History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second | Page 6

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