cumstance to have influenced the jury against him. Nor does the Duke of York, in his letters to the Prince of Orange in 1683, take any notice of his pardon. These facts seem conclusively to refute the idea that he had asked or received any pardon from the government.

Having obtained the king's passport, and relying, as he says, "entirely upon the king's word"-a pledge which in Vane's case had been so shamefully violated Sidney returned to England in the Autumn of 16" "1'7 His father died soon after his arrival, and on the 13th of November of the same year, at Penshurst, he gave a discharge to the Earl's executors for the legacy bequeathed to him, amounting only to five thousand one hundred pounds. His return into France, however, was prevented by his elder brother, Lord Lisle, now Earl of Leicester, questioning his title to some property, which he had received from his father. This led to a long and vexatious suit in chancery, which detained him in England. The suit terminated favorably, and his claims were finally established; but in the meantime Sidney became involved in that unfortunate combination of public events which finally led him to the scaffold.

CHAPTER VI.

Political views of Sidney-His opinion of the danger of a standing army -Project of a war with France-Opposition of Sidney-Corruption of the king-Sidney charged with being a pensioner of France-The charge examined and refuted-Character of Barillon, and Sidney's views of it-The Popish plot-Sidney's opposition to Papacy-A new Parliament-Sidney a candidate-Is defeated by the court-Bill excluding the Duke of York from the throne-Passes the House of Commons, and defeated in the House of Lords-Sidney's opinions as to the succession-Treachery of the king with the new council-Sidney's letter to Neville-A new Parliament summoned-Sidney a candidate and again defeated-His position with respect to the court— Attempt to involve him in a conspiracy of the non-conformists-The king's opinion of Sidney-Fate of the exclusion bill-Dissolution of Parliament, and spirited conduct of the Commons.

SIDNEY'S continued residence in England, occasioned, as we have seen, by the suit in which he had become so unexpectedly involved, was permitted by the government, not as a matter of favor to him, but, most probably, out of consideration to his connections and friends, such as Sunderland, Halifax, and Sir William Temple, the most influential and ablest statesmen in the councils of Charles II. He did not, however, remain long in his native country before the

lively interest he had always felt in its public affairs manifested itself in open and decided action. Hume says that Sidney joined the popular party, when the factions arising from the Popish plot began to run high; and that, full of those ideas of liberty which he had imbibed from the great examples of antiquity, he was even willing to seek a second time, through all the horrors of civil war, for his adored republic. The statement would have been nearer the truth had it been that Sidney always belonged to the popular party; and if he now "joined it," in the sense, perhaps, intended by the historian, it was not to seek a republican government, through all the horrors of civil war, but to carry out consistently and firmly the political principles which his whole life illustrated.

We shall assume that the reader is familiar with the leading features of the political history of this period, and will not attempt, therefore, to do more than to mention, in a general manner, that train of public events connected with Sidney's career, which eventually led to his execution. The long Parliament which Charles II. had summoned, composed principally of servile and devoted royalists, had now been in existence during a period of nearly eighteen years. The inglorious and every way despicable administration of the king, had brought the country into disgrace and contempt. A greater contrast it is scarcely possible to conceive than between the England under the rule of the Protector, and that same

England under the government of Charles II., at one time assisted by the counsels of the intolerant Clarendon; at another, under the guidance of his contemptible "Cabal." Charles was known to be a pensioner of Louis XIV., receiving that monarch's money without scruple, and furthering the policy of Barillon, the intriguing minister of the French king. But besides the effeminacy and shameful profligacy of the king, and his truckling subserviency to a foreign monarch, the tendency of his whole policy, so far as it could be said that he had a policy, under his ministers, particularly the Cabal, and the Earl of Danby, had been to enslave his subjects, to destroy the liberties of his country, and to make himself absolute master of his people.

At this period, when the Parliament was urging the king into a war with France, a favorite design of Charles' seems to have been to raise and keep on foot a standing army, which experience has always shown to be the most formidable instrument of tyrants. Sidney, whose knowledge of the danger of a standing army in Cromwell's time, had given him just views on this subject, earnestly deprecated this projected war with France, and did not hesitate to declare to his friends that it was a juggle, since the two courts being in entire confidence, nothing more was intended by this show of warfare than to raise an army and afterwards to keep it for training and modelling beyond sea." The war, however, was popular in England the Parliament voted the king supplies, and

in a few weeks an army of twenty thousand men was equipped, ready for action, and an alliance between England, Holland, Spain, and the Emperor, projected. This alarmed Louis XIV., whose address and diplomacy, however, soon succeeded in warding off the threatened danger, and in renewing with his brother of England, those amicable relations, no less advantageous to the one, than disgraceful and ignominious to the other. That Sidney's suspicions as to the object and design of the war on the part of Charles were correct, may be reasonably inferred from the fact, that Louis as usual resorted to the purse in order to detach the King of England from the coalition, and offered him large sums of money if he would consent to allow France to make an advantageous peace with the allies. The bait was too tempting for the king to refuse; but there was one article of the negotiation, we are told, which displeased, as well as surprised him; Louis required that he should never keep above eight thousand regular troops in England. "Odd's fish!" exclaimed the king, breaking out into his usual exclamation, "Does my brother of France think to serve me thus? Are all his promises to make me absolute master of my people come to

Or does he think that a thing to be done with eight thousand men ?" A more despicable example of the monarch of a great nation, trafficking in the honor, and bargaining away the interests and liberties of his country for inglorious ease, pleasure, and gold, it is difficult to find in history.