Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/512

498 government no longer a crime, but a meritorious fact. The injustice thus done to these patriots was not that they had not committed treason against the existing government, but that they were condemned on discreditable and insufficient evidence. When men conspire to get rid of a tyrannous government by force, they commit what is legally rendered treason, and must take the consequence, if detected, by the ruling powers. But that circumstance does not render the attempt less meritorious, and if it succeeds they have their reward. In this case the prisoners knew very well that if their real doings could be proved against them, they must fall by the resentment of those whom they sought to get rid of; but they resisted, and justly, being condemned on the evidence of traitors like lord Howard, and even then by evidence less than the law required.



To make out the two necessary witnesses in this case, the attorney-general brought forward several persons to prove that the Scottish agents of conspiracy for whom Sidney had sent had actually arrived in London; but he relied much more on a manuscript pamphlet which was found in Sidney's desk when he was arrested. This pamphlet appeared to be an answer to Filmer's book, which argued that possession was the only right to power. Three persons were called to swear that it was in Sidney's handwriting; but the chief of these was the same perfidious Shepherd, the wine merchant, who had so scandalously betrayed his party. He had seen Sidney sign several endorsements, and believed this to be his writing. A second, who had seen him write once, and a third, who had not seen him write at all, but had seen his hand on some bills, thought it like his writing. This was by no means conclusive, but that did not trouble the court; it went on to read passages in order to show the treasonableness of the manuscript, and then it was adroitly handed to the prisoner on the plea of enabling him to show any reasons for its being deemed harmless; but Sidney was not caught by so palpable a trick. He put back the book as a thing that no way concerned him. On this Jeffreys turned over the leaves and remarked, "I perceive you have arranged your matter under certain heads; so, what heads will you have read?" Sidney replied that the man who wrote it