fhe was ill; and fhe anfwered aloud, "Yes, I am ;" and added, with a lower voice, "if the Frenchmen go out of this hut, my hufband dies, and all the Natches will die with him; ftay then, brave Frenchmen, because your words are as powerful as arrows; befides, who could have ventured to do what you have done? But you are his true friends and thofe of his brother." Their laws obliged the great Sun's wife to follow her husband in the grave: This was doubtlefs the caufe of her fears; and likewife the gratitude towards the French, who interested themfelves in behalf of his life, prompted her to speak in the above-mentioned manner. The great Sun gave his hand to the officers, and faid to them: My friends, my heart is so overpowered with grief, that, though my eyes were pen, I have not raken notice that you have been ftanding all this while, nor have I afked you to fit down; but pardon the excess of my affliction." The Frenchmen told him, that he had no need of excufes; that they were going to leave him alone, but that they would cease to be his friends unless he gave orders to light the fires again *, lighting his own before them, and that they fhould not leave him till his brother was buried. He took all the Frenchmen by the hands, and faid, "Since all the chiefs and noble officers will have me ftay on earth, I will do it, I will not kill myfelf; let the fires be lighted again immediately, and I will wait till death joins me to my brother; I am already old, and till I die I fhall walk with the French; had it not been for them, I fhould have gone with my brother, and all the roads would have been covered with dead bodies." *The great Sun had given orders to put out all the firs, which is only done at the death of the fovereign. The writings of Mr. Sidney are unequal, like those of most men who are not profeffedly scholars. But how far the above obfervation is juit, may be feen from the following letter which he wrote to one of his friends who had advised him to return into England after the restoration.- -Sir, I am forry I cannot in all things conform myfelf to the advices of my friends. If theirs had any joint concernment with mine, I fhould willingly fubinit my intereft to theirs: But when I alone am interested, and they only advise me to C 4 come manly, yet tender eloquence of Brutus, breathes forth, and who, in firmness and fimplicity of character, resembled that first of Romans. Lord Ruffel, though heir to the greatest fortune in the kingdom, yet efteeming the meaneft freeman to be his equal, fo difin terefted, that he never accepted any office of profit or power under government, was the most popular man in England. From principle and reasoning, more than from natural vigour of fentiment, he affumed the high tone of oppofition to arbitrary power, and therefore come over as foon as the act of indemnity is paffed, because they think it is beft for me, I cannot wholly lay afide my own judgment and choice. I confefs, we are naturally inclined to delight in our own country, and I have a particular love to mine. I hope, I have given fome teftimony of it. I think, that being exiled from it is a great evil; and would redeem myself from it with the lofs of a great deal of my blood. But when that country of mine, which uled to be esteemed a paradife, is now like to be made a stage of injury; the liberty, which we hoped to establish, oppreffed; luxury and lewdnefs fet up in its height, instead of the piety, virtue, fobriety, and modelty, which we hoped God, by our hands, would have introduced; the best of our nation made a prey to the worft; the parliament, court, and army, corrupted; the people enflaved; all things vendible; no man fafe, but by fuch evil and infamous means as flattery and bribery: what joy can I have in my own country in this condition? Is it a pleasure to fee all I love in the world is fald and destroyed? Shall I renounce all my old principles, learn the vile court-arts, and make my peace by bribing fome of them? Shall their corruption and vice be my safety? Ah! no: Better is a life among strangers, than in my own country upon such conditions. Whilft I live, I will endeavour to preferve my liberty; or, at leaft, not confent to the deftroying of it. I hope, I fhall die in the fame principles in which I have lived, and will no longer live than they can preferve me. I have in my life been guilty of many follies; but, as I think, of no meanness. I will not blot and defile that which is paft, by endeavouring to provide for the future. I have ever had in my mind, that when God fhould caft me into fuch a condition, as that I cannot fave my life, but by doing an indecent thing, he fhews me the time is come, wherein I fhould refign it. And when I cannot live in my own country, hut by fuch means as are worfe than dying in it, I think he fhews me I ought to keep myself out of it. Let them please themselves with making the King glorious, who think a whole people may justly be facrificed for the intereft and pleasure of one man, and a few of his followers: Let them rejoice in their fubtilty, who, by betraying the former powers, have gained the favour of this, not only preferved, but advanced themfelves in thefe dangerous changes. Nevertheless, perhaps, they may find the King's glory is their fhame, his plenty the people's mifery; and that the gaining of an office, or a little money, is a poor reward for detroying a nation, (which, if it were preferved in liberty and virtue, would truly be the most glorious in the world) and that others may find they have with much pains purchafed their own fhame and mifery; a dear price paid for that, which is not worth keeping, nor the life that is accompanied with it. My thoughts as to King and ftate depending upon their actions, no man fhall be a more faithful fervant to him than I, if he make the good and profperity of his people his glory; none more his enemy, if he doth the contrary. To my particular friends I fhall be conftant in all occafions; and to you a moft affectionate fervant." the the higher praise was due to him. When Charles difappointed the bill of exclufion, Lord Ruffel faid, "If my father had advised the measure, I would have been the first to impeach him." But what he only faid, Effex and Sidney would have done. Effex had been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and at the head of the Treafury; but threw every honour of government behind him, because he preferred the people to the King. Sidney had been active equally in parliament, and in the field, against Charles the First, as long as that Prince was an object of terror, but, when he was appointed to be one of his judges, he refused to trample upon an enemy who could no longer defend himfelf. He checked and prevented fome attempts against the life of Charles II. while a youth. He oppofed Cromwell, from the fame hatred of arbitrary power, which had made him rebel against his fovereign. After the restoration, he fubmitted to a voluntary banishment during fixteen years; because he did not efleem that to be any longer his country, from which he thought liberty had fled. He returned to England, only with a view to pay the laft duties to his father, the Earl of Leicester, who was dying, and then to quit it for ever: But, drawing in with his native air that spirit of party, which scarce any Briton can refift, he altered his intention, and plunged into all the cabals of the popular leaders in parliament. He had received a pardon from Charles the II. for his offences against government: But, like Brutus, he thought that no obligations to himself could shake off thofe which he owed to his country. The high rank of the Duke of Monmouth, with his ftill higher popularity in the nation, made thefe men receive him into their councils, who was at this time particularly irritated by the affronts which had been lately put upon him. Effex introduced into the fame councils Lord Howard, who, forgetting the nobility of his blood amidst republican notions, had fate as a commoner in one of Cromwell's parliaments; a man against whom Ruffel, though his near relation, had long entertained an averfion; either from an antipathy, which nature sometimes gives men against their bane, or from the common repugnance which people of filent tempers have to the loquacious. But Howard affumed merit from his late fufferings, and his continual complaints of them were accounted pledges of his fincerity. By long fociety in party, the fentiments of thefe men in politics had come to be the fame; and, as often happens to men of fimilar fentiments, they believed that their objects were the fame too, although they were very different. Ruffel, Effex, and Hampden, intended to make no further use of infurrection, than to exclude the Duke of York, and to fix the barriers of the conftitution with precifion. Sidney aimed at the deftruction of monarchy, and on its ruins to found that republic, which in imagination he adored. Monmouth hoped, amidst public diftractions, to pave a way for himself to the throne. Howard, with luxuriant eloquence and wit, adopted the views of each particular perfon, and incited all to vi gour * gour and action, feeling for moments what they felt through life. Although thefe perfons difliked Shaftesbury, they all, except Sidney, who fcorned the intercourfe, entered into a communication of measures with him, becaufe they flood in need of his vaft party in the city, which was as daring as himself. Shaftesbury's only object was revenge. For, having lately informed the Duke of York, that the Dutchefs of Portsmouth had prevailed upon the King, to get her fon named his fucceffor by parliament; and having offered to communicate other fecrets to the Duke, if he would pardon what was paft, the Duke broke off the converfation, by faying coldly, "My Lord Shafter "bary, you stand more in need of "the King's pardon, than of "mine." Lord Grey, endowed with the knowledge of letters and arts, but who hid under it a foul void of the virtue to which that knowledge is allied, joined the confpiracy; a man from whofe loofe life no generous enterprize was expected. A jury had lately found him guilty of debauching his wife's fifter, a daughter of a noble family; but, in the noife of public distractions, he hoped to make his private vices be forgot by the world and himfelf. Sir Thomas Armstrong, equally carelefs, but more innocent, followed his example: He had been Colonel of the guards, Gentleman of the horse to the King, the attendant of all his fortunes, and a companion in his pleasures: But the fame focial difpofition, which had attached him formerly to the father, attached him now to the fon. Thefe were joined by Trenchard, who had made the motion for the bill of exclufion in the house of commons, and who exhibited in his perfon an example, common enough in public life, of great political, but of little perfonal courage. Major Wildman, a violent republican, who had been an agitator in Cromwell's army, Rumfey, one of Cromwell's colonels, whofe reputation as a brave blunt foldier was high, and Ferguson, a Scotchman, and diffenting clergyman, remarkable for ferving his party, and faving himself, in all plots, were the only perfons of inferior note who were admitted to their cabals. Their meetings were held chiefly at the houfe of one Shepherd, a wine-merchant in the city, and who was accounted an humble and discreet dependent; a dangerous character to be trufted with the fecrets of the great, in confpiracies. The most formidable of the confpirators were Effex, Sidney, and Hampden; partly because they were determined deríts, and partly because they who believe they have a right over their own lives, are always mafters of those of other men. But Hampden, formed rather for the detail of oppofition in parliament, than for the great ftrokes of faction in the ftate, although eminent when compared with other perfons, had neither the talents nor the virtues of the two former. Ruffel invited Lord Cavendish, the friend whom he loved moft, to join the party. Cavendish, who thought the project rafh and premature, refufed; and advifed Ruffel to retreat, if he could without dishonour, but to proceed, if he could not. Without Without explaining themselves to each other upon the ends they propofed, the confpirators agreed upon an infurrection. Shaftefbury, who had been accuflomed to city-tumults from his earlieft youth, preffed for its being begun, and without lofs of time, in the city, where, as he expreffed himfelf," He had 10,000 brifk boys ready to ftart up at a motion of "his finger." Monmouth, who defpifed the citizens, because he had been accustomed to regular troops, thought the country the more proper fcene of action at firft; "Because," he said, "if 66 the King's troops, which were "only about 5000 men, and at "that time all quartered in Lon"don, fhould march out to quell the infurrection, the capital "" would be left unguarded; 66 or, if they continued in town "to over-awe it, the infurgents would increase in numbers and courage in the country." At laft, it was agreed, that, in order to create the greater diftraction, the attempt fhould be made both in town and in the country at the fame time. For this purpose, Shaftesbury undertook to raise the city, which he had divided into twenty parts, having fixed the commanders, and they the men under them, who were to act in each divifion; though partly from fufpicion, and partly through pride, he refufed to give in lifts of his affociates. Monmouth engaged to prevail upon Lord Macclesfield, Lord Brandon, Lord Delamer, and Sir Gilbert Gerard, to make an infurrection in Chefhire; and Lord Ruffel, that Sir William Courteney, who was tenderly attached to him, Sir Francis Drake, and other gentlemen in the west, fhould raise another in the western countries. Trenchard gave affurances, that all the inhabitants of the difaffected town of Taunton fhould be in arms at a minute's warning. Shaftesbury was defired to connect the party with the dif contented Scotch, and with the Earl of Argyle, because he was connected with them himself. Monmouth, Grey, and Armstrong at one time, and Wildman at another, furveyed the guards, to obferve how they might be fecured. The general alarm which was intended to have been given at Michaelmas, in the year 1682, was deferred from time to time, by different accidents. It was once fixed for Queen Elizabeth's birthday, the 17th of November of that year, because that Princefs had carried the glories of the English name as high, as, they faid, Charles and his brother had laid them low. But, afterwards, it occurring, that most of the guards were that day put upon duty, in order to prevent the diforders in the streets, with which it was ufually accompanied, the time was put off until the Sunday following; because, on a Sunday, the ftreets could be crouded with mechanics, without giving fufpicion. But Ferguson, affigning another reason for the change, toid fome of his affociates in the city, "That the fanctity of the work was fuited to the fanctity of the day." But, as it is impoffible to check the ardour of confpirators, and especially in a country where every man glories in thinking for himfelf, a great number of thofe whom Shaftesbury had defined for the |