person likely to feel their resentments and pursue their views, with the zeal of an associate joined to the fidelity of a servant. He was for some time Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, where his administration was remarkable for impartiality and honesty. Upon the dismissal of Danby, he had been appointed to the Treasury, and distinguished his official career, by introducing an exact economy into every department. Useless pensions were retrenched, superfluous tables abolished, and envoys in foreign courts, whose services at home had recommended them to sinecures abroad, were recalled. This economy, indeed, was by no means premature, for upon the entrance of the new commissioners, only 27s. and 3d. (besides appropriated money) were found in the Treasury. It may be mentioned, as a proof of his constitutional opinions, that when a body of guards was formed, he wrote a strong letter to the King against the project, as likely to raise a suspicion, that an army was to be raised. † * Lord Essex, when he left office, withdrew from the council and joined the Opposition. Lord Halifax was a man of more wit and fancy than judgment and decision. The colouring of his mind was better than the drawing. He admired justice and liberty in theory: he gave them up for place and titles in practice. He had too keen a perception of errors and faults to act well with others, and too great a share of them himself to gain credit by standing alone. In fine, he was one of the most honest ministers in the reign of Charles the Second, and would have been one of the most corrupt at any other period. He was reckoned the head of the party called Trimmers. 津 Lord Halifax, though he commended the conduct of Lord Essex, * Secretary Coventry, July 1679. + Dal. 232. "As for my Lord," (Essex,) says Mr. Evelyn," he is a sober, wise, judicious, and pondering person, not illiterate beyond the rate of most noblemen in this age, very well versed in English history and affairs, industrious, frugal, methodical, and every way accomplished." Vol. 1. 487. P soon afterwards returned to the council, and entered, as we shall see, into the King's views. Lord Radnor had succeeded to the office, but not to the power of Lord Shaftesbury. The management of affairs was vested in Lord Hyde now first commissioner of the Treasury, Lord Sunderland, and Mr. Godolphin. This was a ministry of expedients and fears, attached to the Duke, but afraid of adopting the measures he proposed. * * I will here give the ballad upon these ministers, part of which is quoted in p. 27., but not so accurately as it ought to have been. It has been attributed to Dryden, but, as Mr. Scott says, "upon slight authority, and contrary to internal evidence." Mr. Scott also remarks, that these verses entailed upon the " young statesmen" who are the subject of them, the names of Chit Sunderland, Chit Lory, &c. in the satires of the day; and I may add, in confirmation of this, that Lady Russell says in one of her letters, (MSS.) "The chits are gone to Althorpe." Clarendon had law and sense, Clifford was fierce and brave; But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory, * Protect us, mighty Providence! What would these madmen have? And without power enslave. Shall free-born men, in humble awe, Who from consent and custom draw The Duke shall wield his conquering sword, The King shall pledge his honest word, And then, come kiss my breech. * Lawrence, Earl of Rochester, son of Lord Clarendon. Dec. The opposition party had got wind of the King's intention of proroguing Parliament, and actively employed themselves in procuring petitions, that it might meet and do business on the 26th January, the day formerly appointed. Seventeen peers pre1679. sented a petition for this purpose. These were the Earls of Kent, Huntingdon, Bedford, Clare, Stamford, and Shaftesbury, and the Lords Say and Sele, Eure, North, and Grey, Chandos, Grey, Howard, Herbert, Rockingham, Townsend, Hollis, and Delamere. The King was greatly alarmed at this proceeding, and resolved to discourage the petitions at the outset. He sent for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, when the Chancellor, by his command, told them, that letters tending to sedition and rebellion had been intercepted, desiring those to whom they were addressed to get as many signatures as possible to the petitions, no matter whether of freeholders or not. His Majesty, said the Chancellor, expected that they would not suffer such persons as should sign such petitions, or procure signatures to them, to go unpunished. He ended by quoting an obscure opinion of the judges, given in the second year of James the First, when a question being put to them, whether it was a punishable offence to procure petitions, menacing the King with the discontent of many thousands of his subjects, if he refused their requests, the judges answered, that it was an offence near to treason and felony. Such an opinion, it is evident, even if it had been much more distinct, could have no bearing upon petitions simply desiring the King to meet his Parliament. This distinction was so obvious, that when the crown lawyers came to draw up a proclamation against the petitions, they had great difficulty in framing it, so as to strike the offenders, and disguise the real offence. Jeffries wished to prohibit the framing and present So have I seen a king in chess, (His rooks and knights withdrawn, ing any such petitions; and to command, all the peace officers to punish every person acting to the contrary. But Lord Chief Justice North said, with jesuitical refinement," that the proclamation ought by no means to prohibit the petitioning His Majesty in any case, much less in the case of the parliament; but that it might take notice of certain ill people, who, under the specious pretence of petitioning, went about in a seditious and tumultuous manner, gathering hands to certain papers." And in this manner, in spite of some objections from the Attorney-General, the proclamation was drawn up. The first petition of the Commons was presented by Sir Gilbert Gerrard, in the name of thousands of His Majesty's subjects, in London, Westminster, and parts adjacent; it spoke of the plot, and requested the sitting of Parliament. The King told them, he looked upon himself as the head of the government, and the only judge of what was fit to be done in such cases. A few days afterwards, another petition to the like effect, from Wiltshire, was presented by Thomas Thynn, Esquire, Sir Walter St.John, and Sir Edward Hungerford. The King asked them, if they came from the grand jury, and upon their replying that they did not, he told them that they came from loose, disaffected people, and desired them not to meddle in his affairs. Petitions from Essex and Berkshire were also dismissed; the first in an insulting, and the second in a contemptuous manner. All these answers were ordered to be printed in the London Gazette, in order to intimidate the country gentlemen; a purpose which they seem to have completely answered; for few, if any more petitions were presented. In order still farther to produce an effect amongst the people, the court party represented the Duke of Monmouth, who had come over, and remained in England, against the King's positive order, as laying the foundation for an insurrection, and the petitions as the preparatory steps of that design. Upon which several addresses were sent up, declaring that the subscribers abhorred the action of promoting petitions. Hence the whole nation became divided into petitioners and abhorrers. At this time, also, arose the distinction of Whigs and Tories. The origin of these names is well known: that of the parties took its rise from the new circumstances of the country. The Whigs formed a popular party far less enthusiastic in their religious tenets, and less divided in their political views, than that which opposed Charles the First. With the exception, perhaps, of Sydney, who was not in Parliament, none of them wished for any thing more than a regular execution of our ancient constitutional laws; government by Parliament, and trial by jury. The hereditary succession of the crown was in their eyes a rule for the benefit of the people, and not a dispensation of Providence for the advantage of a single family. If at any time, therefore, the observance of the rule became dangerous to the welfare of the community, the legislature was, in their opinion, competent to consider whether that danger was greater than the inconvenience of deviating from the established course. In carrying on the ordinary government of the country, their chief aim and endeavour was to preserve unimpaired the rights and liberties of the people. If, to obtain these objects, they sometimes asked for the confirmation of privileges which were doubtful, and even the establishment of some that were new, these were only natural steps in the progress of civilisation. For the same rights which, fenced by uncertain boundaries, are, in barbarous times, the occasion of discord and civil war, become, when accurately defined, the safeguard of national tranquillity. A law to be really efficient, must not only be good in itself, but must be easy of execution, and unassailable on every side. side. A statute enacting the liberty of the press would be of no use, if the administration of justice were not pure; the responsibility of ministers would be a phantom, if the King could grant a pardon previous to impeachment. The Act of Magna Charta itself, as was stated at the end of the last chapter, was frequently violated, and became the cause of the most destructive wars. But its purpose having been completed by the Act of Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, personal liberty and public tranquillity are undisturbed. To the necessity which exists of thus filling up the outline sketched by |