History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second | Page 4

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