Chapter II: Introduction (2)

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.