly,
+perhaps, in imitation of the famous Marquis of Montrose, who, in
+similar circumstances, had written some verses which have been much
+celebrated.  The poetical merit of the pieces appears to be nearly
+equal, and is not in either instance considerable, and they are only
+in so far valuable as they may serve to convey to us some image of
+the minds by which they were produced.  He who reads them with this
+view will, perhaps, be of opinion that the spirit manifested in the
+two compositions is rather equal in degree than like in character;
+that the courage of Montrose was more turbulent, that of Argyle more
+calm and sedate.  If, on the one hand, it is to be regretted that we
+have not more memorials left of passages so interesting, and that
+even of those which we do possess, a great part is obscured by time,
+it must be confessed, on the other, that we have quite enough to
+enable us to pronounce that for constancy and equanimity under the
+severest trials, few men have equalled, none ever surpassed, the
+Earl of Argyle.  The most powerful of all tempters, hope, was not
+held out to him, so that he had not, it is true, in addition to his
+other hard tasks, that of resisting her seductive influence; but the
+passions of a different class had the fullest scope for their
+attacks.  These, however, could make no impression on his well-
+disciplined mind.  Anger could not exasperate, fear could not appal
+him; and if disappointment and indignation at the misbehaviour of
+his followers, and the supineness of the country, did occasionally,
+as surely they must, cause uneasy sensations, they had not the power
+to extort from him one unbecoming or even querulous expression.  Let
+him be weighed never so scrupulously, and in the nicest scales, he
+will not be found, in a single instance, wanting in the charity of a
+Christian, the firmness and benevolence of a patriot, the integrity
+and fidelity of a man of honour.
+
+The Scotch parliament had, on the 11th of June, sent an address to
+the king wherein, after praising his majesty, as usual, for his
+extraordinary prudence, courage, and conduct, and loading Argyle,
+whom they styled an hereditary traitor, with every reproach they can
+devise--among others, that of ingratitude for the favours which he
+had received, as well from his majesty as from his predecessor--they
+implore his majesty that the earl may find no favour and that the
+earl's family, the heritors, ringleaders, and preachers who joined
+him, should be for ever declared incapable of mercy, or bearing any
+honour or estate in the kingdom, and all subjects discharged under
+the highest pains to intercede for them in any manner of way.  Never
+was address more graciously received, or more readily complied with;
+and, accordingly, the following letter, with the royal signature,
+and countersigned by Lord Melford, Secretary of State for Scotland,
+was despatched to the council at Edinburgh, and by them entered and
+registered on the 29th of June.
+
+
+"Whereas, the late Earl of Argyle is, by the providence of God,
+fallen into our power, it is our will and pleasure that you take all
+ways to know from him those things which concern our government
+most, as his assisters with men, arms, and money, his associates and
+correspondents, his designs, etc.  But this must be done so as no
+time may be lost in bringing him to condign punishment, by causing
+him to be demeaned as a traitor, within the space of three days
+after this shall come to your hands, an account of which, with what
+he shall confess, you shall send immediately to us or our
+secretaries, for doing which this shall be your warrant."
+
+
+When it is recollected that torture had been in common use in
+Scotland, and that the persons to whom the letter was addressed had
+often caused it to be inflicted, the words, "it is our will and
+pleasure that you take all ways," seem to convey a positive command
+for applying of it in this instance; yet it is certain that Argyle
+was not tortured.  What was the cause of this seeming disregard of
+the royal injunctions does not appear.  One would hope, for the
+honour of human nature, that James, struck with some compunction for
+the injuries he had already heaped upon the head of this unfortunate
+nobleman, sent some private orders contradictory to this public
+letter; but there is no trace to be discovered of such a
+circumstance.  The managers themselves might feel a sympathy for a
+man of their own rank, which had no influence in the cases where
+only persons of an inferior station were to be the sufferers; and in
+those words of the king's letter which enjoin a speedy punishment as
+the primary object to which all others must give way, they might
+find a pretext for overlooking the most odious part of the order,
+and of indulging their humanity, such as it was, by appointing the
+earliest day possible for the execution.  In order that the triumph
+of injustice might be complete, it was determined that, without any
+new trial, the earl should suffer upon the iniquitous sentence of
+1682.  Accordingly, the very next day ensuing was appointed, and on
+the 13th of June he was brought from the castle, first to the Laigh
+Council-house, and thence to the place of execution.
+
+Before he left the castle, he had his dinner at the usual hour, at
+which he discoursed, not only calmly, but even cheerfully, with Mr.
+Charteris and others.  After dinner he retired, as was his custom,
+to his bed-chamber, where it is recorded that he slept quietly for
+about a quarter of an hour.  While he was in his bed, one of the
+members of the council came and intimated to the attendants a desire
+to speak with him:  upon being told that the earl was asleep, and
+had left orders not to be disturbed, the manager disbelieved the
+account, which he considered as a device to avoid further
+questionings.  To satisfy him, the door of the bed-chamber was half
+opened, and he then beheld, enjoying a sweet and tranquil slumber,
+the man who, by the doom of him and his fellows, was to die within
+the space of two short hours!  Struck with this sight, he hurried
+out of the room, quitted the castle with the utmost precipitation,
+and hid himself in the lodgings of an acquaintance who lived near,
+where he flung himself upon the first bed that presented itself, and
+had every appearance of a man suffering the most excruciating
+torture.  His friend, who had been apprised by the servant of the
+state he was in, and who naturally concluded that he was ill,
+offered him some wine.  He refused, saying, "No, no, that will not
+help me:  I have been in at Argyle, and saw him sleeping as
+pleasantly as ever man did, within an hour of eternity.  But as for
+me--."  The name of the person to whom this anecdote relates is not
+mentioned, and the truth of it may therefore be fairly considered as
+liable to that degree of doubt with which men of judgment receive
+every species of traditional history.  Woodrow, however, whose
+veracity is above suspicion, says he had it from the most
+unquestionable authority.  It is not in itself unlikely; and who is
+there that would not wish it true?  What a satisfactory spectacle to
+a philosophical mind, to see the oppressor, in the zenith of his
+power, envying his victim!  What an acknowledgment of the
+superiority of virtue!  What an affecting and forcible testimony to
+the value of that peace of mind which innocence alone can confer!
+We know not who this man was; but when we reflect that the guilt
+which agonised him was probably incurred for the sake of some vain
+title, or, at least, of some increase of wealth, which he did not
+want, and possibly knew not how to enjoy, our disgust is turned into
+something like compassion for that very foolish class of men whom
+the world calls wise in their generation.
+
+
+Soon after his short repose Argyle was brought, according to order,
+to the Laigh Council-house, from which place is dated the letter to
+his wife, and thence to the place of execution.  On the scaffold he
+had some discourse, as well with Mr. Annand, a minister appointed by
+government to attend him, as with Mr. Charteris.  He desired both of
+them to pray for him, and prayed himself with much fervency and
+devotion.  The speech which he made to the people was such as might
+be expected from the passages already related.  The same mixture of
+firmness and mildness is conspicuous in every part of it.  "We ought
+not," says he, "to despise our afflictions, nor to faint under them.
+We must not suffer ourselves to be exasperated against the
+instruments of our troubles, nor by fraudulent, nor pusillanimous
+compliances, bring guilt upon ourselves; faint hearts are ordinarily
+false hearts, choosing sin rather than suffering."  He offers his
+prayers to God for the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and
+Ireland, and that an end may be put to their present trials.  Having
+then asked pardon for his own failings, both of God and man, he
+would have concluded; but being reminded that he had said nothing of
+the royal family, he adds that he refers, in this matter, to what he
+had said at his trial concerning the test; that he prayed there
+never might be wanting one of the royal family to support the
+Protestant religion; and if any of them had swerved from the true
+faith, he prayed God to turn their hearts, but, at any rate, to save
+His people from their machinations.  When he had ended, he turned to
+the south side of the scaffold, and said, "Gentlemen, I pray you do
+not misconstruct my behaviour this day; I freely forgive all men
+their wrongs and injuries done against me, as I desire to be
+forgiven of God."  Mr. Annand repeated these words louder to the
+people.  The earl then went to the north side of the scaffold, and
+used the same or the like expressions.  Mr. Annand repeated them
+again, and said, "This nobleman dies a Protestant."  The earl
+stepped forward again, and said, "I die not only a Protestant, but
+with a heart-hatred of popery, prelacy, and all superstition
+whatsoever."  It would perhaps have been better if these last
+expressions had never been uttered, as there appears certainly
+something of violence in them unsuitable to the general tenor of his
+language; but it must be remembered, first, that the opinion that
+the pope is Antichrist was at that time general among almost all the
+zealous Protestants in these kingdoms; secondly, that Annand being
+employed by government, and probably an Episcopalian, the earl might
+apprehend that the declaration of such a minister might not convey
+the precise idea which he, Argyle, affixed to the word Protestant.
+
+He then embraced his friends, gave some tokens of remembrance to his
+son-in-law, Lord Maitland, for his daughter and grandchildren,
+stripped himself of part of his apparel, of which he likewise made
+presents, and laid his head upon the block.  Having uttered a short
+prayer, he gave the signal to the executioner, which was instantly
+obeyed, and his head severed from his body.  Such were the last
+hours, and such the final close, of this great man's life.  May the
+like happy serenity in such dreadful circumstances, and a death
+equally glorious, be the lot of all whom tyranny, of whatever
+denomination or description, shall in any age, or in any country,
+call to expiate their virtues on the scaffold!
+
+Of the followers of Argyle, in the disastrous expedition above
+recounted, the fortunes were various.  Among those who either
+surrendered or were taken, some suffered the same fate with their
+commander, others were pardoned; while, on the other hand, of those
+who escaped to foreign parts, many after a short exile returned
+triumphantly to their country at the period of the revolution, and
+under a system congenial to their principles, some even attained the
+highest honours of the State.  It is to be recollected that when,
+after the disastrous night-march from Killerne, a separation took
+place at Kilpatrick between Argyle and his confederates, Sir John
+Cochrane, Sir Patrick Hume, and others, crossed the Clyde into
+Renfrewshire, with about, it is supposed, two hundred men.  Upon
+their landing they met with some opposition from a troop of militia
+horse, which was, however, feeble and ineffectual; but fresh parties
+of militia as well as regular troops drawing together, a sort of
+scuffle ensued, near a place called Muirdyke; an offer of quarter
+was made by the king's troops, but (probably on account of the
+conditions annexed to it) was refused; and Cochrane and the rest,
+now reduced to the number of seventy took shelter in a fold-dyke,
+where they were able to resist and repel, though not without loss on
+each side, the attack of the enemy.  Their situation was
+nevertheless still desperate, and in the night they determined to
+make their escape.  The king's troops having retired, this was
+effected without difficulty; and this remnant of an army being
+dispersed by common consent, every man sought his own safety in the
+best manner he could.  Sir John Cochrane took refuge in the house of
+an uncle, by whom, or by whose wife, it is said, he was betrayed.
+He was, however, pardoned; and from this circumstance, coupled with
+the constant and seemingly peevish opposition which he gave to
+almost all Argyle's plans, a suspicion has arisen that he had been
+treacherous throughout.  But the account given of his pardon by
+Burnet, who says his father, Lord Dundonald, who was an opulent
+nobleman, purchased it with a considerable sum of money, is more
+credible, as well as more candid; and it must be remembered that in
+Sir John's disputes with his general, he was almost always acting in
+conjunction with Sir Patrick Hume, who is proved, by the subsequent
+events, and indeed by the whole tenor of his life and conduct, to
+have been uniformly sincere and zealous in the cause of his country.
+Cochrane was sent to England, where he had an interview with the
+king, and gave such answers to the questions put to him as were
+deemed satisfactory by his majesty; and the information thus
+obtained whatever might be the real and secret causes, furnished a
+plausible pretence at least for the exercise of royal mercy.  Sir
+Patrick Hume, after having concealed himself some time in the house,
+and under the protection of Lady Eleanor Dunbar, sister to the Earl
+of Eglington, found means to escape to Holland, whence he returned
+in better times, and was created first Lord Hume of Polwarth, and
+afterwards Earl of Marchmont.  Fullarton, and Campbell of
+Auchinbreak, appear to have escaped, but by what means is not known.
+Two sons of Argyle, John and Charles, and Archibald Campbell, his
+nephew, were sentenced to death and forfeiture, but the capital part
+of the sentence was remitted.  Thomas Archer, a clergyman, who had
+been wounded at Muirdyke, was executed, notwithstanding many
+applications in his favour, among which was one from Lord
+Drumlanrig, Queensbury's eldest son.  Woodrow, who was himself a
+Presbyterian minister, and though a most valuable and correct
+historian, was not without a tincture of the prejudices belonging to
+his order, attributes the unrelenting spirit of the government in
+this instance to their malice against the clergy of his sect.  Some
+of the holy ministry, he observes, as Guthrie at the restoration,
+Kidd and Mackail after the insurrections at Pentland and Bothwell
+Bridge, and now Archer, were upon every occasion to be sacrificed to
+the fury of the persecutors.  But to him who is well acquainted with
+the history of this period, the habitual cruelty of the government
+will fully account for any particular act of severity; and it is
+only in cases of lenity, such as that of Cochrane, for instance,
+that he will look for some hidden or special motive.
+
+Ayloff, having in vain attempted to kill himself, was, like
+Cochrane, sent to London to be examined.  His relationship to the
+king's first wife might perhaps be one inducement to this measure,
+or it might be thought more expedient that he should be executed for
+the Rye House Plot, the credit of which it was a favourite object of
+the court to uphold, than for his recent acts of rebellion in
+Scotland.  Upon his examination he refused to give any information,
+and suffered death upon a sentence of outlawry, which had passed in
+the former reign.  It is recorded that James interrogated him
+personally, and finding him sullen, and unwilling to speak, said:
+"Mr. Ayloff, you know it is in my power to pardon you, therefore say
+that which may deserve it:" to which Ayloff replied:  "Though it is
+in your power, it is not in your nature to pardon."  This, however,
+is one of those anecdotes which are believed rather on account of
+the air of nature that belongs to them, than upon any very good
+traditional authority, and which ought, therefore when any very
+material inference with respect either to fact or character, is to
+be drawn from them, to be received with great caution.
+
+Rumbold, covered with wounds, and defending himself with uncommon
+exertions of strength and courage, was at last taken.  However
+desirable it might have been thought to execute in England a man so
+deeply implicated in the Rye House Plot, the state of Rumbold's
+health made such a project impracticable.  Had it been attempted he
+would probably, by a natural death, have disappointed the views of a
+government who were eager to see brought to the block a man whom
+they thought, or pretended to think, guilty of having projected the
+assassination of the late and present king.  Weakened as he was in
+body, his mind was firm, his constancy unshaken; and notwithstanding
+some endeavours that were made by drums and other instruments, to
+drown his voice when he was addressing the people from the scaffold,
+enough has been preserved of what he then uttered to satisfy us that
+his personal courage, the praise of which has not been denied him,
+was not of the vulgar or constitutional kind, but was accompanied
+with a proportionable vigour of mind.  Upon hearing his sentence,
+whether in imitation of Montrose, or from that congeniality of
+character which causes men in similar circumstances to conceive
+similar sentiments, he expressed the same wish which that gallant
+nobleman had done; he wished he had a limb for every town in
+Christendom.  With respect to the intended assassination imputed to
+him, he protested his innocence, and desired to be believed upon the
+faith of a dying man; adding, in terms as natural as they are
+forcibly descriptive of a conscious dignity of character, that he
+was too well known for any to have had the imprudence to make such a
+proposition to him.  He concluded with plain, and apparently
+sincere, declarations of his undiminished attachment to the
+principles of liberty, civil and religious; denied that he was an
+enemy to monarchy, affirming, on the contrary, that he considered
+it, when properly limited, as the most eligible form of government;
+but that he never could believe that any man was born marked by God
+above another, "for none comes into the world with a saddle on his
+back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him."
+
+Except by Ralph, who, with a warmth that does honour to his
+feelings, expatiates at some length upon the subject, the
+circumstances attending the death of this extraordinary man have
+been little noticed.  Rapin, Echard, Kennet, Hume, make no mention
+of them whatever; and yet, exclusively of the interest always
+excited by any great display of spirit and magnanimity, his solemn
+denial of the project of assassination imputed to him in the affair
+of the Rye House Plot is in itself a fact of great importance, and
+one which might have been expected to attract, in no small degree,
+the attention of the historian.  That Hume, who has taken some pains
+in canvassing the degree of credit due to the different parts of the
+Rye House Plot, should pass it over in silence, is the more
+extraordinary because, in the case of the popish plot, he lays, and
+justly lays, the greatest stress upon the dying declarations of the
+sufferers.  Burnet adverts as well to the peculiar language used by
+Rumbold as to his denial of the assassination; but having before
+given us to understand that he believed that no such crime had been
+projected, it is the less to be wondered at that he does not much
+dwell upon this further evidence in favour of his former opinion.
+Sir John Dalrymple, upon the authority of a paper which he does not
+produce, but from which he quotes enough to show that if produced it
+would not answer his purpose, takes Rumbold's guilt for a decided
+fact, and then states his dying protestations of his innocence, as
+an instance of aggravated wickedness.  It is to be remarked, too,
+that although Sir John is pleased roundly to assert that Rumbold
+denied the share he had had in the Rye House Plot, yet the
+particular words which he cites neither contain nor express, nor
+imply any such denial.  He has not even selected those by which the
+design of assassination was denied (the only denial that was
+uttered), but refers to a general declaration made by Rumbold, that
+he had done injustice to no man--a declaration which was by no means
+inconsistent with his having been a party to a plot, which he, no
+doubt, considered as justifiable, and even meritorious.  This is not
+all:  the paper referred to is addressed to Walcot, by whom Rumbold
+states himself to have been led on; and Walcot, with his last
+breath, denied his own participation in any design to murder either
+Charles or James.  Thus, therefore, whether the declaration of the
+sufferer be interpreted in a general or in a particular sense, there
+is no contradiction whatever between it and the paper adduced; but
+thus it is that the character of a brave and, as far as appears, a
+virtuous man, is most unjustly and cruelly traduced.  An incredible
+confusion of head, and an uncommon want of reasoning powers, which
+distinguish the author to whom I refer, are, I should charitably
+hope, the true sources of his misrepresentation; while others may
+probably impute it to his desire of blackening, upon any pretence, a
+person whose name is more or less connected with those of Sidney and
+Russell.  It ought not, perhaps, to pass without observation, that
+this attack upon Rumbold is introduced only in an oblique manner:
+the rigour of government destroyed, says the historian, the morals
+it intended to correct, and made the unhappy sufferer add to his
+former crimes the atrocity of declaring a falsehood in his last
+moments.  Now, what particular instances of rigour are here alluded
+to, it is difficult to guess:  for surely the execution of a man
+whom he sets down as guilty of a design to murder the two royal
+brothers, could not, even in the judgment of persons much less
+accustomed than Sir John to palliate the crimes of princes, be
+looked upon as an act of blameable severity; but it was thought,
+perhaps, that for the purpose of conveying a calumny upon the
+persons concerned, or accused of being concerned, in the Rye House
+Plot, an affected censure upon the government would be the fittest
+vehicle.
+
+The fact itself, that Rumbold did, in his last hours, solemnly deny
+the having been concerned in any project for assassinating the king
+or duke, has not, I believe, been questioned.  It is not invalidated
+by the silence of some historians:  it is confirmed by the
+misrepresentation of others.  The first question that naturally
+presents itself must be, was this declaration true?  The
+asseverations of dying men have always had, and will always have,
+great influence upon the minds of those who do not push their ill
+opinion of mankind to the most outrageous and unwarrantable length;
+but though the weight of such asseverations be in all cases great,
+it will not be in all equal.  It is material therefore to consider,
+first, what are the circumstances which may tend in particular cases
+to diminish their credit; and next, how far such circumstances
+appear to have existed in the case before us.  The case where this
+species of evidence would be the least convincing, would be where
+hope of pardon is entertained; for then the man is not a dying man
+in the sense of the proposition, for he has not that certainty that
+his falsehood will not avail him, which is the principal foundation
+of the credit due to his assertions.  For the same reason, though in
+a less degree, he who hopes for favour to his children, or to other
+surviving connections, is to be listened to with some caution; for
+the existence of one virtue does not necessarily prove that of
+another, and he who loves his children and friends may yet be
+profligate and unprincipled; or, deceiving himself, may think that
+while his ends are laudable, he ought not to hesitate concerning the
+means.  Besides these more obvious temptations to prevarication,
+there is another which, though it may lie somewhat deeper, yet
+experience teaches us to be rooted in human nature:  I mean that
+sort of obstinacy, or false shame, which makes men so unwilling to
+retract what they have once advanced, whether in matter of opinion
+or of fact.  The general character of the man is also in this, as in
+all other human testimony, a circumstance of the greatest moment.
+Where none of the above-mentioned objections occur, and where
+therefore the weight of evidence in question is confessedly
+considerable, yet is it still liable to be balanced or outweighed by
+evidence in the opposite scale.
+
+Let Rumbold's declaration, then, be examined upon these principles,
+and we shall find that it has every character of truth, without a
+single circumstance to discredit it.  He was so far from
+entertaining any hope of pardon, that he did not seem even to wish
+it; and indeed if he had had any such chimerical object in view, he
+must have known that to have supplied the government with a proof of
+the Rye House assassination plot, would be a more likely road at
+least, than a steady denial, to obtain it.  He left none behind him
+for whom to entreat favour, or whose welfare or honour was at all
+affected by any confession or declaration he might make.  If, in a
+prospective view, he was without temptation, so neither, if he
+looked back, was he fettered by any former declaration; so that he
+could not be influenced by that erroneous notion of consistency to
+which it may be feared that truth, even in the most awful moments,
+has in some cases been sacrificed.  His timely escape in 1683 had
+saved him from the necessity of making any protestation upon the
+subject of his innocence at that time; and the words of the letter
+to Walcot are so far from containing such a protestation, that they
+are quoted (very absurdly, it is true) by Sir John Dalrymple as an
+avowal of guilt.  If his testimony is free from these particular
+objections, much less is it impeached by his general character,
+which was that of a bold and daring man, who was very unlikely to
+feel shame in avowing what he had not been ashamed to commit, and
+who seems to have taken a delight in speaking bold truths, or at
+least what appeared to him to be such, without regarding the manner
+in which his hearers were likely to receive them.  With respect to
+the last consideration, that of the opposite evidence, it all
+depends upon the veracity of men who, according to their own
+account, betrayed their comrades, and were actuated by the hope
+either of pardon or reward.
+
+It appears to be of the more consequence to clear up this matter,
+because if we should be of opinion, as I think we all must be, that
+the story of the intended assassination of the king, in his way from
+Newmarket, is as fabulous as that of the silver bullets by which he
+was to have been shot at Windsor, a most singular train of
+reflections will force itself upon our minds, as well in regard to
+the character of the times, as to the means by which the two causes
+gained successively the advantage over each other.  The Royalists
+had found it impossible to discredit the fiction, gross as it was,
+of the popish plot; nor could they prevent it from being a powerful
+engine in the hands of the Whigs, who, during the alarm raised by
+it, gained an irresistible superiority in the House of Commons, in
+the City of London, and in most parts of the kingdom.  But they who
+could not quiet a false alarm raised by their adversaries, found
+little or no difficulty in raising one equally false in their own
+favour, by the supposed detection of the intended assassination.
+With regard to the advantages derived to the respective parties from
+those detestable fictions, if it be urged, on one hand, that the
+panic spread by the Whigs was more universal and more violent in its
+effects, it must be allowed, on the other, that the advantages
+gained by the Tories were, on account of their alliance with the
+crown, more durable and decisive.  There is a superior solidity ever
+belonging to the power of the crown, as compared with that of any
+body of men or party, or even with either of the other branches of
+the legislature.  A party has influence, but, properly speaking, no
+power.  The Houses of Parliament have abundance of power, but, as
+bodies, little or no influence.  The crown has both power and
+influence, which, when exerted with wisdom and steadiness, will
+always be found too strong for any opposition whatever, till the
+zeal and fidelity of party attachments shall be found to increase in
+proportion to the increased influence of the executive power.
+
+While these matters were transacting in Scotland, Monmouth,
+conformably to his promise to Argyle, set sail from Holland, and
+landed at Lyme in Dorsetshire, on the 11th of June.  He was attended
+by Lord Grey of Wark, Fletcher of Saltoun, Colonel Matthews,
+Ferguson, and a few other gentlemen.  His reception was, among the
+lower ranks, cordial, and for some days at least, if not weeks,
+there seemed to have been more foundation for the sanguine hopes of
+Lord Grey and others, his followers, than the duke had supposed.
+The first step taken by the invader was to issue a proclamation,
+which he caused to be read in the market-place.  In this instrument
+he touched upon what were, no doubt, thought to be the most popular
+topics, and loaded James and his Catholic friends with every
+imputation which had at any time been thrown against them.  This
+declaration appears to have been well received, and the numbers that
+came in to him were very considerable; but his means of arming them
+were limited, nor had he much confidence, for the purpose of any
+important military operation, in men unused to discipline, and
+wholly unacquainted with the art of war.  Without examining the
+question whether or not Monmouth, from his professional prejudices,
+carried, as some have alleged he did, his diffidence of unpractised
+soldiers and new levies too far, it seems clear that, in his
+situation, the best, or rather the only chance of success, was to be
+looked for in counsels of the boldest kind.  If he could not
+immediately strike some important stroke, it was not likely that he
+ever should; nor indeed was he in a condition to wait.  He could not
+flatter himself, as Argyle had done, that he had a strong country,
+full of relations and dependants, where he might secure himself till
+the co-operation of his confederate or some other favourable
+circumstance might put it in his power to act more efficaciously.
+Of any brilliant success in Scotland he could not, at this time,
+entertain any hope, nor, if he had, could he rationally expect that
+any events in that quarter would make the sort of impression here
+which, on the other hand, his success would produce in Scotland.
+With money he was wholly unprovided; nor does it appear, whatever
+may have been the inclination of some considerable men, such as
+Lords Macclesfield, Brandon, Delamere, and others, that any persons
+of that description were engaged to join in his enterprise.  His
+reception had been above his hopes, and his recruits more numerous
+than could be expected, or than he was able to furnish with arms;
+while, on the other hand, the forces in arms against him consisted
+chiefly in a militia, formidable neither from numbers nor
+discipline, and moreover suspected of disaffection.  The present
+moment, therefore, seemed to offer the most favourable opportunity
+for enterprise of any that was likely to occur; but the unfortunate
+Monmouth judged otherwise, and, as if he were to defend rather than
+to attack, directed his chief policy to the avoiding of a general
+action.
+
+It being, however, absolutely necessary to dislodge some troops
+which the Earl of Feversham had thrown into Bridport, a detachment
+of three hundred men was made for that purpose, which had the most
+complete success, notwithstanding the cowardice of Lord Grey, who
+commanded them.  This nobleman, who had been so instrumental in
+persuading his friend to the invasion, upon the first appearance of
+danger is said to have left the troops whom he commanded, and to
+have sought his own personal safety in flight.  The troops carried
+Bridport, to the shame of the commander who had deserted them, and
+returned to Lyme.
+
+It is related by Ferguson that Monmouth said to Matthews, "What
+shall I do with Lord Grey?"  To which the other answered, "That he
+was the only general in Europe who would ask such a question;"
+intending, no doubt, to reproach the duke with the excess to which
+he pushed his characteristic virtues of mildness and forbearance.
+That these virtues formed a part of his character is most true, and
+the personal friendship in which he had lived with Grey would
+incline him still more to the exercise of them upon this occasion;
+but it is to be remembered also that the delinquent was, in respect
+of rank, property, and perhaps too of talent, by far the most
+considerable man he had with him; and, therefore, that prudential
+motives might concur to deter a general from proceeding to violent
+measures with such a person, especially in a civil war, where the
+discipline of an armed party cannot be conducted upon the same
+system as that of a regular army serving in a foreign war.
+Monmouth's disappointment in Lord Grey was aggravated by the loss of
+Fletcher of Saltoun, who, in a sort of scuffle that ensued upon his
+being reproached for having seized a horse belonging to a man of the
+country, had the misfortune to kill the owner.  Monmouth, however
+unwilling, thought himself obliged to dismiss him; and thus, while a
+fatal concurrence of circumstances forced him to part with the man
+he esteemed, and to retain him whom he despised, he found himself at
+once disappointed of the support of the two persons upon whom he had
+most relied.
+
+On the 15th of June, his army being now increased to near three
+thousand men, the duke marched from Lyme.  He does not appear to
+have taken this step with a view to any enterprise of importance,
+but rather to avoid the danger which he apprehended from the motions
+of the Devonshire and Somerset militias, whose object it seemed to
+be to shut him up in Lyme.  In his first day's march he had
+opportunities of engaging, or rather of pursuing, each of those
+bodies, who severally retreated from his forces; but conceiving it
+to be his business, as he said, not to fight, but to march on, he
+went through Axminster, and encamped in a strong piece of ground
+between that town and Chard in Somersetshire, to which place he
+proceeded on the ensuing day.  According to Wade's narrative, which
+appears to afford by far the most authentic account of these
+transactions, here it was that the first proposition was made for
+proclaiming Monmouth king.  Ferguson made the proposal, and was
+supported by Lord Grey, but it was easily run down, as Wade
+expresses it, by those who were against it, and whom, therefore, we
+must suppose to have formed a very considerable majority of the
+persons deemed of sufficient importance to be consulted on such an
+occasion.  These circumstances are material, because if that credit
+be given to them which they appear to deserve, Ferguson's want of
+veracity becomes so notorious, that it is hardly worth while to
+attend to any part of his narrative.  Where it only corroborates
+accounts given by others, it is of little use; and where it differs
+from them, it deserves no credit.  I have, therefore, wholly
+disregarded it.
+
+From Chard, Monmouth and his party proceeded to Taunton, a town
+where, as well from the tenor of former occurrences as from the zeal
+and number of the Protestant dissenters, who formed a great portion
+of its inhabitants, he had every reason to expect the most
+favourable reception.  His expectations were not disappointed.
+
+The inhabitants of the upper, as well as the lower classes, vied
+with each other in testifying their affection for his person, and
+their zeal for his cause.  While the latter rent the air with
+applauses and acclamations, the former opened their houses to him
+and to his followers, and furnished his army with necessaries and
+supplies of every kind.  His way was strewed with flowers; the
+windows were thronged with spectators, all anxious to participate in
+what the warm feelings of the moment made them deem a triumph.
+Husbands pointed out to their wives, mothers to their children, the
+brave and lovely hero who was destined to be the deliverer of his
+country.  The beautiful lines which Dryden makes Achitophel, in his
+highest strain of flattery, apply to this unfortunate nobleman, were
+in this instance literally verified:
+
+
+"Thee, saviour, thee, the nation's vows confess,
+And, never satisfied with seeing, bless.
+Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim,
+And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name."
+
+
+In the midst of these joyous scenes twenty-six young maids, of the
+best families in the town, presented him in the name of their
+townsmen with colours wrought by them for the purpose, and with a
+Bible; upon receiving which he said that he had taken the field with
+a design to defend the truth contained in that Book, and to seal it
+with his blood if there was occasion.
+
+In such circumstances it is no wonder that his army increased; and,
+indeed, exclusive of individual recruits, he was here strengthened
+by the arrival of Colonel Bassett with a considerable corps.  But in
+the midst of these prosperous circumstances, some of them of such
+apparent importance to the success of his enterprise, all of them
+highly flattering to his feelings, he did not fail to observe that
+one favourable symptom (and that too of the most decisive nature)
+was still wanting.  None of the considerable families, not a single
+nobleman, and scarcely any gentleman of rank and consequence in the
+counties through which he had passed, had declared in his favour.
+Popular applause is undoubtedly sweet; and not only so, it often
+furnishes most powerful means to the genius that knows how to make
+use of them.  But Monmouth well knew that without the countenance
+and assistance of a proportion, at least, of the higher ranks in the
+country, there was, for an undertaking like his, little prospect of
+success.  He could not but have remarked that the habits and
+prejudices of the English people are, in a great degree,
+aristocratical; nor had he before him, nor indeed have we since his
+time, had one single example of an insurrection that was successful,
+unaided by the ancient families and great landed proprietors.  He
+must have felt this the more, because in former parts of his
+political life he had been accustomed to act with such coadjutors;
+and it is highly probable that if Lord Russell had been alive, and
+could have appeared at the head of one hundred only of his western
+tenantry, such a reinforcement would have inspired him with more
+real confidence than the thousands who individually flocked to his
+standard.
+
+But though Russell was no more, there were not wanting, either in
+the provinces through which the duke passed, or in other parts of
+the kingdom, many noble and wealthy families who were attached to
+the principles of the Whigs.  To account for their neutrality, and,
+if possible, to persuade them to a different conduct, was naturally
+among his principal concerns.  Their present coldness might be
+imputed to the indistinctness of his declarations with respect to
+what was intended to be the future government.  Men zealous for
+monarchy might not choose to embark without some certain pledge that
+their favourite form should be preserved.  They would also expect to
+be satisfied with respect to the person whom their arms, if
+successful, were to place upon the throne.  To promise, therefore,
+the continuance of a monarchical establishment, and to designate the
+future monarch, seemed to be necessary for the purpose of acquiring
+aristocratical support.  Whatever might be the intrinsic weight of
+this argument, it easily made its way with Monmouth in his present
+situation.  The aspiring temper of mind which is the natural
+consequence of popular favour and success, produced in him a
+disposition to listen to any suggestion which tended to his
+elevation and aggrandisement; and when he could persuade himself,
+upon reasons specious at least, that the measures which would most
+gratify his aspiring desires would be, at the same time, a stroke of
+the soundest policy, it is not to be wondered at that it was
+immediately and impatiently adopted.  Urged, therefore, by these
+mixed motives, he declared himself king, and issued divers
+proclamations in the royal style; assigning to those whose
+approbation he doubted the reasons above adverted to, and
+proscribing and threatening with the punishment due to rebellion
+such as should resist his mandates, and adhere to the usurping Duke
+of York.
+
+If this measure was in reality taken with views of policy, those
+views were miserably disappointed; for it does not appear that one
+proselyte was gained.  The threats in the proclamation were received
+with derision by the king's army, and no other sentiments were
+excited by the assumption of the royal title than those of contempt
+and indignation.  The commonwealthsmen were dissatisfied, of course,
+with the principle of the measure:  the favourers of hereditary
+right held it in abhorrence, and considered it as a kind of
+sacrilegious profanation; nor even among those who considered
+monarchy in a more rational light, and as a magistracy instituted
+for the good of the people, could it be at all agreeable that such a
+magistrate should be elected by the army that had thronged to his
+standard, or by the particular partiality of a provincial town.
+Monmouth's strength, therefore, was by no means increased by his new
+title, and seemed to be still limited to two descriptions of
+persons; first, those who, from thoughtlessness or desperation, were
+willing to join in any attempt at innovation; secondly, such as,
+directing their views to a single point, considered the destruction
+of James's tyranny as the object which, at all hazards, and without
+regard to consequences, they were bound to pursue.  On the other
+hand, his reputation both for moderation and good faith was
+considerably impaired, inasmuch as his present conduct was in direct
+contradiction to that part of his declaration wherein he had
+promised to leave the future adjustment of government, and
+especially the consideration of his own claims, to a free and
+independent parliament.
+
+The notion of improving his new levies by discipline seems to have
+taken such possession of Monmouth's mind that he overlooked the
+probable, or rather the certain, consequences of a delay, by which
+the enemy would be enabled to bring into the field forces far better
+disciplined and appointed than any which, even with the most
+strenuous and successful exertions, he could hope to oppose to them.
+Upon this principle, and especially as he had not yet fixed upon any
+definite object of enterprise, he did not think a stay of a few days
+at Taunton would be materially, if at all, prejudicial to his
+affairs; and it was not till the 21st of June that he proceeded to
+Bridgewater, where he was received in the most cordial manner.  In
+his march, the following day, from that town to Glastonbury, he was
+alarmed by a party of the Earl of Oxford's horse; but all
+apprehensions of any material interruptions were removed by an
+account of the militia having left Wells, and retreated to Bath and
+Bristol.  From Glastonbury he went to Shipton-Mallet, where the
+project of an attack upon Bristol was communicated by the duke to
+his officers.  After some discussion, it was agreed that the attack
+should be made on the Gloucestershire side of the city, and with
+that view to pass the Avon at Keynsham Bridge, a few miles from
+Bath.  In their march from Shipton-Mallet, the troops were again
+harassed in their rear by a party of horse and dragoons, but lodged
+quietly at night at a village called Pensford.  A detachment was
+sent early the next morning to possess itself of Keynsham, and to
+repair the bridge, which might probably be broken down to prevent a
+passage.  Upon their approach, a troop of the Gloucestershire horse-
+militia immediately abandoned the town in great precipitation,
+leaving behind them two horses and one man.  By break of day, the
+bridge, which had not been much injured, was repaired, and before
+noon, Monmouth, having passed it with his whole army, was in full
+march to Bristol, which he determined to attack the ensuing night.
+But the weather proving rainy and bad, it was deemed expedient to
+return to Keynsham, a measure from which he expected to reap a
+double advantage; to procure dry and commodious quarters for the
+soldiery, and to lull the enemy, by a movement, which bore the
+semblance of a retreat, into a false and delusive security.  The
+event, however, did not answer his expectation, for the troops had
+scarcely taken up their quarters, when they were disturbed by two
+parties of horse, who entered the town at two several places.  An
+engagement ensued, in which Monmouth lost fourteen men, and a
+captain of horse, though in the end the Royalists were obliged to
+retire, leaving three prisoners.  From these the duke had
+information that the king's army was near at hand, and, as they
+said, about four thousand strong.
+
+This new state of affairs seemed to demand new councils.  The
+projected enterprise upon Bristol was laid aside, and the question
+was, whether to make by forced marches for Gloucester, in order to
+pass the Severn at that city, and so to gain the counties of Salop
+and Chester, where he expected to be met by many friends, or to
+march directly into Wiltshire, where, according to some intelligence
+received ["from one Adlam"] the day before, there was a considerable
+body of horse (under whose command does not appear) ready, by their
+junction, to afford him a most important and seasonable support.  To
+the first of these plans a decisive objection was stated.  The
+distance by Gloucester was so great, that, considering the slow
+marches to which he would be limited, by the daily attacks with
+which the different small bodies of the enemy's cavalry would not
+fail to harass his rear, he was in great danger of being overtaken
+by the king's forces, and might thus be driven to risk all in an
+engagement upon terms the most disadvantageous.  On the contrary, if
+joined in Wiltshire by the expected aids, he might confidently offer
+battle to the royal army; and, provided he could bring them to an
+action before they were strengthened by new reinforcements, there
+was no unreasonable prospect of success.  The latter plan was
+therefore adopted, and no sooner adopted than put in execution.  The
+army was in motion without delay, and being before Bath on the
+morning of the 26th of June, summoned the place, rather (as it
+should seem) in sport than in earnest, as there was no hope of its
+surrender.  After this bravado they marched on southward to Philip's
+Norton, where they rested; the horse in the town, and the foot in
+the field.
+
+While Monmouth was making these marches, there were not wanting, in
+many parts of the adjacent country, strong symptoms of the
+attachment of the lower orders of people to his cause, and more
+especially in those manufacturing towns where the Protestant
+dissenters were numerous.  In Froome there had been a considerable
+rising, headed by the constable, who posted up the duke's
+declaration in the market-place.  Many of the inhabitants of the
+neighbouring towns of Westbury and Warminster came in throngs to the
+town to join the insurgents; some armed with fire-arms, but more
+with such rustic weapons as opportunity could supply.  Such a force,
+if it had joined the main army, or could have been otherwise
+directed by any leader of judgment and authority, might have proved
+very serviceable; but in its present state it was a mere rabble, and
+upon the first appearance of the Earl of Pembroke, who entered the
+town with a hundred and sixty horse and forty musketeers, fell, as
+might be expected, into total confusion.  The rout was complete; all
+the arms of the insurgents were seized; and the constable, after
+having been compelled to abjure his principles, and confess the
+enormity of his offence, was committed to prison.
+
+This transaction took place the 25th, the day before Monmouth's
+arrival at Philip's Norton, and may have, in a considerable degree,
+contributed to the disappointment, of which we learn from Wade, that
+he at this time began bitterly to complain.  He was now upon the
+confines of Wiltshire, and near enough for the bodies of horse, upon
+whose favourable intentions so much reliance had been placed, to
+have effected a junction, if they had been so disposed; but whether
+that Adlam's intelligence had been originally bad, or that
+Pembroke's proceedings at Froome had intimidated them, no symptom of
+such an intention could be discovered.  A desertion took place in
+his army, which the exaggerated accounts in the Gazette made to
+amount to near two thousand men.  These dispiriting circumstances,
+added to the complete disappointment of the hopes entertained from
+the assumption of the royal title, produced in him a state of mind
+but little short of despondency.  He complained that all people had
+deserted him, and is said to have been so dejected, as hardly to
+have the spirit requisite for giving the necessary orders.
+
+From this state of torpor, however, he appears to have been
+effectually roused by a brisk attack that was made upon him on the
+27th, in the morning, by the Royalists, under the command of his
+half-brother, the Duke of Grafton.  That spirited young nobleman
+(whose intrepid courage, conspicuous upon every occasion, led him in
+this, and many other instances, to risk a life, which he finally
+lost in a better cause), heading an advanced detachment of Lord
+Feversham's army, who had marched from Bath, with a view to fall on
+the enemy's rear, marched boldly up a narrow lane leading to the
+town, and attacked a barricade, which Monmouth had caused to be made
+across the way, at the entrance of the town.  Monmouth was no sooner
+apprised of this brisk attack, than he ordered a party to go out of
+the town by a by-way, who coming on the rear of the Grenadiers while
+others of his men were engaged with their front, had nearly
+surrounded them, and taken their commander prisoner, but Grafton
+forced his way through the enemy.  An engagement ensued between the
+insurgents and the remainder of Feversham's detachment, who had
+lined the hedges which flanked them.  The former were victorious,
+and after driving the enemy from hedge to hedge, forced them at last
+into the open field, where they joined the rest of the king's
+forces, newly come up.  The killed and wounded in these encounters
+amounted to about forty on Feversham's side, twenty on Monmouth's;
+but among the latter there were several officers, and some of note,
+while the loss of the former, with the exception of two volunteers,
+Seymour and May, consisted entirely of common soldiers.
+
+The Royalists now drew up on an eminence, about five hundred paces
+from the hedges, while Monmouth, having placed, of his four field-
+pieces, two at the mouth of the lane, and two upon a rising ground
+near it on the right, formed his army along the hedge.  From these
+stations a firing of artillery was begun on each side, and continued
+near six hours, but with little or no effect.  Monmouth, according
+to Wade, losing but one, and the Royalists, according to the
+Gazette, not one man, by the whole cannonade.  In these
+circumstances, notwithstanding the recent and convincing experience
+he now had of the ability of his raw troops to face, in certain
+situations at least, the more regular forces of his enemy, Monmouth
+was advised by some to retreat; but upon a more general
+consultation, this advice was over-ruled, and it was determined to
+cut passages through the hedges and to offer battle.  But before
+this could be effected the royal army, not willing again to engage
+among the enclosures, annoyed in the open field by the rain which
+continued to fall very heavily, and disappointed, no doubt, at the
+little effect of their artillery, began their retreat.  The little
+confidence which Monmouth had in his horse--perhaps the ill opinion
+he now entertained of their leader--forbade him to think of pursuit,
+and having stayed till a late hour in the field, and leaving large
+fires burning, he set out on his march in the night, and on the
+28th, in the morning, reached Froome, where he put his troops in
+quarter and rested two days.
+
+It was here he first heard certain news of Argyle's discomfiture.
+It was in vain to seek for any circumstance in his affairs that
+might mitigate the effect of the severe blow inflicted by this
+intelligence, and he relapsed into the same low spirits as at
+Philip's Norton.  No diversion, at least no successful diversion,
+had been made in his favour:  there was no appearance of the horse,
+which had been the principal motive to allure him into that part of
+the country; and what was worst of all, no desertion from the king's
+army.  It was manifest, said the duke's more timid advisers, that
+the affair must terminate ill, and the only measure now to be taken
+was, that the general with his officers should leave the army to
+shift for itself, and make severally for the most convenient sea-
+ports, whence they might possibly get a safe passage to the
+Continent.  To account for Monmouth's entertaining, even for a
+moment, a thought so unworthy of him, and so inconsistent with the
+character for spirit he had ever maintained--a character unimpeached
+even by his enemies--we must recollect the unwillingness with which
+he undertook this fatal expedition; that his engagement to Argyle,
+who was now past help, was perhaps his principal motive for
+embarking at the time; that it was with great reluctance he had torn
+himself from the arms of Lady Harriet Wentworth, with whom he had so
+firmly persuaded himself that he could be happy in the most obscure
+retirement, that he believed himself weaned from ambition, which had
+hitherto been the only passion of his mind.  It is true, that when
+he had once yielded to the solicitations of his friends so far as to
+undertake a business of such magnitude, it was his duty (but a duty
+that required a stronger mind than his to execute) to discard from
+his thoughts all the arguments that had rendered his compliance
+reluctant.  But it is one of the great distinctions between an
+ordinary mind and a superior one, to be able to carry on without
+relenting a plan we have not originally approved, and especially
+when it appears to have turned out ill.  This proposal of disbanding
+was a step so pusillanimous and dishonourable that it could not be
+approved by any council, however composed.  It was condemned by all
+except Colonel Venner, and was particularly inveighed against by
+Lord Grey, who was perhaps desirous of retrieving, by bold words at
+least, the reputation he had lost at Bridport.  It is possible, too,
+that he might be really unconscious of his deficiency in point of
+personal courage till the moment of danger arrived, and even
+forgetful of it when it was passed.  Monmouth was easily persuaded
+to give up a plan so uncongenial to his nature, resolved, though
+with little hope of success, to remain with his army to take the
+chance of events, and at the worst to stand or fall with men whose
+attachment to him had laid him under indelible obligations.
+
+This resolution being taken, the first plan was to proceed to
+Warminster, but on the morning of his departure hearing, on the one
+hand, that the king's troops were likely to cross his march, and on
+the other, being informed by a quaker, before known to the duke,
+that there was a great club army, amounting to ten thousand men,
+ready to join his standard in the marshes to the westward, he
+altered his intention, and returned to Shipton-Mallet, where he
+rested that night, his army being in good quarters.  From Shipton-
+Mallet he proceeded, on the 1st of July, to Wells, upon information
+that there were in that city some carriages belonging to the king's
+army, and ill-guarded.  These he found and took, and stayed that
+night in the town.  The following day he marched towards Bridgewater
+in search of the great succour he had been taught to expect; but
+found, of the promised ten thousand men, only a hundred and sixty.
+The army lay that night in the field, and once again entered
+Bridgewater on the 3rd of July.  That the duke's men were not yet
+completely dispirited or out of heart appears from the circumstance
+of great numbers of them going from Bridgewater to see their friends
+at Taunton, and other places in the neighbourhood, and almost all
+returning the next day according to their promise.  On the 5th an
+account was received of the king's army being considerably advanced,
+and Monmouth's first thought was to retreat from it immediately, and
+marching by Axbridge and Keynsham to Gloucester, to pursue the plan
+formerly rejected, of penetrating into the counties of Chester and
+Salop.
+
+His preparations for this march were all made, when, on the
+afternoon of the 5th, he learnt, more accurately than he had before
+done, the true situation of the royal army, and from the information
+now received, he thought it expedient to consult his principal
+officers, whether it might not be advisable to attempt to surprise
+the enemy by a night attack upon their quarters.  The prevailing
+opinion was, that if the infantry were not entrenched the plan was
+worth the trial; otherwise not.  Scouts were despatched to ascertain
+this point, and their report being that there was no entrenchment,
+an attack was resolved on.  In pursuance of this resolution, at
+about eleven at night, the whole army was in march, Lord Grey
+commanding the horse, and Colonel Wade the vanguard of the foot.
+The duke's orders were, that the horse should first advance, and
+pushing into the enemy's camp, endeavour to prevent their infantry
+from coming together; that the cannon should follow the horse, and
+the foot the cannon, and draw all up in one line, and so finish what
+the cavalry should have begun, before the king's horse and artillery
+could be got in order.  But it was now discovered that though there
+were no entrenchments, there was a ditch which served as a drain to
+the great moor adjacent, of which no mention had been made by the
+scouts.  To this ditch the horse under Lord Grey advanced, and no
+farther; and whether immediately, as according to some accounts, or
+after having been considerably harassed by the enemy in their
+attempts to find a place to pass, according to others, quitted the
+field.  The cavalry being gone, and the principle upon which the
+attack had been undertaken being that of a surprise, the duke judged
+it necessary that the infantry should advance as speedily as
+possible.  Wade, therefore, when he came within forty paces of the
+ditch, was obliged to halt to put his battalion into that order,
+which the extreme rapidity of the march had for the time
+disconcerted.  His plan was to pass the ditch, reserving his fire;
+but while he was arranging his men for that purpose, another
+battalion, newly come up, began to fire, though at a considerable
+distance; a bad example, which it was impossible to prevent the
+vanguard from following, and it was now no longer in the power of
+their commander to persuade them to advance.  The king's forces, as
+well horse and artillery as foot, had now full time to assemble.
+The duke had no longer cavalry in the field, and though his
+artillery, which consisted only of three or four iron guns, was well
+served under the directions of a Dutch gunner, it was by no means
+equal to that of the royal army, which, as soon as it was light,
+began to do great execution.  In these circumstances the unfortunate
+Monmouth, fearful of being encompassed and made prisoner by the
+king's cavalry, who were approaching upon his flank, and urged, as
+it is reported, to flight by the same person who had stimulated him
+to his fatal enterprise, quitted the field accompanied by Lord Grey
+and some others.  The left wing, under the command of Colonel Holmes
+and Matthews, next gave way; and Wade's men, after having continued
+for an hour and a half a distant and ineffectual fire, seeing their
+left discomfited, began a retreat, which soon afterwards became a
+complete rout.
+
+Thus ended the decisive battle of Sedgmoor; an attack which seems to
+have been judiciously conceived, and in many parts spiritedly
+executed.  The general was deficient neither in courage nor conduct;
+and the troops, while they displayed the native bravery of
+Englishmen, were under as good discipline as could be expected from
+bodies newly raised.  Two circumstances seem to have principally
+contributed to the loss of the day; first, the unforeseen difficulty
+occasioned by the ditch, of which the assailants had had no
+intelligence; and secondly, the cowardice of the commander of the
+horse.  The discovery of the ditch was the more alarming, because it
+threw a general doubt upon the information of the spies, and the
+night being dark they could not ascertain that this was the only
+impediment of the kind which they were to expect.  The dispersion of
+the horse was still more fatal, inasmuch as it deranged the whole
+order of the plan, by which it had been concerted that their
+operations were to facilitate the attack to be made by the foot.  If
+Lord Grey had possessed a spirit more suitable to his birth and
+name, to the illustrious friendship with which he had been honoured,
+and to the command with which he was entrusted, he would doubtless
+have persevered till he found a passage into the enemy's camp, which
+could have been effected at a ford not far distant:  the loss of
+time occasioned by the ditch might not have been very material, and
+the most important consequences might have ensued; but it would
+surely be rashness to assert, as Hume does, that the army would
+after all have gained the victory had not the misconduct of Monmouth
+and the cowardice of Grey prevented it.  This rash judgment is the
+more to be admired, as the historian has not pointed out the
+instance of misconduct to which he refers.  The number of Monmouth's
+men killed is computed by some at two thousand, by others at three
+hundred--a disparity, however, which may be easily reconciled, by
+supposing that the one account takes in those who were killed in
+battle, while the other comprehends the wretched fugitives who were
+massacred in ditches, corn-fields, and other hiding-places, the
+following day.
+
+In general, I have thought it right to follow Wade's narrative,
+which appears to me by far the most authentic, if not the only
+authentic account of this important transaction.  It is imperfect,
+but its imperfection arises from the narrator's omitting all those
+circumstances of which he was not an eye-witness, and the greater
+credit is on that very account due to him for those which he
+relates.  With respect to Monmouth's quitting the field, it is not
+mentioned by him, nor is it possible to ascertain the precise point
+of time at which it happened.  That he fled while his troops were
+still fighting, and therefore too soon for his glory, can scarcely
+be doubted; and the account given by Ferguson, whose veracity,
+however, is always to be suspected, that Lord Grey urged him to the
+measure, as well by persuasion as by example, seems not improbable.
+This misbehaviour of the last-mentioned nobleman is more certain;
+but as, according to Ferguson, who has been followed by others, he
+actually conversed with Monmouth in the field, and as all accounts
+make him the companion of his flight, it is not to be understood
+that when he first gave way with his cavalry, he ran away in the
+literal sense of the words, or if he did, he must have returned.
+The exact truth, with regard to this and many other interesting
+particulars, is difficult to be discovered; owing, not more to the
+darkness of the night in which they were transacted, than to the
+personal partialities and enmities by which they have been
+disfigured, in the relations of the different contemporary writers.
+
+Monmouth with his suite first directed his course towards the
+Bristol Channel, and as is related by Oldmixon, was once inclined,
+at the suggestion of Dr. Oliver, a faithful and honest adviser, to
+embark for the coast of Wales, with a view of concealing himself
+some time in that principality.  Lord Grey, who appears to have
+been, in all instances, his evil genius, dissuaded him from this
+plan, and the small party having separated, took each several ways.
+Monmouth, Grey, and a gentleman of Brandenburg, went southward, with
+a view to gain the New Forest in Hampshire, where, by means of
+Grey's connections in that district, and thorough knowledge of the
+country, it was hoped they might be in safety, till a vessel could
+be procured to transport them to the Continent.  They left their
+horses, and disguised themselves as peasants; but the pursuit,
+stimulated as well by party zeal as by the great pecuniary rewards
+offered for the capture of Monmouth and Grey, was too vigilant to be
+eluded.  Grey was taken on the 7th in the evening; and the German,
+who shared the same fate early on the next morning, confessed that
+he had parted from Monmouth but a few hours since.  The neighbouring
+country was immediately and thoroughly searched, and James had ere
+night the satisfaction of learning that his nephew was in his power.
+The unfortunate duke was discovered in a ditch, half concealed by
+fern and nettles.  His stock of provision, which consisted of some
+peas gathered in the fields through which he had fled, was nearly
+exhausted, and there is reason to think that he had little, if any
+other sustenance, since he left Bridgewater on the evening of the
+5th.  To repose he had been equally a stranger; how his mind must
+have been harassed, it is needless to discuss.  Yet that in such
+circumstances he appeared dispirited and crestfallen, is, by the
+unrelenting malignity of party writers, imputed to him as cowardice
+and meanness of spirit.  That the failure of his enterprise,
+together with the bitter reflection that he had suffered himself to
+be engaged in it against his own better judgment, joined to the
+other calamitous circumstances of his situation, had reduced him to
+a state of despondency, is evident; and in this frame of mind, he
+wrote, on the very day of his capture, the following letter to the
+king:
+
+
+"Sir,--Your majesty may think it the misfortune I now lie under
+makes me make this application to you; but I do assure your majesty,
+it is the remorse I now have in me of the wrong I have done you in
+several things, and now in taking up arms against you.  For my
+taking up arms, it was never in my thought since the king died:  the
+Prince and Princess of Orange will be witness for me of the
+assurance I gave them, that I would never stir against you.  But my
+misfortune was such as to meet with some horrid people, that made me
+believe things of your majesty, and gave me so many false arguments,
+that I was fully led away to believe that it was a shame and a sin
+before God not to do it.  But, sir, I will not trouble your majesty
+at present with many things I could say for myself, that I am sure
+would move your compassion; the chief end of this letter being only
+to beg of you, that I may have that happiness as to speak to your
+majesty; for I have that to say to you, sir, that I hope may give
+you a long and happy reign.
+
+"I am sure, sir, when you hear me, you will be convinced of the zeal
+I have of your preservation, and how heartily I repent of what I
+have done.  I can say no more to your majesty now, being this letter
+must be seen by those that keep me.  Therefore, sir, I shall make an
+end in begging of your majesty to believe so well of me, that I
+would rather die a thousand deaths than excuse anything I have done,
+if I did not really think myself the most in the wrong that ever a
+man was, and had not from the bottom of my heart an abhorrence for
+those that put me upon it, and for the action itself.  I hope, sir,
+God Almighty will strike your heart with mercy and compassion for
+me, as he has done mine with the abhorrence of what I have done:
+wherefore, sir, I hope I may live to show you how zealous I shall
+ever be for your service; and could I but say one word in this
+letter, you would be convinced of it; but it is of that consequence,
+that I dare not do it.  Therefore, sir, I do beg of you once more to
+let me speak to you; for then you will be convinced how much I shall
+ever be, your majesty's most humble and dutiful
+
+"MONMOUTH."
+
+
+The only certain conclusion to be drawn from this letter, which Mr.
+Echard, in a manner perhaps not so seemly for a Churchman, terms
+submissive, is, that Monmouth still wished anxiously for life, and
+was willing to save it, even at the cruel price of begging and
+receiving it as a boon from his enemy.  Ralph conjectures with great
+probability that this unhappy man's feelings were all governed by
+his excessive affection for his mistress and that a vain hope of
+enjoying, with Lady Harriet Wentworth, that retirement which he had
+so unwillingly abandoned, induced him to adopt a conduct, which he
+might otherwise have considered as indecent.  At any rate it must be
+admitted that to cling to life is a strong instinct in human nature,
+and Monmouth might reasonably enough satisfy himself, that when his
+death could not by any possibility benefit either the public or his
+friends, to follow such instinct, even in a manner that might
+tarnish the splendour of heroism, was no impeachment of the moral
+virtue of a man.
+
+With respect to the mysterious part of the letter, where he speaks
+of one word which would be of such infinite importance, it is
+difficult, if not rather utterly impossible, to explain it by any
+rational conjecture.  Mr. Macpherson's favourite hypothesis, that
+the Prince of Orange had been a party to the late attempt, and that
+Monmouth's intention, when he wrote the letter, was to disclose this
+important fact to the king, is totally destroyed by those
+expressions, in which the unfortunate prisoner tells his majesty he
+had assured the Prince and Princess of Orange that he would never
+stir against him.  Did he assure the Prince of Orange that he would
+never do that which he was engaged to the Prince of Orange to do?
+Can it be said that this was a false fact, and that no such
+assurances were in truth given?  To what purpose was the falsehood?
+In order to conceal from motives, whether honourable or otherwise,
+his connection with the prince?  What! a fiction in one paragraph of
+the letter in order to conceal a fact, which in the next he declares
+his intention of revealing?  The thing is impossible.
+
+The intriguing character of the Secretary of State, the Earl of
+Sunderland, whose duplicity in many instances cannot be doubted, and
+the mystery in which almost everything relating to him is involved,
+might lead us to suspect that the expressions point at some
+discovery in which that nobleman was concerned, and that Monmouth
+had it in his power to be of important service to James, by
+revealing to him the treachery of his minister.  Such a conjecture
+might be strengthened by an anecdote that has had some currency, and
+to the truth of which, in part, King James's "Memoirs," if the
+extracts from them can be relied on, bear testimony.  It is said
+that the Duke of Monmouth told Mr. Ralph Sheldon, one of the king's
+chamber, who came to meet him on his way to London, that he had had
+reason to expect Sunderland's co-operation, and authorised Sheldon
+to mention this to the king:  that while Sheldon was relating this
+to his majesty, Sunderland entered; Sheldon hesitated, but was
+ordered to go on.  "Sunderland seemed, at first, struck" (as well he
+might, whether innocent or guilty), "but after a short time said,
+with a laugh, 'If that be all he (Monmouth) can discover to save his
+life, it will do him little good.'"  It is to be remarked, that in
+Sheldon's conversation, as alluded to by King James, the Prince of
+Orange's name is not even mentioned, either as connected with
+Monmouth or with Sunderland.  But, on the other hand, the
+difficulties that stand in the way of our interpreting Monmouth's
+letter as alluding to Sunderland, or of supposing that the writer of
+it had any well-founded accusation against that minister, are
+insurmountable.  If he had such an accusation to make, why did he
+not make it?  The king says expressly, both in a letter to the
+Prince of Orange, and in the extract, from his "Memoirs," above
+cited, that Monmouth made no discovery of consequence, and the
+explanation suggested, that his silence was owing to Sunderland the
+secretary's having assured him of his pardon, seems wholly
+inadmissible.  Such assurances could have their influence no longer
+than while the hope of pardon remained.  Why, then, did he continue
+silent, when he found James inexorable?  If he was willing to accuse
+the earl before he had received these assurances, it is
+inconceivable that he should have any scruple about doing it when
+they turned out to have been delusive, and when his mind must have
+been exasperated by the reflection that Sunderland's perfidious
+promises and self-interested suggestions had deterred him from the
+only probable means of saving his life.
+
+A third, and perhaps the most plausible, interpretation of the words
+in question is, that they point to a discovery of Monmouth's friends
+in England, when, in the dejected state of his mind at the time of
+writing, unmanned as he was by misfortune, he might sincerely
+promise what the return of better thoughts forbade him to perform.
+This account, however, though free from the great absurdities
+belonging to the two others, is by no means satisfactory.  The
+phrase, "one word," seems to relate rather to some single person, or
+some single fact, and can hardly apply to any list of associates
+that might be intended to be sacrificed.  On the other hand, the
+single denunciation of Lord Delamere, of Lord Brandon, or even of
+the Earl of Devonshire, or of any other private individual, could
+not be considered as of that extreme consequence which Monmouth
+attaches to his promised disclosure.  I have mentioned Lord
+Devonshire, who was certainly not implicated in the enterprise, and
+who was not even suspected, because it appears, from Grey's
+narrative, that one of Monmouth's agents had once given hopes of his
+support; and therefore there is a bare possibility that Monmouth may
+have reckoned upon his assistance.  Perhaps, after all, the letter
+has been canvassed with too much nicety, and the words of it weighed
+more scrupulously than, proper allowance being made for the
+situation and state of mind of the writer, they ought to have been.
+They may have been thrown out at hazard, merely as means to obtain
+an interview, of which the unhappy prisoner thought he might, in
+some way or other, make his advantage.  If any more precise meaning
+existed in his mind, we must be content to pass it over as one of
+those obscure points of history, upon which neither the sagacity of
+historians, nor the many documents since made public, nor the great
+discoverer, Time, has yet thrown any distinct light.
+
+Monmouth and Grey were now to be conveyed to London, for which
+purpose they set out on the 11th, and arrived in the vicinity of the
+metropolis on the 13th of July.  In the meanwhile, the queen
+dowager, who seems to have behaved with a uniformity of kindness
+towards her husband's son that does her great honour, urgently
+pressed the king to admit his nephew to an audience.  Importuned,
+therefore, by entreaties, and instigated by the curiosity which
+Monmouth's mysterious expressions, and Sheldon's story, had excited,
+he consented, though with a fixed determination to show no mercy.
+James was not of the number of those, in whom the want of an
+extensive understanding is compensated by a delicacy of sentiment,
+or by those right feelings, which are often found to be better
+guides for the conduct than the most accurate reasoning.  His nature
+did not revolt, his blood did not run cold, at the thoughts of
+beholding the son of a brother whom he had loved embracing his
+knees, petitioning, and petitioning in vain, for life; of
+interchanging words and looks with a nephew, on whom he was
+inexorably determined, within forty-eight short hours, to inflict an
+ignominious death.
+
+In Macpherson's extract from King James's "Memoirs," it is confessed
+that the king ought not to have seen, if he was not disposed to
+pardon the culprit; but whether the observation is made by the
+exiled prince himself, or by him who gives the extract, is in this,
+as in many other passages of those "Memoirs," difficult to
+determine.  Surely if the king had made this reflection before
+Monmouth's execution, it must have occurred to that monarch, that if
+he had inadvertently done that which he ought not to have done,
+without an intention to pardon, the only remedy was to correct that
+part of his conduct which was still in his power, and since he could
+not recall the interview, to grant the pardon.
+
+Pursuant to this hard-hearted arrangement, Monmouth and Grey, on the
+very day of their arrival, were brought to Whitehall, where they had
+severally interviews with his majesty.  James, in a letter to the
+Prince of Orange, dated the following day, gives a short account of
+both these interviews.  Monmouth, he says, betrayed a weakness which
+did not become one who had claimed the title of king; but made no
+discovery of consequence.
+
+Grey was more ingenuous (it is not certain in what sense his majesty
+uses the term, since he does not refer to any discovery made by that
+lord), and never once begged his life.  Short as this account is, it
+seems the only authentic one of those interviews.  Bishop Kennet,
+who has been followed by most of the modern historians, relates,
+that "This unhappy captive, by the intercession of the queen
+dowager, was brought to the king's presence, and fell presently at
+his feet, and confessed he deserved to die; but conjured him, with
+tears in his eyes, not to use him with the severity of justice, and
+to grant him a life, which he would be ever ready to sacrifice for
+his service.  He mentioned to him the example of several great
+princes, who had yielded to the impressions of clemency on the like
+occasions, and who had never afterwards repented of those acts of
+generosity and mercy; concluding, in a most pathetical manner,
+'Remember, sir, I am your brother's son, and if you take my life, it
+is your own blood that you will shed.'  The king asked him several
+questions, and made him sign a declaration that his father told him
+he was never married to his mother:  and then said, he was sorry
+indeed for his misfortunes; but his crime was of too great a
+consequence to be left unpunished, and he must of necessity suffer
+for it.  The queen is said to have insulted him in a very arrogant
+and unmerciful manner.  So that when the duke saw there was nothing
+designed by this interview but to satisfy the queen's revenge, he
+rose up from his majesty's feet with a new air of bravery, and was
+carried back to the Tower."
+
+The topics used by Monmouth are such as he might naturally have
+employed, and the demeanour attributed to him, upon finding the king
+inexorable, is consistent enough with general probability, and his
+particular character; but that the king took care to extract from
+him a confession of Charles's declaration with respect to his
+illegitimacy, before he announced his final refusal of mercy, and
+that the queen was present for the purpose of reviling and insulting
+him, are circumstances too atrocious to merit belief, without some
+more certain evidence.  It must be remarked also, that Burnet, whose
+general prejudices would not lead him to doubt any imputations
+against the queen, does not mention her majesty's being present.
+Monmouth's offer of changing religion is mentioned by him, but no
+authority quoted; and no hint of the kind appears either in James's
+Letters, or in the extract from his "Memoirs."
+
+From Whitehall Monmouth was at night carried to the Tower, where, no
+longer uncertain as to his fate, he seems to have collected his
+mind, and to have resumed his wonted fortitude.  The bill of
+attainder that had lately passed having superseded the necessity of
+a legal trial, his execution was fixed for the next day but one
+after his commitment.  This interval appeared too short even for the
+worldly business which he wished to transact, and he wrote again to
+the king on the 14th, desiring some short respite, which was
+peremptorily refused.  The difficulty of obtaining any certainty
+concerning facts, even in instances where there has not been any
+apparent motive for disguising them, is nowhere more striking than
+in the few remaining hours of this unfortunate man's life.
+According to King James's statement in his "Memoirs," he refused to
+see his wife, while other accounts assert positively that she
+refused to see him, unless in presence of witnesses.  Burnet, who
+was not likely to be mistaken in a fact of this kind, says they did
+meet, and parted very coldly, a circumstance which, if true, gives
+us no very favourable idea of the lady's character.  There is also
+mention of a third letter written by him to the king, which being
+entrusted to a perfidious officer of the name of Scott, never
+reached its destination; but for this there is no foundation.  What
+seems most certain is, that in the Tower, and not in the closet, he
+signed a paper, renouncing his pretensions to the crown, the same
+which he afterwards delivered on the scaffold; and that he was
+inclined to make this declaration, not by any vain hope of life, but
+by his affection for his children, whose situation he rightly judged
+would be safer and better under the reigning monarch and his
+successors, when it should be evident that they could no longer be
+competitors for the throne.
+
+Monmouth was very sincere in his religious professions, and it is
+probable that a great portion of this sad day was passed in devotion
+and religious discourse with the two prelates who had been sent by
+his majesty to assist him in his spiritual concerns.  Turner, bishop
+of Ely, had been with him early in the morning, and Kenn, bishop of
+Bath and Wells, was sent, upon the refusal of a respite, to prepare
+him for the stroke, which it was now irrevocably fixed he should
+suffer the ensuing day.  They stayed with him all night, and in the
+morning of the 15th were joined by Dr. Hooper, afterwards, in the
+reign of Anne, made bishop of Bath and Wells, and by Dr. Tennison,
+who succeeded Tillotson in the see of Canterbury.  This last divine
+is stated by Burnet to have been most acceptable to the duke, and,
+though he joined the others in some harsh expostulations, to have
+done what the right reverend historian conceives to have been his
+duty, in a softer and less peremptory manner.  Certain it is, that
+none of these holy men seem to have erred on the side of compassion
+or complaisance to their illustrious penitent.  Besides endeavouring
+to convince him of the guilt of his connection with his beloved lady
+Harriet, of which he could never be brought to a due sense, they
+seem to have repeatedly teased him with controversy, and to have
+been far more solicitous to make him profess what they deemed the
+true creed of the Church of England, than to soften or console his
+sorrows, or to help him to that composure of mind so necessary for
+his situation.  He declared himself to be a member of their Church,
+but, they denied that he could be so, unless he thoroughly believed
+the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance.  He repented
+generally of his sins, and especially of his late enterprise, but
+they insisted that he must repent of it in the way they prescribed
+to him, that he must own it to have been a wicked resistance to his
+lawful king, and a detestable act of rebellion.  Some historians
+have imputed this seemingly cruel conduct to the king's particular
+instructions, who might be desirous of extracting, or rather
+extorting, from the lips of his dying nephew such a confession as
+would be matter of triumph to the royal cause.  But the character of
+the two prelates principally concerned, both for general uprightness
+and sincerity as Church of England men, makes it more candid to
+suppose that they did not act from motives of servile compliance,
+but rather from an intemperate party zeal for the honour of their
+Church, which they judged would be signally promoted if such a man
+as Monmouth, after having throughout his life acted in defiance of
+their favourite doctrine, could be brought in his last moments to
+acknowledge it as a divine truth.  It must never be forgotten, if we
+would understand the history of this period, that the truly orthodox
+members of our Church regarded monarchy not as a human, but as a
+divine institution, and passive obedience and non-resistance, not as
+political maxims, but as articles of religion.
+
+At ten o'clock on the 15th Monmouth proceeded in a carriage of the
+lieutenant of the Tower to Tower Hill, the place destined for his
+execution.  The two bishops were in the carriage with him, and one
+of them took that opportunity of informing him that their
+controversial altercations were not yet at an end, and that upon the
+scaffold he would again be pressed for more explicit and
+satisfactory declarations of repentance.  When arrived at the bar
+which had been put up for the purpose of keeping out the multitude,
+Monmouth descended from the carriage, and mounted the scaffold, with
+a firm step, attended by his spiritual assistants.  The sheriffs and
+executioners were already there.  The concourse of spectators was
+innumerable; and if we are to credit traditional accounts, never was
+the general compassion more affectingly expressed.  The tears,
+sighs, and groans, which the first sight of this heartrending
+spectacle produced, were soon succeeded by a universal and awful
+silence; a respectful attention and affectionate anxiety to hear
+every syllable that should pass the lips of the sufferer.  The duke
+began by saying he should speak little; he came to die, and he
+should die a Protestant of the Church of England.  Here he was
+interrupted by the assistants, and told, that if he was of the
+Church of England, he must acknowledge the doctrine of non-
+resistance to be true.  In vain did he reply that if he acknowledged
+the doctrine of the Church in general it included all:  they
+insisted he should own that doctrine, particularly with respect to
+his case, and urged much more concerning their favourite point, upon
+which, however, they obtained nothing but a repetition in substance
+of former answers.  He was then proceeding to speak of Lady Harriet
+Wentworth, of his high esteem for her, and of his confirmed opinion
+that their connection was innocent in the sight of God, when Goslin,
+the sheriff, asked him, with all the unfeeling bluntness of a vulgar
+mind, whether he was ever married to her.  The duke refusing to
+answer, the same magistrate, in the like strain, though changing his
+subject, said he hoped to have heard of his repentance for the
+treason and bloodshed which had been committed; to which the
+prisoner replied, with great mildness, that he died very penitent.
+Here the Churchmen again interposed, and renewing their demand of
+particular penitence and public acknowledgment upon public affairs,
+Monmouth referred them to the following paper, which he had signed
+that morning:
+
+
+"I declare that the title of king was forced upon me, and that it
+was very much contrary to my opinion when I was proclaimed.  For the
+satisfaction of the world, I do declare that the late king told me
+he was never married to my mother.  Having declared this, I hope the
+king who is now will not let my children suffer on this account.
+And to this I put my hand this fifteenth day of July, 1685.
+
+"MONMOUTH."
+
+
+There was nothing, they said, in that paper about resistance; nor,
+though Monmouth, quite worn-out with their importunities, said to
+one of them, in the most affecting manner, "I am to die--pray my
+lord--I refer to my paper," would those men think it consistent with
+their duty to desist.  There were only a few words they desired on
+one point.  The substance of these applications on the one hand, and
+answers on the other, was repeated over and over again, in a manner
+that could not be believed, if the facts were not attested by the
+signatures of the persons principally concerned.  If the duke, in
+declaring his sorrow for what had passed, used the word invasion,
+"Give it the true name," said they, "and call it rebellion."  "What
+name you please," replied the mild-tempered Monmouth.  He was sure
+he was going to everlasting happiness, and considered the serenity
+of his mind in his present circumstances as a certain earnest of the
+favour of his Creator.  His repentance, he said, must be true, for
+he had no fear of dying; he should die like a lamb.  "Much may come
+from natural courage," was the unfeeling and stupid reply of one of
+the assistants.  Monmouth, with that modesty inseparable from true
+bravery, denied that he was in general less fearful than other men,
+maintaining that his present courage was owing to his consciousness
+that God had forgiven him his past transgressions, of all which
+generally he repented with all his soul.
+
+At last the reverend assistants consented to join with him in
+prayer, but no sooner were they risen from their kneeling posture
+than they returned to their charge.  Not satisfied with what had
+passed, they exhorted him to a true and thorough repentance.  Would
+he not pray for the king, and send a dutiful message to his majesty
+to recommend the duchess and his children?  "As you please," was the
+reply; "I pray for him and for all men."  He now spoke to the
+executioner, desiring that he might have no cap over his eyes, and
+began undressing.  One would have thought that in this last sad
+ceremony, the poor prisoner might have been unmolested, and that the
+divines would have been satisfied that prayer was the only part of
+their function for which their duty now called upon them.  They
+judged differently, and one of them had the fortitude to request the
+duke, even in this stage of the business, that he would address
+himself to the soldiers then present, to tell them he stood a sad
+example of rebellion, and entreat the people to be loyal and
+obedient to the king.  "I have said I will make no speeches,"
+repeated Monmouth, in a tone more peremptory than he had before been
+provoked to; "I will make no speeches.  I come to die."  "My lord,
+ten words will be enough," said the persevering divine; to which the
+duke made no answer, but turning to the executioner, expressed a
+hope that he would do his work better now than in the case of Lord
+Russell.  He then felt the axe, which he apprehended was not sharp
+enough, but being assured that it was of proper sharpness and
+weight, he laid down his head.  In the meantime many fervent
+ejaculations were used by the reverend assistants, who, it must be
+observed, even in these moments of horror, showed themselves not
+unmindful of the points upon which they had been disputing, praying
+God to accept his imperfect and general repentance.
+
+The executioner now struck the blow, but so feebly or unskilfully,
+that Monmouth, being but slightly wounded, lifted up his head, and
+looked him in the face as if to upbraid him, but said nothing.  The
+two following strokes were as ineffectual as the first, and the
+headsman, in a fit of horror, declared he could not finish his work.
+The sheriffs threatened him; he was forced again to make a further
+trial, and in two more strokes separated the head from the body.
+
+Thus fell, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, James, Duke of
+Monmouth, a man against whom all that has been said by the most
+inveterate enemies both to him and his party amounts to little more
+than this, that he had not a mind equal to the situations in which
+his ambition, at different times, engaged him to place himself.  But
+to judge him with candour, we must make great allowances, not only
+for the temptations into which he was led by the splendid prosperity
+of the earlier parts of his life, but also for the adverse
+prejudices with which he was regarded by almost all the contemporary
+writers, from whom his actions and character are described.  The
+Tories, of course, are unfavourable to him; and even among the
+Whigs, there seems, in many, a strong inclination to disparage him;
+some to excuse themselves for not having joined him, others to make
+a display of their exclusive attachment to their more successful
+leader, King William.  Burnet says of Monmouth, that he was gentle,
+brave, and sincere:  to these praises, from the united testimony of
+all who knew him, we may add that of generosity; and surely those
+qualities go a great way in making up the catalogue of all that is
+amiable and estimable in human nature.  One of the most conspicuous
+features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as
+some think, a culpable degree of flexibility.  That such a
+disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme, will be admitted
+by all who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied
+to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency.  He who has attentively
+considered the political, or, indeed, the general concerns of life,
+may possibly go still further, and rank a willingness to be
+convinced, or in some cases even without conviction, to concede our
+own opinion to that of other men, among the principal ingredients in
+the composition of practical wisdom.  Monmouth had suffered this
+flexibility, so laudable in many cases, to degenerate into a habit
+which made him often follow the advice, or yield to the entreaties,
+of persons whose characters by no means entitled them to such
+deference.  The sagacity of Shaftesbury, the honour of Russell, the
+genius of Sydney, might, in the opinion of a modest man, be safe and
+eligible guides.  The partiality of friendship, and the conviction
+of his firm attachment, might be some excuse for his listening so
+much to Grey; but he never could, at any period of his life, have
+mistaken Ferguson for an honest man.  There is reason to believe
+that the advice of the two last-mentioned persons had great weight
+in persuading him to the unjustifiable step of declaring himself
+king.  But far the most guilty act of this unfortunate man's life
+was his lending his name to the declaration which was published at
+Lyme, and in this instance Ferguson, who penned the paper, was both
+the adviser and the instrument.  To accuse the king of having burnt
+London, murdered Essex in the Tower, and, finally, poisoned his
+brother, unsupported by evidence to substantiate such dreadful
+charges, was calumny of the most atrocious kind; but the guilt is
+still heightened, when we observe, that from no conversation of
+Monmouth, nor, indeed, from any other circumstance whatever, do we
+collect that he himself believed the horrid accusations to be true.
+With regard to Essex's death in particular, the only one of the
+three charges which was believed by any man of common sense, the
+late king was as much implicated in the suspicion as James.  That
+the latter should have dared to be concerned in such an act, without
+the privacy of his brother, was too absurd an imputation to be
+attempted, even in the days of the popish plot.  On the other hand,
+it was certainly not the intention of the son to brand his father as
+an assassin.  It is too plain that, in the instance of this
+declaration, Monmouth, with a facility highly criminal, consented to
+set his name to whatever Ferguson recommended as advantageous to the
+cause.  Among the many dreadful circumstances attending civil wars,
+perhaps there are few more revolting to a good mind than the wicked
+calumnies with which, in the heat of contention, men, otherwise men
+of honour, have in all ages and countries permitted themselves to
+load their adversaries.  It is remarkable that there is no trace of
+the divines who attended this unfortunate man having exhorted him to
+a particular repentance of his manifesto, or having called for a
+retraction or disavowal of the accusations contained in it.  They
+were so intent upon points more immediately connected with orthodoxy
+of faith, that they omitted pressing their penitent to the only
+declaration by which he could make any satisfactory atonement to
+those whom he had injured.
+
+
+
+FRAGMENTS.
+
+
+
+The following detached paragraphs were probably intended for the
+fourth chapter.  They are here printed in the incomplete and
+unfinished state in which they were found.
+
+While the Whigs considered all religious opinions with a view to
+politics, the Tories, on the other hand, referred all political
+maxims to religion.  Thus the former, even in their hatred to
+popery, did not so much regard the superstition, or imputed idolatry
+of that unpopular sect, as its tendency to establish arbitrary power
+in the State, while the latter revered absolute monarchy as a divine
+institution, and cherished the doctrines of passive obedience and
+non-resistance as articles of religious faith.
+
+* * *
+
+To mark the importance of the late events, his majesty caused two
+medals to be struck; one of himself, with the usual inscription, and
+the motto, Aras et sceptra tuemur; the other of Monmouth, without
+any inscription.  On the reverse of the former were represented the
+two headless trunks of his lately vanquished enemies, with other
+circumstances in the same taste and spirit, the motto, Ambitio
+malesuada ruit; on that of the latter appeared a young man falling
+in the attempt to climb a rock with three crowns on it, under which
+was the insulting motto, Superi risere.
+
+* * *
+
+With the lives of Monmouth and Argyle ended, or at least seemed to
+end, all prospect of resistance to James's absolute power; and that
+class of patriots who feel the pride of submission, and the dignity
+of obedience, might be completely satisfied that the crown was in
+its full lustre.
+
+James was sufficiently conscious of the increased strength of his
+situation, and it is probable that the security he now felt in his
+power inspired him with the design of taking more decided steps in
+favour of the popish religion and its professors than his connection
+with the Church of England party had before allowed him to
+entertain.  That he from this time attached less importance to the
+support and affection of the Tories is evident from Lord Rochester's
+observations, communicated afterwards to Burnet.  This nobleman's
+abilities and experience in business, his hereditary merit, as son
+of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and his uniform opposition to the
+Exclusion Bill, had raised him high in the esteem of the Church
+party.  This circumstance, perhaps, as much, or more than the king's
+personal kindness to a brother-in-law, had contributed to his
+advancement to the first office in the State.  As long, therefore,
+as James stood in need of the support of the party, as long as he
+meant to make them the instruments of his power, and the channels of
+his favour, Rochester was, in every respect, the fittest person in
+whom to confide; and accordingly, as that nobleman related to
+Burnet, his majesty honoured him with daily confidential
+communications upon all his most secret schemes and projects.  But
+upon the defeat of the rebellion, an immediate change took place,
+and from the day of Monmouth's execution, the king confined his
+conversations with the treasurer to the mere business of his office.
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of History of James the Second
+by Charles James Fox
+
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