speak of the justice of such a measure in a Jegal point of view would be a mockery; nothing but the breaking up of the very foundations of the state, and a war of its elements, could let in the possibility of such a procedure. Amidst the tempest and darkness which then involved the whole political horizon, it savours of presumption to decide what measures were right, expedient, or even necessary: this much alone may safely be asserted, that the lking and his friends during the contest, and still more after it was virtually ended by the batlle of Naseby, maintained such a conduct as rendered his destruction inevitable: but the remark of Whitelock, p . 363, seems no less · just _than ingenious; "that such an irregular and unheard of business " should have been left to that irregular set of men, the army, who " urged it on." They however were determined to throw the odium on others, or at least drawn others in to share it. ne it as it may, though some may blame, many more will 'pity, a man such as Col. Hutchinson, who found or conceived himself reduced to the cruel alternative of permitting all that system of liberty, civil and religions, to the establishment of which he had devoted all his faculties, and was ready to sacrifice his existence, to be risqucd upon the good faith of a man whose misfortune it was (to say no worse) to be environed by des igning and ambitious persons, who rendered all his virtues abortive, and made all afraid to trust him, or of signing a sentence which has since been called a murder, and the undergo ing it a martyrdom! At any rate it would be highly ungracious and nngrateful in us, while we enjoy in our well-balanced constitution the benefits deri1'ed to us from the virtue, the energy, the sufferings, and even the faults of our ances.tors, to pass a severe censure on their conduct: for it will hardly be denied that the remembrance of his father's fate influenced James the Second to yield so easy and bloodless a victory to his opponents, and leave them to se ttle the constitution arhidst calm and sober councils. On the contrary, we are bound to ascribe many of the
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