10

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CTIAP.

XXV._ 161 ) 9 .

Discon-tent ofthe na-tion.

hands. In defiance of all decency, he went to West-minster Hall, demanded a hearing, and pronounced aharangue against standing armies. “Here,” he said, “isa man who lives on money taken out of our pockets. Theplea set up for taxing us in order to support him is thathis sword protects us, and enables us to live in peaceand security. And is he to be suffered to use that swordto destroy us?” Kirke was tried and found guilty ofmanslaughter. In his case, as in the case.of SpencerCowper, an attempt was made to obtain a writ of ap-peal. The attempt failed; and Seymour was disap-pointed of his revenge: but he was not left without con-solation. If he had lost a son, he had found, what heseems to have prized quite as much, a fertile theme forinvective.

The King, on his return from the Continent, found hissubjects in no bland humour. All Scotland, exasperatedby the fate of the first expedition to Darien, and anxiouslywaiting for news of the second, called loudly for a Parlia-ment. Several of the Scottish peers carried to Kensingtonan address which was subscribed by thirty six of their body,and which earnestly pressed William to convoke the Es-tates at Edinburgh, and to redress the wrongs which hadbeen done to the colony of New Caledonia. A petition tothe same effect was widely circulated among the com-monalty of his Northern kingdom, and received, if reportcould be trusted, not less than thirty thousand signatures.Discontent was far from being as violent in England as in