SIR JOHN ELIOT. honour His vicegerents. A religando it is called, NATIONAL GRIEVANCES AND THE IM- My Lords, you have heard, in the labours of these two days spent in this service, a representation from the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the Commons House of Parliament, of their apprehensions of the present evils and sufferings of this kingdom; of the causes of those evils; and of those causes the application made to the person of the Duke of Buckingham; so clearly and fully, that I presume your Lordships now expect rather I should conclude than that anything more or further should be added to the charge. To the miseries and but the common sense. misfortunes which we suffer therein, I will add but this: that the right, the title of the seas, the ancient inheritance of our princes, the honour of this land, lost or impeached, makes it too apparent, too much known. I need not further press it. But from hence my observation must descend upon his other virtues, as they come extracted from those articles which you have had delivered. And this by way of perspective I will give so near and shortly, that I hope your Lordships shall conceive it rather an ease and help to excitate your memories than to oppress your patience. You have heard how his ambition has been expressed, by procuring the great offices of strength and power in this kingdom, and in effect getting the government of the whole into his own hands. You have heard by what practices and means he has attained them, and how money has stood for merit. How they have been What divisions, what factions, nay, what frac-executed, how performed, it needs no argument tions in religion, this kingdom does now suffer, I need not recapitulate. What divisions, what transactions, what alienations have been made, no man can be ignorant. How many members, in that point, have been dissected from this body, I mean the body of the land (which representatively we are), so the body itself, though healthy, cannot but seem lame. How have those members studied to be incorporate with others? How have they threatened us, their own, not only by presumption, but in greatness; and given us fear, more than they have taken? Blessed be that hand that has delivered us! Blessed this day that gives us hope, wherein the danger and infection may be stayed. For, without present remedy, the disease will scarce be curable. To effect this, the cause must first be sought from whence the sickness springs; and that will be best found in the survey of the laws. Certainly it lies in the laws, or in the manner of their execution. Either there is some defect or imperfection in the laws; or their life, the execution of them is remitted. For, if the laws be perfect, how can division enter but by a breach of them; if the execution be observed, how can the laws be broken? Therefore in this does rest the cause, and here must be the remedy. To that end, now, my motion shall incline; for a review of the laws, and a special consideration as to their present inefficacy. If the division have got in by imperfection of the laws, I desire they may be amended; if by defect, that they may be supplied; and if (as I most do fear it) through neglect and want of execution, I pray the House to give direction that the power may be enforced with some great mulct and penalty on the ministers, who for that will be more vigilant, and we thereby secure. My Lords, I will take the inward characters, the patterns of his mind, as you have heard them opened. And first, his collusion and deceit; crimes in themselves so odious and uncertain, that the ancients, knowing not by what name to term them, expressed them in a metaphor, calling them stellionatus, from a discoloured beast so doubtful in appearance that they knew not what to make of it. And thus, in this man's practice, we find it here. Take it in the business of Rochelle. First to the merchants, by his arts and fair persuasions drawn with their ships to Dieppe, there to be entrapped. Then to the King and State, with shadows and pretences colouring that foul design which secretly he had plotted against Rochelle and religion. Then to the Parliament, after his work was finished or in motion, and the ships given up into the Frenchmen's hands, not only in disguising but denying the truth of that he knew. A practice as dangerous, as dishonourable to us both in the precedence and act, as in the effect and consequence it proved prejudicial and ruinous to our friends. The next presented was his high oppression, and this of strange latitude and extent; not unto men alone, but to the laws, nay, to the State. The pleasure of his Majesty, his known directions, his public acts, his acts of council, the decrees of courts-all must be made inferior to this man's will. No right, no interest, may withstand him. Through the powers of State and justice he has dared ever to strike at his own ends. Your Lordships have had this sufficiently expressed in the case of the "St Peter," and by the ships at Dieppe. My Lords, I shall here desire you to observe one particular more than formerly was pressed, concerning the duty of his place in this. Supposing he might, without fault, have sent those ships away, especially the King's; supposing that he had not thereby injured the merchants, or misinformed the King, or abused the Parliament; supposing even that he had not done that worse than all this, of now seeking to excuse himself therein by entitling it to his Majesty; nay, my Lords, I will say that if his Majesty himself were pleased to have consented or to have commanded, which I cannot believe, yet this could no way satisfy for, the Duke, or make any extenuation of the charge. For it was the duty of his place to have opposed it by his prayers, and to have interceded with his Majesty to make known the dangers, the ill consequences that might follow. And if this prevailed not, should he have ended there? No; he should then have addressed himself to your Lordships, your Lordships sitting in council, and there have made it known, there have desired your aids! Nor, if in this he sped not, should he have rested without entering before you a protestation for himself, that he was not consenting. This was the duty of his place; this has been the practice of his elders; and this, being here neglected, leaves him without excuse. I have heard it further indeed spoken as excuse, that the ships are now come home; but give me leave, I beseech your Lordships, in prevention to object to that (though I confess I know it not), that it lessens not his fault. It may commend the French, but cannot excuse him, whose error was in sending them away. When the French once had them they might have kept them still, for aught I know, notwithstanding all his greatness. Certainly we do know only too well that they executed, to perfection, their work against Rochelle and religion. The next your Lordships had was his extortion, his unjust exaction of £10,000 from the East India merchants without right or colour. And this you heard exquisitely expressed by the gentleman who had that part in charge, who mathematically observed the reason upon which it proceeded and was enforced. He revealed to you that secret of the seas in taking of the wind, which at the Cape they have at known and certain times; and many of your Lordships would probably observe that the skill so timely used was gotten recently in the late voyage, to which you know who sent him.* Because I hear a mention of the King's sacred name in this, I must crave your Lordships' leave thus far to digress as here to make this protestation, which I had in charge from my masters the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the Commons House of Parliament, that in nothing we intend to reflect the least ill odour on his Majesty or his most blessed father of happy memory, but with all honour of their names we do admire them, and only strive to vindicate their fames from such as would eclipse them. After this, my Lords, followed the corruption, the sordid bribery of him whom I now charge, in the sale of honours, in the sale of offices. That which was the ancient crown of virtue is now made merchantable, and justice itself is a prey to this man. All which particulars, as you have heard them opened and enforced with their several circumstances, reasons, and proofs, to show what in themselves they are, what in their I presume I need not to dilate, but, your Lordconsequences, and what they may now merit, ships knowing all so well, leave them to your judgment. And from hence I am raised to observe a wonder, a wonder both in policy and nature. For not less is it that this man, so notorious in ill, so dangerous in the state, so disproportionable both subsist and keep a being. But as I confess it to the time and government, has been able to for a wonder, so must there also have been art continued so long, To that end, therefore, your to help and underprop it, or it could not have Lordships will have noted that he made a party. He made a party in the court, a party in the country, a party in almost all the places of government, both foreign and at home. He raised, and preferred to honours and commands, those of his own alliance, the creatures of his kindred and affection, how mean soever; whilst others, though most deserving, nay, all that were not in this compass, he crossed and opposed. And having thus drawn to himself a power of parties, a power of honours, a power of offices, and in effect the powers of the whole kingdom whether for peace or war; and having used these to strengthen and add to his alliances; he then, for his further aggrandisement, set upon the revenues of the Crown, interrupting, exhausting, and consuming that fountain of supply. broke those nerves and sinews of the land, the stores and treasures of the King.+ That which He "In allusion to Glanville, who had been sent, upon compulsory appointment, by way of punishment, and to prevent his possible election to Parliament, as secre tary to the fleet in the Cadiz expedition."-Forster. "The proud carriage' of the Duke provoked an invective from Eliot which marks a new era in Parliapassion of his words had contrasted with the grave, mentary speech. From the first the vehemence and colourless reasoning of older speakers. His opponents not only persisting in all ill ways but preventing better. His affections are apparent not to be the best, and his actions prove it. What hopes or expectation, then, he gives, I leave it to your Lordships. I will now only see, by comparison with others, where I may find him paralleled or likened; and, so considering what may now be come him, from thence render your Lordships to a short conclusion. Of all the precedents I can find, none so near resembles him as doth Sejanus; and him Tacitus describes thus: that he was audax; sui obtegens, in alios criminator; juxta adulatio et superbia. If your Lordships please to measure him by this, pray see in what they vary. He is bold. We had that experience lately; and of such a bold is the blood and spirit of the kingdom, he wasted and consumed. Not only to satisfy himself, his own desires and avarice, but to satiate others with pride and luxury, he emptied those veins in which the kingdom's blood should run, and by diversion of its proper course cast the body of the land into a deep consumption. This your Lordships saw in the opening of that point concerning the revenues. What vast treasures he has gotten, what infinite sums of money, and what a mass of lands! If your Lordships please to calculate, you will find it all amounting to little less than the whole of the subsidies which the King has had within that time. A lamentable example of the subjects' bounties so to be employed! But is this all? No; your Lordships may not think it. These are but collec-ness, I dare be bold to say, as is seldom heard tions of a short view, used only as an epitome for the rest. There needs no search for it. It is too visible. His profuse expenses, his superfluous feasts, his magnificent buildings, his riots, his excesses, what are they but the visible evidences of an express exhausting of the State, a chronicle of the immensity of his waste of the revenues of the Crown! No wonder, then, our King is now in want, this man abounding so. And as long as he abounds, the King must still be wanting. But having thus prevailed in wealth and honours he rests not there. Ambition has no bounds, but like a violent flame breaks still beyond; snatches at all, assumes new boldness, gives itself more scope. Not satisfied with the injuring of justice, with the wrongs of honour, with the prejudice of religion, with the abuse of State, with the misappropriation of revenues, his attempts go higher, even to the person of his sovereign. You have before you his making practice on that, in such a manner and with such effect as I fear to speak it, nay, I doubt and hesitate to think it. In which respect I shall leave it, as Cicero did the like; ne gravioribus utar verbis quam natura fert, aut levioribus quam causa postulat. The examination with your Lordships will show you what it is. I need not name it. In all these now your Lordships have the idea of the man; what in himself he is, and what in his affections. You have seen his power, and some, I fear, have felt it. You have known his practice, you have heard the effects. It rests then to be considered, being such, what he is in relation to the King, what in relation to the State, and how compatible or incompatible with either. What he is to the King, you have heard; a canker in his treasures, and one that restlessly consumes and will devour him. What he is to the State, you have seen; a moth to goodness, complained that Eliot aimed to stir up affections.' The quick emphatic sentences he substituted for the cumbrous periods of the day, his rapid argument, his vivacious and caustic allusions, his passionate appeals, his fearless invective, struck a new note in English eloquence." John Richard Green. of. He is secret in his purposes, and more; that we have showed already. Is he a slanderer? is he an accuser? I wish this Parliament had not felt it, nor that which was before. And for his pride and flattery, what man can judge the greater? Thus far, I think, the parallel holds. But now, I beseech your Lordships, look a little further. Of Sejanus it is likewise noted, amongst his policies, amongst his arts, that to support himself he did clientes suos honoribus aut provinciis ornare. He preferred, his friends, he preferred his clients, to second, to assist him; and does not this man do the like? Is it not, and in the same terms, a special cause in our complaint now? Does not this kingdom, does not Scotland, does not Ireland speak it? I will observe but one thing more, and end. It is a note upon the pride of Sejanus, upon his high ambition, which your Lordships will find set down by Tacitus. His solecisms, his neglect of counsels, his veneries, his venefices,* these I will not mention here, only that particular of his pride, which thus I find. In his public passages and relations he would so mix his business with the prince's, seeming to confound their actions, that he was often styled laborum imperatoris socius: and does not this man do the like? Is it not in his whole practice? How often, how lately have we heard it! Did he not, in this same place, in this very Parliament, under colour of an explanation for the King, before the committees of both Houses, do the same? Have not your Lordships heard him also ever mixing and confusing the King and the State, not leaving a distinction between them? It is too, too manifest. My Lords, I have done. You see the man! What have been his actions, whom he is like, you know. I leave him to your judgments. This only is conceived by us, the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the Commons House of * "Such expressions could not of course have been directly applied to Buckingham. They are insinuated only through Sejanus. In the report in the journals this point is missed, and the effect wholly lost. But so it is throughout."-Forster. Parliament, that by him came all our evils, in him we find the causes, and on him must be the remedies. To this end we are now addressed to your Lordships in confidence of your justice, to which some late examples* and your wisdoms invite us. We cannot doubt your Lordships. The greatness, the power, the practice of the whole world, we know to be all inferior to your greater judgments; and from thence we take assurance. To that, therefore, we now refer him, there to be examined, there to be tried; and in due time from thence we shall expect such judgment as his cause merits. And now, my Lords, I will conclude with a particular censure given on the Bishop of Ely in the time of Richard I. That prelate had the King's treasures at his command, and had luxuriously abused them. His obscure kindred were married to earls, barons, and others of great rank and place. No man's business could be done without his help. He would not suffer the King's counsel to advise in the highest affairs of State. He gave ignotis personis et obscuris the custody of castles and great trusts. He ascended to such a height of insolence and pride that he ceased to be fit for characters of mercy. And therefore, says the record of which I now hold the original-Per totam insulam publicè proclametur; Pereat qui perdere cuncta festinat. Opprimatur ne omnes opprimat. And now, my Lords, I am to read unto your Lordships the conclusion of this charge, and so to present it to you: "And the said Commons, by protestation saving to themselves the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any other accusations or impeachment against the said Duke; and also of replying unto the answer that the said Duke shall make unto the said articles, or to any of them, and of offering further proofs also of the premises, or any of them, as the case shall require, according to the course of Parliament: do pray that the said Duke may be put to answer to all and every the said premises, and that such proceeding, examination, trial, and judgment may be upon every of them had and used as is agreeable to law and justice." And having discharged this trust, my Lords, imposed upon me, unworthy of that honour; and having therein, in the imperfections which naturally I suffer, made myself too open to your Lordships' censure; I must now crave your pardons and become a petitioner for myself, that those weaknesses which have appeared in my delivery may, through your noble favours, find excuse. For which, as that gentleman my colleague who first began made his apology by colour of command, mine, my Lords, is likewise spoken in my obedience. I was commanded, and I have obeyed. Wherein let me desire your "The allusion is to the impeachments of Bacon and Middlesex."-Forster. Lordships that, notwithstanding the errors of which I may be guilty, nothing may reflect upon my masters; or be from thence admitted into your Lordships' judgments to diminish or impeach the reputation of their wisdoms. These, I hope, shall give your Lordships and the world such ample testimonies as may approve them still to be deserving in the ancient merits of their fathers. This for them I crave; and for myself I humbly submit in confidence of your | favours.* STATE OF THE NATION, 1628.+ MR SPEAKER,-We sit here as the great Council of the King, and, in that capacity, it is our duty to take into consideration the state and affairs of the kingdom, and when there is occasion to give a true representation of them, by way of counsel and advice, with what we conceive necessary or expedient to be done. In this consideration, I confess many a sad thought hath affrighted me, and that not only in respect of our dangers from abroad (which yet I know are great, as they have been often pressed and dilated to us), but in respect of our disorders here at home, which do enforce those dangers, and by which they are occasioned. For I believe I shall make it clear to you, that both at first the cause of these dangers were our disorders, and our disorders now are yet our greatest dangers; that not so much the potency of our enemies, as the weakness of ourselves, doth threaten us, so that the saying of one of the Fathers may be assumed by us, Non tam potentia suâ quam negligentiâ nostrâ—“Not so much by their power as by our neglect." Our want of true devotion to Heaven, our insincerity and doubting in religion, our want of councils, our precipitate actions, the insufficiency or unfaithfulness of our generals abroad, ignorance and corruption of our ministers at home, the impoverishing of the sovereign, the oppression and depression of the subject, the exhausting of our treasures, the waste of our provisions, consumption of our ships, destruction of our men-these make the advantage of our enemies, not the reputation of their arms; and if in these there * The original MS. of this speech was discovered at Port Eliot, with this indorsement in his own hand: "Keepe this safe where it may not be lost." It was at that time the custom of Parliamentary orators, as Thomas Fuller has remarked, "that gentlemen speakers in these Parliaments should impart their speeches to their intimate friends, the transcripts whereof were multiplied amongst others;" and perhaps to this practice may be ascribed the variations sometimes observable in different copies of the same speech. Delivered in the House of Commons June 3, 1628, while the Petition of Right, providing that no loan or tax might be levied but by consent of Parliament, was under discussion. The reluctant consent of the King was given to the Petition June 7, 1628. THOMAS WENTWORTH. be not reformation, we need no foes abroad. Time itself will ruin us. Fifthly, Mr Speaker, I fear I have been too long in these particulars that are past, and am unwilling to offend you; therefore in the rest I shall be shorter, and as to that which concerns the impoverishing of the King, no other arguments will I use than such as all men grant. The exchequer, you know, is empty, and the reputation thereof gone; the ancient lands are sold; the jewels pawned; the plate engaged ;* the debts still great; almost all charges, both ordinary and extraordinary, borne up by projects! What poverty can be greater? What necessity so great? What perfect English heart is not almost dissolved into sorrow for this truth? Sixthly, For the oppression of the subject, which, as I remember, is the next particular I proposed, it needs no demonstration. The whole kingdom is a proof; and for the exhausting of our treasures, that very oppression speaks it. What waste of our provisions, what consumption of our ships, what destruction of our men there hath been. Witness that expedition to Algiers+ -witness that with Mansfeldt-witness that to Cadiz-witness the next-witness that to Rhé -witness the last (I pray God we may never have more such witnesses)-witness, likewise, the Palatinate-witness Denmark-witness the Turks-witness the Dunkirkers-witness all! What losses we have sustained! How we are impaired in munitions, in ships, in men ! It is beyond contradiction that we were never so much weakened, nor ever had less hope how to be restored. These, Mr Speaker, are our dangers; these are they who do threaten us, and these are, like the Trojan horse, brought in cunningly to surprise us. In these do lurk the strongest of our enemies, ready to issue on us; and if we do not speedily expel them, these are the signs, these are the invitations to others! These will so pre pare their entrance that we shall have no means These are the things, sir, I shall desire to have taken into consideration; that as we are the great council of the kingdom, and have the apprehension of these dangers, we may truly represent them unto the King, which I conceive we are bound to do by a triple obligation-of duty to God, of duty to his Majesty, and of duty to our country. And, therefore, I wish it may so stand with the wisdom and judgment of the House, that these things may be drawn into the body of a remonstrance, and in all humility expressed, with a prayer to his Majesty, that for the safety of himself, for the safety of the kingdom, and for the safety of religion, he will be pleased to give us time to make perfect inquisition thereof, or to take them into his own wisdom, and there give them such timely reformation as the neces sity and justice of the case doth import. And thus, sir, with a large affection and loyalty to his Majesty, and with a firm duty and service to my country, I have suddenly (and it may be with some disorder) expressed the weak apprehensions have, wherein, if I have erred, I humbly crave your pardon, and so submit myself to the censure of the House. THOMAS WENTWORTII, 1593-1641. WHEN IMPEACHED FOR HIGH TREASON MY LORDS,-This day I stand before you, * In allusion to the crown jewels and plate which Buckingham had taken to Holland, and pawned for £300,000. ↑ "Buckingham, some years before, had sent out an expedition for the capture of Algiers. It totally failed, and so incensed the Algerines that the commerce of England suffered tenfold loss in consequence; thirty charge is heavy, yet far the more so because it hath borrowed the authority of the House of five ships, engaged in the Mediterranean trade, having been captured within a few months, and their crews sold for slaves."-Goodrich. Macaulay thus gives the character of Wentworth "He was the first Englishman to whom a peerage was a sacrament of infamy, a baptism into the communion of corruption. As he was the first of the hafeful list, so was he also by far the greatest; eloquent, sagacious, adventurous, intrepid, ready of invention, immutable of purpose; in every talent which exalts or destroys nations, pre-eminent-the lost archangel, the Satan of the apostasy." D |