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24 because Shales, the commissary-general, had let out the horses destined for this service to the farmers of Cheshire to do their work. The meat for the men stank, the brandy was so fondly adulterated that it produced sickness and severe pains. In the navy the case was the same; and Herbert, now lord Torrington, was severely blamed for not being personally at the fleet to see into the condition of his sailors, but was screened from deserved punishment by his connections. A more complete parallel betwixt the villanies of heads of departments, commissaries, and contractors of that time and of ours could not exist. The king was empowered by parliament at length to appoint a commission of inquiry to discover the whole extent of the evil, and to take remedies against its recurrence.

Then the commons reverted again to their fierce party warfare. Whigs and tories manifested an equal desire to crush their opponents if they had the power, and they kept William in a constant state of uneasiness by their mutual ferocity, and their alternate eagerness to force him into persecutions and blood. Edmund Ludlow, one of the regicides, who had managed to escape the murderous vengeance of Charles and James, but whose companion, John Lisle, had fallen by the hands of Charles's assassins at Lausanne, had been persuaded that he might now return to England unmolested. But he soon found that he was mistaken. The tories vehemently demanded his arrest of the king, and William was obliged to promise compliance; but he appeared in no haste in issuing the warrant; and probably a hint was given to Ludlow, for he escaped again to the continent, and there remained till his death.

On the other hand, the whigs were as unrelaxing in their desire of persecuting the tories. They refused to proceed with the indemnity bill, which William was anxious to get passed as a final preventive of their deadly intentions. They arrested and sent to the Tower the earls of Peterborough and Salisbury for going over from their party to that of James in the last reign, in order to impeach them of high treason. The same was done to Sir Edward Hales and Obadiah Walker. They appointed a committee to inquire into the concern of various individuals in the deaths of Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, and others of the whig party. The committee was termed "the committee of murder," and they called before them such of the judges, law officers of the crown, and others who had taken part in these prosecutions. Sir Dudley North and Halifax were called before them, and underwent a severe examination; but they did not succeed in establishing a charge sufficient to commit them upon. Halifax had already resigned the speakership of the house of lords, and they sought to bring William to deprive him of the privy seal. In these proceedings of the commons, John Hampden, the grandson of the great patriot, and John Howe, were the most violent. Hampden went the length of saying that William ought to dismiss every man who had gone over to him from the late king, and ought not to employ any one who entertained republican principles. This declaration, from a man who had himself been a full-length republican and the friend of Sidney, threw the house into a roar of laughter; but that did not abash Hampden. He drew up an address to the king, on the part of a committee of the commons, calling on him to cause the authors of the late malversations and the consequent failures of the army and navy, so violent that it was altogether dropped.

The whigs next brought in a bill to restore to the corporations their charters, which had been taken away by Charles II.; but, not content with the legitimate fact of the restoration of these ancient rights, they again seized on this as an opportunity for inflicting a blow on the tories. They introduced, at the instigation of William Sacheverell, a clause disqualifying for seven years every mayor, recorder, common councilman, or other officer who had been in any way a party to the surrender of those charters. They added a penalty of five hundred pounds and perpetual disqualification for every person who, in violation of this clause, should presume to hold office in any corporation. They declared that if the lords should hesitate to pass this bill, they would withhold the supplies till it was acquiesced in.

But William did not hesitate to express his displeasure with the bill, and with the indecent hurry with which it was pushed forward. A short delay was interposed, and meantime the news of the intended passing of the bill was carried into every quarter of the kingdom, and the tories, peers and commons, who had gone down to their estates for Christmas, hastened up to town to oppose it. The battle was furious. The whigs flattered themselves that, if they carried this bill, the returns to the next parliament would be such that they should be able to exclude their opponents from all power and place. After a fierce and prolonged debate, the bill was thrown out, and the tories, elated by their victory, again brought forward the indemnity bill; but this time they were defeated in turn, and the whigs immediately proceeded with their design of converting this bill into one of pains and penalties; and to show that they were in earnest, they summoned Sir Robert Sawyer before the house for his part in the prosecution of the whigs in the last reign. He had been attorney-general, and conducted some of the worst cases which were decided under Jeffreys and his unprincipled colleagues, with a spirit which had made him peculiarly odious. The case of Sir Thomas Armstrong was in particular brought forward—a very flagrant one. Sir Thomas had been charged with being engaged in the Rye House plot. He had escaped to the Netherlands, but the authorities having been bribed to give him up, he was brought back, and hanged, without a hearing, as an outlaw. It was a barbarous case, and deserved the severest condemnation; but it was pleaded, on the other hand, that Sawyer had rendered great services to the whig cause; that he had stoutly resisted the attempts of James to introduce popery and despotism; that he had resigned his office rather than advocate the dispensing power, and had undertaken the defence of the seven bishops. No matter; he was excepted from indemnity and expelled the house. A committee of the whole house proceeded to make out a complete list of all the offenders to be excluded from the benefit of the bill.

This brought William to a resolve which, if carried into effect, would have given a death-blow to the whig party, and have neutralised the glory of their accomplishment of the revolution. He sent for his chief ministers, and announced to them his determination to relinquish the fruitless task of endeavouring to govern a country thus torn