THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH NATION. 169 inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many glories of England. Macaulay. THE ACQUITTAL OF THE BISHOPS. It was dark before the jury retired to consider of their verdict. The night was a night of intense anxiety. Some letters are extant which were despatched during that period of suspense, and which have therefore an interest of a peculiar kind. 'It is very late', wrote the Papal Nuncio; and the decision is not yet known. The Judges and the culprits have gone to their own homes. The jury remain together. To-morrow we shall learn the event of this great struggle.' The solicitor for the Bishops sate up all night with a body of servants on the stairs leading to the room where the jury was consulting. It was absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched the doors; for those officers were supposed to be in the interest of the Crown, and might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a courtly juryman with food, which would have enabled him to starve out the other eleven. Strict guard was therefore kept. Not even a candle to light a pipe was permitted to enter. Some basins of water for washing were suffered to pass at about four in the morning. The jurymen, raging with thirst, soon lapped up the whole. Great numbers of people walked the neighbouring streets till dawn. Every hour a messenger came from Whitehall to know what was passing. Voices, high in altercation, were repeatedly heard within the room: but nothing certain was known. At first nine were for acquitting and three for convicting. Two of the minority soon gave way: but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas Austin, a country gentleman of great estate, who had paid close attention to the evidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, wished to argue the question. Arnold declined. He was not used, he doggedly said, to reasoning and debating. His conscience was not satisfied; and he should not acquit the Bishops. If you come to that,' said Austin, 'look at me. I am the largest and strongest of the twelve; and before I find such a petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a tobacco-pipe.' It was six in the morning before Arnold yielded. It was soon known that the jury were agreed: but what the verdict would be was still a secret. At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than The jury appeared in the box; and there was a breathless ever. stillness. Sir Samuel Astry spoke, 'Do you find the defendants, or any of them, guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are impeached, or not guilty?' Sir Roger Langley answered, 'Not guilty.' As the words were uttered, Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At that signal, benches and galleries raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who crowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout, which made the old oaken roof crack; and in another moment the innumerable throng without set up a third huzza, which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats which covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowder was heard on the water, and another, and another; and so, in a few moments, the glad tidings went flying past the Savoy and the Friars to London Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread, streets and squares, marketplaces and coffeehouses, broke forth into acclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the weeping. For the feelings of men had been wound up to such a point, that at length the stern English nature, so little used to outward signs of emotion, gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very joy. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bear along all the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church and nation. Yet not even that astounding explosion could awe the bitter and intrepid spirit of the Solicitor. Striving to make himself heard above the din, he called on the Judges to commit those who had violated, by clamour, the dignity of a court of justice. One of the rejoicing populace was seized. But the tribunal felt that it would be absurd to punish a single individual for an offence common to hundreds of thousands, and dismissed him with a gentle reprimand. The acquitted prelates took refuge in the nearest chapel from the crowd which implored their blessing. Many churches were open on that morning throughout the capital; and many pious persons repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes of the City and THE ACQUITTAL OF THE BISHOPS. 171 liberties were ringing. The jury meanwhile could scarcely make their way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands with hundreds. 'God bless you!' cried the people; 'God prosper your families! You have done like honest goodnatured gentlemen: you have saved us all to-day.' As the noblemen who had attended to support the good cause drove off, they flung from their carriage windows handfuls of money, and bade the crowd drink to the health of the King, the Bishops, and the jury. The Attorney went with the tidings to Sunderland, who happened to be conversing with the Nuncio. 'Never,' said Powis, 'within man's memory have there been such shouts and such tears of joy as to-day.' The King had that morning visited the camp on Hounslow Heath. Sunderland instantly sent a courier thither with the news. James was in Lord Feversham's tent when the express arrived. He was greatly disturbed, and exclaimed in French, 'So much the worse for them.' He soon set out for Lon don. While he was present, respect prevented the soldiers from giving a loose to their feelings; but he had scarcely quitted the camp when he heard a great shouting behind him. He was surprised, and asked what that uproar meant. 'Nothing,' was the answer: 'the soldiers are glad that the Bishops are acquitted.' 'Do you call that nothing?' said James. And then he repeated, 'So much the worse for them.' He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been complete and most humiliating. Had the prelates escaped on account of some technical defect in the case for the Crown, had they escaped because they had not written the petition in Middlesex, or because it was impossible to prove, according to the strict rules of law, that they had delivered to the King the paper for which they were called in question, the prerogative would have suffered no shock. Happily for the country, the fact of publication had been fully established. The counsel for the defence had therefore been forced to attack the dispensing power. They had attacked it with great learning, eloquence, and boldness. The advocates of the government had been by universal acknowledgment overmatched in the contest. Not a single Judge had ventured to declare that the Declaration of Indulgence was legal. One judge had in the strongest terms pronounced it illegal. The language of the whole town was that the dispensing power had received a fatal blow. Macaulay. NEGRO SLAVERY. I TRUST that, at length, the time is come, when Parliament will no longer bear to be told, that slave-owners are the best law-givers on slavery; no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings, and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights-talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right -I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes the same throughout the world, the same in all timessuch as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge; to another, all utterable woes ;—such is it at this day it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal-while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood-they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal to treaties-to covenants between nations. The covenants of the Almighty, whether the old covenant or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer, who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite-and not untruly; for, by one shameful compact, you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, in despite of law, and of treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the planters beware-let their assemblies beware-let the government at home beware-let the parliament beware! The same country is once more awake-awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave trade; and if it NEGRO SLAVERY. 173 shall descend again, they on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God! Lord Brougham. DEATH OF LE FEVRE. MY UNCLE TOBY went to his bureau; put his purse into his breeches pocket; and, having ordered the Corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep. The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fevre's and his afflicted son's. The hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids; and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle, when my uncle Toby, who had risen up an hour before his wonted time, entered the Lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down on the chair by the bedside, and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother-officer would have done it; and asked him how he did-how he had rested in the night-what was his complaint-where was his pain - and what he could do to help him ;--and, without giving him time to answer any one of these inquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the Corporal the night before for him. 'You shall go home directly, Le Fevre,' said my uncle Toby, to my house; and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter; and we'll have an apothecary; and the Corporal shall be your nurse; and I'll be your servant, Le Fevre.' There was a frankness in my uncle Toby-not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it-which let you at once into his soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature; to this there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him. The blood and spirits of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and 1 |
