be brought up. The poor men had printed a statement of their wrongs, blended with some pathetic texts from Scripture; but the Commons were deaf to all cries for compassion, for the tyranny of the many is more exacting and obdurate than any single despotism: they struck but would not hear.

Not less flagrantly unjust, in open violation of the principles of equity, was the banishment inflicted, under the penalties of an ex post facto law, by the ministers of George I., upon the plotting Dr. Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, the first prelate who visited the Tower as a prisoner since the revolution, and the last. The great reproach which the bishop's punishment incurs-for, of his guilt, there can be no doubtis the setting aside those ordinary forms and safeguards which the law enjoins-a violence, the danger of which may not be felt, only because the precedent has happily not been followed. To condemn, to amerce, and to punish by particular acts of penal justice, upon exigencies unprovided for in the criminal code, to be extreme to mark what is done amiss beyond what has been written, seems too great and too dangerous a power for man to exercise over man1.

1 Woodesson's Lectures.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE frequency and futility of impeachments during the three reigns that succeeded the Revolution cannot but attract the notice of a reader of English history. Of the sixteen impeachments instituted by the House, between the years 1689 and 1724, seven were tacitly abandoned without proceeding to trial; three were thrown up in disgust, in consequence of disputes between the two Houses; in one, that of some poor foreigners for frauds on the revenue, the parties pleaded guilty; in another, Dr. Sacheverell's untoward prosecution, the sentence seemed a derision on the vindictive Commons: in two only, the trial of Lord Derwentwater and the rebel Lords, whose lives paid the fearful penalty of treason, and the prosecution of the Lord Chancellor Macclesfield for peculation, was the event worthy of the occasion. According to the excellent figure of Lord Somers, this favourite weapon, their longest and sharpest, ought to have hung up like the sword in the temple, only to be unsheathed at periods of peculiar exigency: it was found too ponderous for ordinary hands, too unwieldy for common use. The contrast between the frequent escapes from this method of prosecution, and that of prosecution by indictment, is extremely marked. A prisoner might hope for impunity in the one, and de

spair of it in the other. "Few persons," writes the experienced Sir Bartholomew Shower, "as I ever heard or read of, when indicted for high treason, had the good fortune to escape safe from this fiery trial;" and yet the annals of the House prove, with what rigour, if not effect, this instrument of the people's vengeance had been plied against court minions, corrupt statesmen, wicked ministers, and usurping despots.

The first impeachment in the name of the Prelates, Lords, and Commons of England, presented to Richard II., in 1386, prayed the dismissal of the Chancellor and Treasurer, "because these men were not for the advantage of himself and kingdom." By similar articles of impeachment, several royal favourites, Lord Latimer and Lord Suffolk, the De Spencers and Tresilian, were crushed and blighted; but, as the Commons appeared then the mere satellites of men in power, their accusation seems rather the consequence than the cause of waning popularity-the pretext, not the real motive, for their overthrow.

Under the Tudors the burgesses were trained as hawks to swoop down the royal quarry. The usual course was to present a memorial to the king in parliament, stating such offences as they thought at the time peculiarly injurious to the public;" and praying that the delinquents, without naming them, might meet the punishment of the law. After the petitioners had received encouragement from the Crown, they exhibited articles of impeachment, specifying the particular culprits. The ineptitudes with which their complaints were sometimes mingled, can scarcely fail to provoke a smile. When called upon to perform their task of hastening the doom of Cardinal Wolsey, the

following formed their sixth ground of charge :"That he came daily to your Grace rowning in your ear, and blowing upon your most noble Grace with his perilous and infectious breath, to the marvellous danger of your Highness." In this instance, however, the form of impeachment was inverted, the function of accuser being exercised by the Lords, of judge by the Commons, who dismissed the accusation.

It was under the first of the Stuarts that the Commons did more than play at the game of impeachment, as the puppets of king or courtier, the minions of a powerful favourite, or serving-men of some hostile peer. At the commencement of the seventeenth century they began to originate charges of misdemeanor, and, as guardians of the public purse, to accuse to conviction public defaulters. In their successful attacks upon Lord Treasurer Middlesex and the Lord Chancellor Bacon, they were encouraged by the Prince and Duke of Buckingham, much to the displeasure of cannie King James, who told the haughty favourite, with proverbial shrewdness, that he was making a rod to be used on his own person, and that he would live to have his fill of impeachments.

Fatally was the royal prediction fulfilled, when Pym went up to the Lords at the head of 300 commoners, to impeach the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of having attempted to subvert the fundamental laws, and introduce arbitrary power-when the venerable Laud bowed his hoary head to the axe for newlyinvented treasons-when the king himself sat covered in the presence of a strangely-fashioned tribunal, and all dignities went down before that hurricane of impeachments.

At the Restoration, the Commons relapsed from their overweening pretensions, and beame suitors for

penal justice to the tribunal supreme in judicature, though no more than equal in legislation. The greatest of inquests began what the highest of tribunals accomplished. Lord Clarendon and the Duke of Buckingham proved their might, Lord Stafford and Lord Danby their injustice.

An effectual check was put to the practical usefulness of this penal power by the policy of the cabinet, which Charles adopted as the text or motto of kingcraft, that no state minister ought to be punished, and especially not upon parliamentary applications. The Commons were only permitted, as of old, to run down the game that a corrupt court put up, but never to be in at the death, if the object of their chase was a member of the cabinet.

Owing to the clemency of men's tempers and complicated intrigues of the times, the impeachments that were voted by the House after the Revolution, proved equally abortive. Sir Adam Blair and several of his companions were impeached of high treason in 1689, for being in arms under King James, but they lurked in France and were attainted by the Scotch law for continuing in that kingdom. Articles were also exhibited against Burton and Graham, and committees appointed to search for precedents and prepare the charge, but they made no report.

The Earls of Peterborough and Salisbury lay in the Tower for months, under prosecution of impeachment for departing from their allegiance and being reconciled to the Church of Rome; but anti-popery rigour died away; and the lords came forth on bail, after a year's imprisonment, to meet any charge that might be made.

In a sudden transport of wrath, the House voted