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reply. When detected, he pretended to retrace his steps; trying to secure the confidence of parliament till the duties of revenue were again voted by the commons. Nothing was farther from his mind than any contravention of the great principle sought and acknowledged in the petition of right.' But this was the baseness of hypocrisy. The subsidy was voted in its parliamentary steps, and the redress of grievances was left with the senate. All money bills pass rapidly through the House of Lords; the subsidy was settled sooner than the grievances. The houses were dismissed again without compliance by the king with the patriotic wishes of the senate. The Commons of England in 1628, were not men who would fawn upon the oppressor, cringe before a despot, or render themselves the subservient instruments of an irresponsible Star Chamber, or an encroaching privy council. They were ready to brave the terrors of imprisonment and death, rather than surrender the liberties of the nation. In this parliament we find the Seldens, the Hollises, the Sir John Elliots, the Pyms, the Hampdens, and Oliver Cromwell, then a young man.

Charles thought he should continue henceforth to govern the country without a parliament; and for eleven years he proceeded to rule, refusing to take advice of the knights of shires or the burgesses of boroughs. He found, however, that it was needful, if he 'could not procure subsidies, that he should have other resources-that the ways and means should be provided; and he was advised to resort to the royal prerogative to secure this desideratum.

A parasitical and renegade lawyer, Noy, had discovered, among the neglected records of the Tower, copies of certain writs which had been issued to counties containing sea-ports, requiring them, by local taxation, to contribute a sum sufficient to supply a specific number of vessels for the defence of the kingdom. This was called

ship-money-a tax distinct from poundage and tonnage; and such writs, in the king's name, were sent forth with some success. By this imposition £200,000 were levied. The royal councillors reasoned, in defence of their policy, that, "Since it is lawful for the king to impose a tax toward the equipment of the navy, it must be equally so for the levy of an army; and the same reason which authorises him to levy an army to resist, will authorise him to carry that army abroad. What is law in England, is law also in Scotland and Ireland." To enforce these exactions, officers, in the king's name, entered the dwellings, warehouses, and vaults of the subject by authoritative force, in search of property which they might consider liable to tribute; and to distrain the goods of such as they denominated defaulters. Richard Chambers resisted, and as a London merchant, dared to appeal to law, and to assert before the Star Chamber, that “the traders of Turkey were not more screwed up than the merchants of England." Such temerity received as its penalty the sentence that he should be fined £2,000, and be imprisoned till he had made submission before the council, the Star Chamber, and at the Exchange. He was not subdued, but remained a prisoner more than twelve years, and came out a ruined victim of tyranny. Chambers was not the only recusant, though he has not been as much renowned as others, and his wrongs remained uncompensated.

The rulers rashly intended to proceed by such means to realize a revenue sufficient for the maintenance and dignity of the crown, and for the support of the army, as far as it was then embodied. You all remember the history of John Hampden, one of the greatest and purest patriots that ever lived. And what made him great? His virtues truly were transcendant. Modest in all his character, and benevolent in all his objects, he was a

Christian and an honourable man. He, however, refused

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to pay the tax imposed by the king's authority, and when his refusal was made known, the remonstrance was addressed to him, "Will you shake the authority of the crown, and bring into contempt the word of the sovereign, by refusing to pay this tax ?" To this argument his reply was, "Let the crown decree justice, and rule in righteousness, and no one can bring it into contempt!" "But, sir, why should you object to this measure ?" His answer was significant. "It is the constitutional principle of England, that an Englishman shall be only taxed by his own consent in parliament, or that of his representatives, and the king's answer to the petition of right promised this." "But why, sir, contend about such a trifle? It is only twenty shillings." "Twenty shillings,” said John Hampden, "will serve as much to embody a principle as £20,000. I will not pay." You all know the issue of the contest. It became a legal question to be determined by the judges and barons of the Exchequer. Hampden employed the most eminent lawyers of the day, who dared to undertake his cause; and sometimes you will find lawyers who dare do any thing. But these lawyers dared to do all that became patriotic Englishmen. They contended the principle in the Court of Exchequer : and as a consequence of this controversy with the crown lawyers, a long and interesting pleading of eleven days ensued. But judges and juries were not then so virtuous as they ought always to be, and as we have reason to say they now are. A decision was given by seven against five of the judges, contrary to the principle of the English constitution, and John Hampden was sentenced three months after the trial to pay the tax. He subsequently returned a victor to his own county; and you will remember that he was met by two thousand men of his own shire, mounted on the best English steeds, and clothed in the best English broadcloth of the day, that they might welcome Hampden as the triumphant and

beloved patriot. It was the county of Buckingham that did so, and the county of Bucks was more distinguished for its enlightened yeomen then than it has almost ever been since. Its modern celebrity is derived from other predilections.

I mention this circumstance just to illustrate that when religious liberty and the liberty of conscience were, as I shall immediately show, disregarded, or trampled upon by the ruling powers, political and civil liberty,-the liberty of property and of the person, was also trampled upon by the statesmen that held office in the country. Hampden was not only a virtuous, but a wealthy man, and he was nearly related to Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell and Hampden, and many other of the patriots of the day, had chartered vessels that they might sail to some foreign land, where they should enjoy liberty of conscience. Eight vessels, lying in the Thames for America, were prevented even from sailing, by an order of the council: and the refugees from persecution were refused the privilege of making themselves exiles. But the royal mandate that forbid their voluntary banishment was the means of retaining forthe service of their country those patriots and statesmen. Hume inquires, by an insinuation, intended to disparage these men of the commonwealth : "Can any one doubt that the ensuing quarrel was almost entirely theological, not political? What might be expected of the populace, when such was the character of the most enlightened leaders ?" I gladly accept the alternative, and will now proceed to the consequent conflict. Many others fled abroad by stealth, some into the cantons of Switzerland, some into France, some into Holland. Those who went to Switzerland mostly identified themselves with the presbyterian form of church government; those who, for a season, took up their residence in the Low Countries, were associated together as small communities of independents; and, at the time that the collision be

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NATURE OF THE QUARREL.

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tween the Long Parliament and Charles the First occurred, these exiles for conscience' sake returned to their native land, bringing back with them the endeared associations of the religious liberty which they had enjoyed as exiles, and longing to enjoy that liberty in their own country. I need hardly draw the distinction, here, between the puritans and the nonconformists. The puritans existed, as religious individuals, before the Act of Uniformity was passed; the nonconformists were those who refused to conform to the Act of Uniformity as passed in 1662. Thus, historically, they are diverse; but while, in numerous instances, the puritans were presbyterians in their ideas of church government, there were also, if not congregations, yet many ministers and individuals that held the sentiments common to independents and baptists. The circumstances of the times of Charles the First have never been sufficiently studied, either in our schools or our academical halls. Our histories have too much repeated the cuckoo note of former authorities, and given currency to the misrepresentations of such men as Hume, and his copyist Goldsmith. The consequence has been, the young people rising up, even from the most enlarged and academical institutions, have had to unlearn -if they ever learned the truth at all-have had to unlearn much of that which was imbibed by them in the process of scholastic discipline. Our lot has fallen in happier times.