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Show 324 ATROCIOUS JUDGES. [A. D. 1085. convicted.. But when I consider .in what n1anner several of tho e lives then spared were afterwards spent, I cannot but think a little more lze1np might have been usefully employed upon t h at occas.w n." *.- A great controversy has arisen, " who is chiefly to be blamed- J cffreys or tTame ? " Sheffield, Duke of Buckingbam, declares that "the king never forgave the cruelty of the J'udO'e in executino- such multitudes in the ·west against his ex- b 0 press orders." And reliance is placed by Ilume on the a ·ser-tion of Roger North, that his brother, the lord. keeper, going to the king and moving him "to put a stop to the fury which was in no re pect for his service, and wouhl be counted a * Perhaps this writer had in his eye the case of John Tutchin! a noted political writer, satirized by Pope, a mere boy at the time of the r ebellion, and of whose case 1\Iaca.ulay gives the following account: "A still more frightful sentence was passed on a lad named Tntchin, who was tried fur seditious words. Ile was, as usual, interrupted in his defence by ribaldry and scurrility from the judgment scat. 'You arc a rebel; and all your family have been rebels since Adam. They tell me that you arc a poet. I'll cap verses with you.' The sentence was, that the boy should be imprisoned seven years, and should, during that period, be flogged through every market town in Dorsctshire cvc:ry year. The women in the galleries burst into tears. The clerk of the arrajgns stood llp in great disorder. '.My lord,' said he, 'the prisoner is very young. There are many market towns in our countY. The sentence amounts to whipping once n fortnight for seven years.' · ' If he is a young m:m ,' said J effrcys, 'he is an old rogue. Ladie , you do not know the villain as well as I do. The punishment is not half bad enough for him. All the interest in England shall not alter it.' Tutchin, in his despair, petitioned, and probably with sincerity, that he might be hanged. Fortunately for him, he was, just at this conjuncture, taken ill of the small pox, and given over. As it seemed highly improbable that the sen tcncc would ever be executed, the chief jnstice consented to remit it in return for a bribe which reduced the prisoner to poverty. The temper of Tutchin, not originally very mild, was exasperated to madness by what he had undergone, He lived to be known as one of the most acrimonious and pertinacious enemies of the house of Stuart n.nd of the Tory party."- Ed. A. D.l085.] GEORGE JEFFHEYS. carnage, not law or justice, orders went to mitigate the proceeding ~ ." I l1ave already den1on trateJ that thi. last as ertion is a mere invention;* and though it is easy to fix deep guilt on the judge, it is impossible to exculpate the monarch. Burnet f'ay that James '.'had a particular ftccount of hi proceedings writ to him eYery day, anr1 lw took plea:'ure to r elate them in the drawing-room to foreign n1inister ·, and at his table, calling it J effreys's campaign; . peaking of all he had done in a style that neither became the mnjcsty nor the Inercifulness of a great prince." Jeffreys him ·elf, (certainly a very suspicious witness,) when in the 'l'ower, declared to Tutchin that "his instructions were n1uch n1ore sc\·ere than the execution of them; and that at hi" return he was snulJbcd at court for being too n1crciful." And to Dr. Scott, the divine who uttrndcd him on his death bed, he . aid, "'Vlmtever I did then I did by expres~ orders; and I have thi · further to say for myself, that I \vas not half bloody enough for him who ent me thither." vVe certainly know fr01n a letter written to him by the Earl of Sunderland at Dorchester, that "the king approved entirely of all his proceedings." And though we cannot bc1ieve that he stopped hort of any severity which he thought would be of service to hinL'elf, there seems no rea on to doubt (if that be any palliation) that throughout the whole of thc."e proceedings his object was to plea ·e his 1naster, whose disposition was now mo t vindictive, anu who thought that, by such terrible examples, he shoulJ secure to himself a long a.nd quiet reign:r * Ante, p. 000. t One of the strongest testimonies a(J'ninst James is his own letter to the "Priuce of Orange, dated Sept. 24, 1685', in which, after giving him a long 28 |