Volume II Part 7 (1/2)
But it did not arrive at its an to wield the sceptre As he had forn to lay aside parliaments and subvert the popular part of the constitution, he very well knew that the for a restraint on freedom of speech and the liberty of the press: therefore he issued his royal land, whereby he commanded his subjects, under pain of his displeasure, not to prescribe to him any time for parliaments Lord Clarendon, upon this occasion, is pleased to write, ”That all men took themselves to be prohibited, under the penalty of censure (the censure of the Star Chamber), which few men cared to incur, so much as to speak of parliaain to be called”
The king's ministers, to let the nation see they were absolutely determined to suppress all freedom of speech, caused a prosecution to be carried on by the attorney general against three members of the House of Commons, for words spoken in that house, Anno 1628 The members pleaded to the inforht only to be exa, _they were all three condeentlemen, Sir John Eliot, was fined two thousand pounds, and sentenced to lie in prison till it was paid His lady was denied ad his sickness; consequently, his punishment comprehended an additional sentence of divorce This patriot, having endured many years imprisonment, sunk under the oppression, and died in prison: this was such a wound to the authority and rights of Parlialishht be effectually intihts on any subject, except on the side of the court, his majesty's ministers caused an information, for several libels, to be exhibited in the Star Chaainst Messrs _Prynn_, _Burton_, and _Bastwick_ They were each of theed to lose their ears on the pillory, to be branded on the cheeks with hot irons, and to suffer perpetual ientlemen, each of worth and quality in their several professions, viz, divinity, law, and physic, were, for no other offence than writing on controverted points of church governues or the most ordinary malefactors
Such corporeal punishments, inflicted with all the circuentlemen under a servile fear of like treatment; so that, for several years, no one durst publicly speak or write in defence of the liberties of the people; which the king's es, had trampled under their feet The spirit of the administration looked hideous and dreadful; the hate and resent time lay smothered in their breasts, where those passions festered and grew venoed the Charles II aiovernns under a deep hypocrisy: a n, scorned to ravity, discountenanced all barefaced iay, luxurious disposition, openly encouraged it: thus their inclinations being different, the restraint laid on soed after a different n a licenser was appointed for the stage and the press; no plays were encouraged but what had a tendency to debase the n of co circumstances of immodest _double entendre_, obscure description, and lewd representation Religion was sneered out of countenance, and public spirit ridiculed as an aard oldfashi+oned virtue; the fine gentleh embroidered over as a consuh set off with a brilliant iination, was an impudent coquette Satire, which in the hands of _Horace_, _Juvenal_, and _Boileau_, was pointed with a generous resentainst vice, now became the declared foe of virtue and innocence As the city of London, in all ages, as well as the ti of, was remarkable for its opposition to arbitrary power, the poets levelled all their artillery against thethe citizens into contempt: an alderman was never introduced on the theatre but under the co hypocrite, a miser, and a cuckold; while the court-wits, with impunity, libelled the most valuable part of the nation Other writers, of a different staravity, endeavoured to prove to the English people that slavery was _jure divino_[5] Thus the stage and the press, under the direction of a licenser, becaion, virtue, and liberty Those who had courage enough to write in their defence, were stigoverno on as taken off, _Sir Richard Steel_ and _Mr
Addison_ soon rescued the stage from the load of impurity it laboured under with an inily recommended to our imitation the most amiable, rational manly characters; and this with so much success that I cannot suppose there is any reader to-day conversant in the writings of those gentlemen, that can taste with any tolerable relish the coed to retire and give place to virtue: this will always be the consequence when truth has fair play: falsehood only dreads the attack, and cries out for auxiliaries: the truth never fears the encounter: she scorns the aid of the secular arth
But, to resun of Charles II, the doctrine of servitude was chiefly es in the arguht have carried all before his on the other side of the question had not been printed by stealth The authors, whenever found, were prosecuted as seditious libellers; on all these occasions the king's counsel, particularly _Sawyer_ and _Finch_, appeared most obsequious to acco this _blessed_ ue with France to render himself absolute and enslave his subjects
This fact was discovered to the world by Dr _Jonathan Swift_, to whom _Sir William Temple_ had intrusted the publication of his works
_Sidney_, the sworn foe of tyranny, was a gentle and exalted courage The reat an obstacle out of the way of their designs He was prosecuted for high treason The overt act charged in the indictment was a libel found in his private study Mr Finch, the king's own solicitor-general, urged with great vehe_ the death of the king is _treason_, even while that ih the law cannot punish such secret treasonable thoughts till it arrives at the knowledge of them by some overt act That thehow to co of it was an overt act of treason, for that to write was to act (_Scribere est agere_)” It seen had not received the saiven hers; she told them they were to look upon theina_, as _pro domina veritate_) for the power of the queen as for the power of truth
Mr Sidney al defence He insisted that all the words in the book contained no overnment, free for any man to write down; especially since the same are written in the parliaued on the injustice of applying by innuendoes, general assertions concerning principles of govern the death of the king; for then no s done even by our ancestors, in defence of the constitution and freedoer
He denied that _scribere est agere_, but allowed that writing and publishi+ng is to act (_Scribere et publicare est agere_), and therefore he urged that, as his book had never been published nor imparted to any person, it could not be an overt act, within the statutes of treasons, even ad that it contained treasonable positions; that, on the contrary, it was a _covert fact_, locked up in his private study, as e of any man as if it were locked up in the author's mind This was the substance of Mr Sidney's defence: but neither law, nor reason, nor eloquence, nor innocence ever availed where _Jefferies_ sat as judge Without troubling hie, that Sidney's _known principles_ were a _sufficient_ proof of his intention to co
A packed jury therefore found hireat applications were made for his pardon He was executed as a traitor
This case is a pregnant instance of the danger that attends a law for punishi+ng words, and of the little security the most valuable e, by remote inferences and distant innuendoes, may construe the most innocent expressions into capital crimes _Sidney_, the British _Brutus_, the warm, the steady friend of _liberty_; who, froacy, his iovernment, was for these very discourses murdered by the hands of lawless power
Upon the whole, to suppress inquiries into the adovernment; but a free constitution and freedom of speech have such reciprocal dependance on each other, that they cannot subsist without consisting together
The following extracts of a letter, signed Columella, and addressed to the editors of the British Repository for select Papers on Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures (see vol i), will prepare those who read it for the following paper:
”GENTLEMEN,--There is now publishi+ng in France a periodical work, called Ephe to those concerned in agriculture, are fro over one of the voluo, I found a little piece written by one of our countryhbours had taken froentleman well known to every e to whoeneral are more indebted
[6] Citizen's Journal
”That this piece ive it a place in your Repository: it ritten in favour of the farmers, when they suffered so much abuse in our public papers, and were also plundered by the mob in many places”
_To Messieurs the Public_
ON THE PRICE OF CORN, AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE POOR
I am one of that class of people that feeds you all, and at present abused by you all; in short, I am a _farmer_