and unjustly. In 1677 the health of lord Leicester rapidly declined, and he became very desirous to see his son Algernon once more before he died. Through the influence of his grandson, lord Sunderland, and the intercession of the French king, this request was granted, and Henry Savile, the British ambassador at Paris, succeeded in procuring an assurance of safety. Sydney accordingly came over to England in the autumn of 1677. On the 2d of November lord Leicester died, at the age of eighty two; and Sydney, after giving a discharge to his lordship's executors for the legacies bequeathed him, amounting only to five thousand two hundred pounds, intended to have returned immediately to his retirement. This he was unhappily prevented from doing by a suit in chancery, which his brother had commenced against him, for some portion of his father's property. The conduct of Sydney during the remainder of his life is involved in great mystery. He still continued the same bold and decided opposition to the arbitrary measures of the court, and was regarded by them with great suspicion. When the nation, soon after the marriage of the princess Mary with the prince of Orange, was very eager for a war with France, Sydney discouraged it with great vehemence, by which he subjected himself to the imputation of being pensioned by a foreign power. He however declared his disbelief of the king's sincerity, who was known to have discovered a most disgraceful subserviency to the French court. The parliament, which had originally shewn the most servile devotion to the wishes of the king, beginning to assume a tone of independence and decision, it was dissolved on the 24th of Jan. 1678-9, after an existence of eighteen years. A new parliament was soon after called, and Sydney, finding it impossible to return to the continent, stood for the borough of Guilford in Surry. He was warmly supported by the popular interest, but was defeated by the influence of the court party. Among his most zealous adherents was the celebrated William Penn, whose treatment on this occasion is thus related in Collins' Memoirs: One Mr Penn, a quaker, appearing for the colonel, was called into the court, and hindered from encouraging such as were for the colonel; and told by the recorder that he was a jesuit, (in affront to the colonel,) to whom the recorder would have tendered oaths, (at that time contrary to law,) and at last the mayor turned him out of the court, and forbid him to appear amongst the colonel's party, to the great discouragement

of them; and more particularly such as were of the same persuasion with Mr Penn; amongst which party the colonel had several voices.' Sydney, at the instigation of Penn, presented a petition to parliament against the validity of this election, but without success. The new parliament proved less inclined than the last to favor the views of the king. The duke of York, who was under banishment, was forbidden to return to England, and a bill was passed excluding him from the throne, as a papist. These measures so alarmed the king that he prorogued the parliament on the 27th of May, without the consent or knowledge of his council, and, at the instigation of the duke of York, dissolved it in the following July. When the election for the new parliament took place, Sydney again offered him self as a candidate for the borough of Bramber in Sussex, where Penn exerted himself in his behalf with no less ardor than before. He had also the support of sir John Temple, younger brother to sir William Temple, and flattered himself with hopes of success. He was disappointed however by the exertions of his own family, who either dreading the impetuosity of his temper, or what is more probable, his firmness and decision, made interest for his younger brother Henry Sydney, then ambassador in Holland. Sydney in the mean time continued to be watched by the court with the utmost vigilance. He was accused to the king of being concerned in a plot of the nonconformists, which however, in an audience with his majesty he succeeded in explaining. He was near being involved in the meal tub plot, which, added to other persecutions, fixed him in the resolution to return to France, and the termination of his lawsuit removing the only obstacle, he went so far as to purchase in a friend's name a small estate in that country. Mr Meadley here takes notice of a charge which has been brought against Sydney of a mercenary intercourse with the French government. It is certain that when a project was in agitation of a league with the United Provinces against France, soon after the marriage of the prince of Orange with the princess Mary, Barillon, the French minister in England, entered into intrigues with the popular party for the purpose of preventing that measure. The correspondence between that minister and Louis XIV, which has been long before the world, puts this fact beyond a doubt. Barillon in his letters mentions the individuals with whom he has intercourse, and the sums of money he has paid to each. Among these are the

duke of Buckingham, lord Hollis, Mr Beber, Mr Harwood, Mr Montagu, lord Russell, and Mr Sydney. The two latter are mentioned as acting from the highest principles of honor, and the views of them all as having been to throw difficulties in the way of Charles' projects by the aid of France. Mr Meadley, aware of the imputation to which the character of Sydney is exposed, if the fact of the receipt of two sums of money with which Barillon has charged him be admitted, endeavors to make it appear that this minister deceived his master, and pretended to have advanced to the English republicans the sums that he actually put in his own pocket. In order to support this supposition, he adduces some expressions of Madame de Sevigné, from which it appears that Barillon amassed a great deal of wealth in his employment. This fact, when opposed to the extreme improbability of his resorting to a deception which could hardly fail to be discovered by his government, is not sufficient to sustain such a presumption. It must be conceded that the friends of liberty, alarmed and terrified to the last degree by the violent and despotic measures of the king, were driven to the necessity of opposing him with his own weapons. The servile and disgraceful manner in which the king and his ministers had sold themselves to France is well known; is it then surprising that these patriotic individuals should avail themselves of an opportunity to draw the means of serving the true interest of their country, from the same source to which their unprincipled monarch had resorted for the purpose of enslaving it? That most of them had any other motive in these negotiations is extremely unlikely. With regard to Sydney it is hardly credible, when his character and the circumstances of his connexion with Barillon are taken into consideration. He speaks of that minister in his letters with the greatest contempt, for his arrogant pretensions and disgusting manners. Barillon himself does not mention Sydney, as one with whom he is in habits of intimacy, much less as one whom he considers as his creature. Mr Algernon Sydney,' he says in one of his letters, 'is a man of the most enlarged views, and elevated designs, all of which are directed towards the establishment of a republic.' In another letter he observes, that many of the opposition, particularly Mr Sydney, had endeavored to convince him that it was a great error to suppose that the interests of France were necessarily opposed to the existence of a republican form of government in Eng

land, and adds some of the reasons which were urged by them with that view. It seems therefore certain that if Sydney did receive assistance from France, it was with the intention of aiding the attainment of this darling object of his life. This presumption is confirmed by the difficulty of reconciling any other conclusion with Sydney's circumstances and previous conduct. Though not rich, he was not avaricious, and by no means so needy as to be driven to the necessity of resorting to such means of support. If he had been desirous of bettering his fortune, he had let slip many opportunities of doing it, much less exceptionable than this. Is it credible that a man, who at an early age had quitted the service of his king, in whose army he held a respectable rank, and entered into that of the opposite party, who again deserted Cromwell, and gave up his hopes of preferment, because he would not bend to his views, who rejected the tempting offers of Monk, and submitted to exile and want, rather than abjure his principles, should in his old age, when he had little to enjoy and less to hope for, degrade himself into the hireling of a foreign court? This may be true, but it requires stronger proof than has yet been produced to convince us of it. To return, the king on the dissolution of the parliament convened at Oxford in March 1681 issued a Declaration,' justifying his conduct in these repeated exertions of the royal authority. To this an answer appeared, entitled, 'A just and modest vindication of the proceedings of the two last parliaments.' The first sketch of this answer was from Sydney's pen, although it was afterwards redrawn by Somers, and finally corrected by sir William Jones.

Meanwhile the rapid strides with which the court was proceeding in the course of despotism, in open violation of justice and decency, filled the popular party with alarm, and induced them to cast their eyes on the duke of Monmouth, by favoring whose pretensions to the throne they hoped to avert the threatened danger. The leaders of that party accordingly entered into an intimate connexion with that nobleman. Sydney for some time declined all participation in their measures, principally from his aversion to lord Shaftsbury, who took a leading part in their counsels, and for whose character and conduct he entertained the greatest contempt. In November, 1682, lord Shaftsbury died, and Sydney was soon after prevailed upon by his friend, the earl of Essex, to bear a part in the consultations of that nobleman, the duke of Monmouth,

lord Russell, and the younger Hampden, on the situation of public affairs. The lord Howard of Escricke, an unprincipled but insinuating man, was by Sydney's persuasion admitted to their confidence. He had not long before been committed to the tower for a treasonable libel. Sydney on that occasion had interested himself warmly in his behalf, which led to an intimacy between them, that proved fatal not only to Sydney but his unfortunate associates. What was the nature of the measures agreed upon at these meetings we have no means of knowing, but by the declaration of lord Howard on the trials of Russell and Sydney, which is liable to great objections. That they were desirous to devise measures to guard against the arbitrary proceedings of the court, and to protect themselves and their country from impending ruin is very probable. The following is the account given by sir John Dalrymple of the characters and views of the associates. Russell, Hampden, and Essex, intended nothing more than to exclude the duke of York and to fix the barriers of the constitution with precision. Sydney aimed at the destruction of monarchy, and on its ruins to found that republic which in imagination he adored. Monmouth hoped amid public distractions to pave the way for himself to the throne. Howard, with luxuriant eloquence and wit, adopted the views of each particular person and incited all to vigor and action, feeling for moments what they felt through life.' The proceedings of such distinguished persons were not unobserved by the court, who waited only for a pretence to fall upon them with the whole weight of its vengeance. Such an occasion was not long wanting. The Rye house plot, which was an extravagant project of certain deluded madmen to assassinate the king and the duke of York on their return from Newmarket, was the pretext laid hold of to get possession of the victims. Rumsey, one of those who were implicated in the assassination plot surrendered himself as a witness, and Sydney had many intimations from his friends of a design to arrest him. But notwithstanding that the duke of Monmouth had retired, Sydney protesting his innocence, took no precautions for his safety. On the 26th of June, whilst at dinner, he was arrested by an order from the privy council in the king's name, and in the course of a few minutes a second messenger arrived with an order to secure his papers. Finding nothing concealed, the messenger took possession of some manuscripts which lay upon the table,