HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

to the crown. Having shared the distress of their prince, werethey not to share his triumph? Was no distinction to be madebetween them and the disloyal subject who had fought againsthis rightful sovereign, who had adhered to Richard Cromwell,and who had never concurred in the restoration of the Stuarts,till it appeared that nothing else could save the nation from thetyranny of the army? Grant that such a man had, by his recentservices, fairly earned his pardon. Yet were his services, ren-dered at the eleventh hour, to be put in comparison with thetoils and sufferings of those who had borne the burden andheat of the day? Was he to be ranked with men who had noneed of the royal clemency, with men who had, in every part oftheir lives, merited the royal gratitude? Above all, was he tobe suffered to retain a fortune raised out of the substance ofthe ruined defenders of the throne? Was it not enough thathis head and his patrimonial estate, a hundred times forfeitedto justice, were secure, and that he shared, with the rest of thenation, in the blessings of that mild government of which hehad long been the foe? Was it necessary that he should berewarded for his treason at the expense of men whose onlycrime was the fidelity with which they had observed their oathof allegiance? And what interest had the King in gorging hisold enemies with prey torn from his old friends ? What confi-dence could be placed in men who had opposed their so-vereign, made war on him, imprisoned him, and who, evennow, instead of hanging down their heads in shame and con-trition, vindicated all that they had done, and seemed to thinkthat they had given an illustrious proof of loyalty by juststopping short of regicide? It was true that they had latelyassisted to set up the throne: but it was not less true that theyhad previously pulled it down, and that they still avowed prin-ciples which might impel them to pull it down again. Un-doubtedly it might be fit that marks of royal approbationshould be bestowed on some converts who had been eminently