33. The Examination of James Harrington, taken in the Tower of London by the Earl of Lauderdale, Sir George Carteret, an
Renaissance James Harrington EnglishSir, I have heretofore accounted it an honor to be your kinsman, but am now sorry to see you upon this occasion; very sorry, I assure you.
My lord, seeing this is an occasion, I am glad to see you upon this occasion. Which said, the commissioners sat down; and Mr. Harrington standing before my lord, he began in this manner.
Sir, the king thinks it strange that you, who have so eminently appear’d in principles contrary to his majesty’s government, and the laws of this nation, should ever since he came over live so quiet and unmolested, and yet should be so ungrateful. Were you disturb’d? were you so much as affronted, that you should enter into such desperat practices?
My lord, when I know why this is said, I shall know what to say.
Well then, without any longer preamble, will you answer me ingenuously, and as you are a gentleman, to what I have to propose?
My lord, I value the asseveration (as I am a gentleman) as high as any man, but think it an asseveration too low upon this occasion; wherfore, with your leave, I shall make use of som greater asseveration.
For that do as you see good: do you know Mr. Wildman?
My lord, I have som acquaintance with him.
When did you see him?
My lord, he and I have not bin in one house together these two years.
Will you say so?
Yes, my lord.
Where did you see him last?
About a year ago I met him in a street that gos to Drury-lane.
Did you go into no house?
No, my lord.
That’s strange!
Com, this will do you no good: had not you, in March last, meetings with him in Bowstreet in Coventgarden? where there were about twenty more of you; where you made a speech about half an hour long, that they should lay by distinguishing names, and betake themselves together into one work, which was to dissolve this parlament, and bring in a new one, or the old one again. Was not this meeting adjourn’d from thence to the Mill Bank? were not you there also?
My lord, you may think, if these things be true, I have no refuge but to the mercy of God and of the king.
True.
Well then, my lord, solemnly and deliberately, with my eyes to heaven, I renounce the mercy of God and the king, if any of this be true, or if ever I I thought or heard of this till now that you tell it me.
This is strange!
Do you know Barebones?
Yes, my lord.
When did you see him?
I think that I have call’d at his house or shop thrice in my life.
Had you never any meetings with him since the king came over?
No, my lord.
This is strange!
Do you know Mr. Nevil?
Very well, my lord.
When did you see him?
My lord, I seldom us’d to visit him; but when he was in town, he us’d to see me at my house every evening, as duly almost as the day went over his head.
Were you not with him at som public meeting?
My lord, the publickest meeting I have bin with him at, was at dinner at his own lodging, where I met Sir Bernard Gascoin, and I think Col. Leg.
They were good safe company.
What time was it?
In venison time I am sure, for we had a good venison pasty.
Do you know one Portman?
No, my lord, I never heard of his name before.
This is strange!
Com, deal ingenuously, you had better confess the things.
My lord, you do not look upon me (for I saw he did not firmly) I pray look upon me. Do you not know an innocent face from a guilty one? com, you do, my lord, every one dos: my lord, you are great men, you com from the king, you are the messengers of death.
Is that a small matter? (at which my lord gave a shrug.)
If I be a malefactor, I am no old malefactor: why am not I pale? why do not I tremble? why dos not my tongue falter? why have you not taken me tripping? My lord, these are unavoidable symtoms of guilt. Do you find any such thing in me?
No (which he spoke with a kind of amazement) and then added, I have said all that I think I have to say.
My lord, but I have not.
Com then.
This plainly is a practice, a wicked practice, a practice for innocent blood; and as weak a one as it is wicked. Ah, my lord, if you had taken half the pains to examin the guilty that you have don to examin the innocent, you had found it; it could not have escap’d you. Now, my lord, consider if this be a practice, what kind of persons you are that are thus far made instrumental in the hands of wicked men. Nay, whither will wickedness go? Is not the king’s authority (which should be sacred) made instrumental? My lord, for your own sake, the king’s fake, for the Lord’s sake, let such villanys be found out and punish’d. At this my lord Lauderdale, as was thought somwhat out of countenance, rose up; and fumbling with his hand upon the table, said:
Why if it be as you say, they deserve punishment enough, but otherwise look it will com severely upon you.
My lord, I accepted of that condition before.
Com, Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, it is late.
My lord, now if I might I could answer the preamble.
Com, say; and so he sat down again.
My lord, in the preamble you charge me with being eminent in principles contrary to the king’s government, and the laws of this nation. Som, my lord, have aggravated this, saying, that I being a privat man have bin so mad as to meddle with politics: what had a privat man to do with government? My lord, there is not any public person, not any magistrat, that has written in the politics worth a button. All they that have bin excellent in this way, have bin privat men, as privat men, my lord, as my self. There is Plato, there is Aristotle, there is Livy, there is Machiavel. My lord, I can sum up Aristotle’s politics in a very few words; he says there is the barbarous monarchy (such a one where the people have no votes in making the laws) he says there is the heroic monarchy (such a one where the people have their votes in making the laws) and then he says there is democracy; and affirms that a man cannot be said to have liberty, but in a democracy only.
My lord Lauderdale, who thus far had bin very attentive, at this shew’d som impatience.
I say, Aristotle says so; I have not said so much. And under what prince was it? Was it not under Alexander, the greatest prince then in the world? I beseech you, my lord, did Alexander hang up Aristotle, did he molest him? Livy for a commonwealth is one of the fullest authors; did not he write under Augustus Cæsar? did Cæsar hang up Livy, did he molest him? Machiavel, what a commonwealthsman was he? but he wrote under the Medici when they were princes in Florence; did they hang up Machiavel, or did they molest him? I have don no otherwise than as the greatest politicians, the king will do no otherwise than as the greatest princes. But, my lord, these authors had not that to say for themselves that I have; I did not write under a prince, I wrote under a usurper, Oliver. He having started up into the throne, his officers (as pretending to be for a commonwealth) kept a murmuring, at which he told them that he knew not what they meant, nor themselves; but let any of them shew him what they meant by a commonwealth (or that there was any such thing) they should see that he sought not himself: the Lord knew he sought not himself, but to make good the cause. Upon this som sober men came to me and told me, if any man in England could shew what a commonwealth was, it was my self. Upon this persuasion I wrote; and after I had written, Oliver never answer’d his officers as he had don before, therfore I wrote not against the king’s government. And for the law, if the law could have punish’d me, Oliver had don it; therfore my writing was not obnoxious to the law. After Oliver the parlament said they were a commonwealth; I said they were not, and prov’d it: insomuch that the parlament accounted me a cavalier, and one that had no other design in my writing, than to bring in the king; and now the king first of any man makes me a roundhead.
These things are out of doors; if you be no plotter, the king dos not reflect upon your writings.
And so rising up, they went out; my lord being at the head of the stairs, I said to him, My lord, there is one thing more; you tax me with ingratitude to the king, who had suffer’d me to live undisturb’d: truly, my lord, had I bin taken right by the king, it had (by this example already given) bin no more than my due. But I know well enough I have bin mistaken by the king; the king therfore taking me for no friend, and yet using me not as an enemy, is such a thing as I have Edition: current; Page: [xxxi] mention’d to all I have convers’d with, as a high character of ingenuity and honor in the king’s nature.
I am glad you have had a sense of it; and so went down.
My lord, it is my duty to wait on you no farther.
Notwithstanding the apparent innocence of our author, he was still detain’d a close prisoner; and chancellor Hide, at a conference of the lords and commons, charg’d him with being concern’d in the plot, wherof one and thirty persons were the chief managers, after this manner: That they met in Bowstreet, Coventgarden, in St. Martin’s-le-grand, at the Mill-Bank, and in other places; and that they were of seven different partys or interests, as three for the commonwealth, three for the long parlament, three for the city, three for the purchasers, three for the disbanded army, three for the independents, and three for the fifthmonarchy men. That their first consideration was how to agree on the choice of parlamentmen against the insuing fession: and that a special care ought to be had about members for the city of London, as a precedent for the rest of the kingdom to follow; wherupon they nominated the four members after chosen, and now sitting in parlament: but three of these, being then present, stood up, and clear’d themselves of this aspersion. Their next care was to frame a petition to the parlament for a preaching ministry, and liberty of conscience. Then they were to divide and subdivide themselves into several councils and committees, for the better carrying on their business by themselves or their agents and accomplices all over the kingdom. In these meetings Harrington was said to be often in the chair; that they had taken an oath of secresy, and concerted measures for levying men and mony.
The chancellor added, that tho he had certain information of the times and places of their meetings, and particularly those of Harrington and Wildman, they were nevertheless so fixt in their nefarious design, that none of those they had taken would confess any thing, not so much as that they had seen or spoken to one another at those times or places: which obstinacy he thought must needs procede from a faithfulness to their oath. But a committee of lords and commons, after several sittings, could make nothing of this imaginary plot, and did not ever name our author in all their reports.
His sisters in the mean time being impatient to see him, and to know his condition, after several fruitless petitions, obtain’d an order of council at last to be admitted into the Tower, where they found him barbarously treated by the lieutenant, whom they sosten’d into more humanity with a present of fifty pounds under the notion of fees. By them he deliver’d a petition to the king, importing, that in the late times he was no public person, nor acted to any man’s detriment in his life, body, or estate, but on the contrary had don his endeavors to help all persons in distress; that he had oppos’d the usurper in such a manner as was judg’d even by the royalists themselves to be very much to his disadvantage; and that it was not probable that he, who had liv’d so peaceably before, would attempt any novelty after his majesty’s restoration: wherefore he beg’d the favor of a public trial, or a more easy confinement. But tho he had bin now a prisoner during the space of five months, neither he nor any on his behalf could receive an answer to their petitions; which made him somwhat impatient, not so much to injoy his liberty, as to vindicat himself from the base aspersions of his enemys. He therfore continually urged his fister Ashton to procure him a trial, which she not being able to effect, Edition: current; Page: [xxxii] he petition’d the parlament, shewing that he had lain a close prisoner in the Tower for five months upon a bare suspicion of som disaffection to the government, which in all his examinations did not in the least appear; and that he hop d e’er that time so to have clear’d his innocence by a public trial, as to deserve his liberty. But because he understood these matters were in som measure represented to their house, he would not presume, without first making his application to them, to sue for his freedom by other legal means. “May it therefore please this honorable house, says he, to take tender consideration of the sufferings of an Englishman hitherto innocent; and that the long continuance of him in prison without trial may be hereafter the case of others, and a precedent for the like case: and that this honorable house would please to move his majesty that your petitioner may be proceded against by a legal way of trial, or that he may have his freedom; that so he may no longer languish in prison to the ruin of his health and estate.” These are not the words of a man conscious of guilt, or afraid of power.
His sister could get no member to deliver this petition, or to give her any incouragement; som alleging that she was more likely to destroy than serve her brother, and others, that by unseasonable pressing she might precipitat his danger; wheras if he would be patient under his sufferings, he might be safe in his restraint. Then he advis’d her to move for his habeas corpus; which at first was flatly deny’d, but afterwards when it was granted and duly serv’d, his warder came one day to his sisters at Westminster, and acquainted them, that between one and two a clock that morning their brother was put on board a ship to be transported he knew not whither, without any time given him either to see his friends, or to make provision of mony, linen, or other necessarys. Nor could his relations for a whole fortnight, either at the Tower or in the secretarys office, learn what was becom of him, till they receiv’d a note from himself on board one of the king’s ships then lying under Hurst castle, informing them that he believ’d he was bound for Plymouth. About a month after he sent ’em word by another letter that he was landed on a kind of rock opposite to Plymouth, call’d St. Nicholas’s Island, whence he afterwards had frequent opportunitys of writing to ’em many pious and moral admonitions, as well as letters of business and entertainment.
But his close restraint to this small spot of earth, where there was no fresh water, and scarce any room to move his body, quickly chang’d the state of his health; this occasion’d him to petition he might be remov’d to Plymouth, which was granted, his brother William, and his uncle Anthony Samuel, obliging themselves in a bond of 5000 l. for his safe imprisonment. Here he had not only the liberty of walking on the hoe, but was also us’d with extraordinary respect by the deputy-governor of the fort, Sir John Skelton, who frequently invited him to his table, and much lov’d his conversation. Among the other acquaintance he made at Plymouth, one was Dr. Dunstan, who advis’d him to take a preparation of guaiacum in coffee, as a certain cure for the scurvy, with which he was then troubled. He drank of this liquor in great quantitys, every morning and evening. But after using it for som time, his sisters, to their no small amazement, receiv’d no more answers to their letters. At length advice was brought ’em from his landlady, that his fancy was much disorder’d, and desiring som body might com to look after him. Immediately one of them address’d her self to the earl of Bath, then chief governor of Plymouth, and inform’d him of his prisoner’s sad condition. This noble lord, who laid many obligations on him before, and gave frequent Edition: current; Page: [xxxiii] orders for his good usage, went hereupon to intercede for him with the king, representing the danger of his life if he were not remov’d from that unwholsom place to London, where he might have the advice of able physicians: and the king was accordingly pleas’d to grant a warrant for his release, since nothing appear’d against him supported by good proof or probable presumtions.
The next day the lady Ashton, with another of his sisters, took their journey towards Plymouth, where they found their poor brother so transform’d in body and mind, that they scarce could persuade themselves it was the same person. He was reduc’d to a skeleton, not able to walk alone, slept very little, his imagination disturb’d, often fainted when he took his drink, and yet so fond of it that he would by no means be advis’d to forbear it. Dr. Prujean, and other eminent physicians, greatly blam’d Dr. Dunsten’s prescriptions, giving their opinion under their hands, that guaiacum and the other drying things, which he administer’d to his patient in coffee, were enough of themselves to beget melancholy or phrenzy, where there was no previous disposition to it. A rumor at Plymouth, that Harrington had taken some drink which would make any man mad in a month; the surliness of his doctor, and somthing blab’d by a maid that was put against his will to attend him, made his sister suspect he had foul play lest he should write any more Oceanas. ’Tis certain, that (tho his recovery was never perfect) he mended finely as soon as he was persuaded to abstain from this liquor. In less than a month he was able to bear the journey to London in a coach, where he was no sooner arriv’d, but Sir John Skelton, who was then in town, paid him a visit. My lady Ashton complaining to him that she had not timely notice of her brother’s distemper, he protested he would have sent her word of it, had not his doctor assur’d him that he only counterfeited; and yet at the same time he made him take strong doses of hellebor, and God knows what besides.
He past som time at Ashted in Surrey, to drink the Epsom waters, by which he found no benefit. At London he was put wholly under the care of Dr. Prujean, who with all his art could afford little help to the weakness of his body, and none at all to the disorder of his mind, to his dying day. He was allow’d to discourse of most other things as rationally as any man, except his own distemper, fancying strange things in the operation of his animal spirits, which he thought to transpire from him in the shape of birds, of flys, of bees, or the like. And those about him reported that he talk’d much of good and evil spirits, which made them have frightful apprehensions. But he us’d, they said, somtimes to argue so strenuously that this was no deprav’d imagination, that his doctor was often put to his shifts for an answer. He would on such occasions compare himself to Democritus, who for his admirable discoverys in anatomy was reckon’d distracted by his fellow-citizens, till Hippocrates cur’d ’em of their mistake. I confess I did not know at first what to make of these things from the informations of his acquaintance, till I met with a letter of Dr. Burthogge to his sister, wherin are contain’d certain querys propos’d to him by Harrington, with a state of his case written by the doctor, who was his intimat friend, and a very good judg, whether consider’d as a physician or a philosopher, as appears by his late treatise of the Soul of the World, &c. and as I have particular reason to affirm from his letters to my lady Ashton, which are all now before me. Among other things the doctor says, that he ever exprest the highest satisfaction in thinking of what he had at any time written, as the best service he was capable to do his country, and sincerely intended Edition: current; Page: [xxxiv] by him to the glory of God, which he thought in som measure to be the good of mankind: so far was he from being under any remorse of conscience on that score, as his ill-wishers maliciously reported. Now, tho I was somwhat stagger’d concerning the nature of his distemper by Dr. Burthogge’s letter, I grew perfectly amaz’d when I found among his papers the beginning of a little treatise written by himself, wherin (without raillery) he proves ’em to be all mad that thought him so with respect to what he discours’d of nature, which he maintain’d to work mechanically or mathematically, as Bellini, Borelli, Dr. Pitcairne, and other eminent men, have since evidently shewn. It appears there that his pretended visions of angels and devils were nothing else but good or bad animal spirits, and that his flys and bees were only similitudes wherby he us’d to express the various figures and forms of those particles. I own that he might probably enough be much decay’d in his understanding, by reason of his great and long weakness of body; but I shall never be convinc’d that he was delirious in that only instance which they allege: and to satisfy the learned in this point (which, in my opinion, is a memorable story that concerns ’em all) I shall subjoin his own discourse to this history.
Were he really out of order, it had bin his misfortune, not his fault, and was the case of som of the best men that ever liv’d. An action that will better persuade the world he was not truly himself, was his marrying in this condition. The lady was a very agreeable woman, whose person and conversation he always admir’d; she was the daughter of Sir Marmaduke Dorrel of Buckinghamshire, fam’d for wit more than became her pretensions to good sense, had long liv’d among his relations with the respect of a friend and a sister; but now would needs change the office of a voluntary attendant for the name of a wife. It soon appear’d that this match was not so much disinterested as she would pretend, which occasion’d som difference between ’em; but they were quickly reconcil’d, and she was always treated by him afterwards with the highest generosity, tho she did not use him so handsomly when they were both young and healthy, and might have made a more seasonable match than at this time. Towards his latter end he was subject to the gout, and enjoy’d little ease, but languishing and drooping a good while, he fell at last into a palsy, and departed this life at Westminster, the 11th of September, in the year 1677 (leaving his estate to his brother’s children) and lys bury’d there in St. Margaret’s church, on the south side of the altar, next to the grave of Sir Walter Raleigh, with this inscription over him: Hic jacet Jacobus Harrington Armiger (filius maximus natu Sapcotis Harrington de Rand, in Com. Linc. Equitis aurati, & Janæ uxoris ejus, filiæ Gulielmi Samuel de Upton in Com. Northamton, Militis) qui obiit septimo die Septembris, ætatis suæ sexagesimo sexto, anno Dom. 1677. Nec virtus, nec animi dotes (arrha licet æterni in animam amoris Dei) corruptione eximere queant corpus.
Thus dy’d James Harrington, whose name is sure to live so long as learning and liberty bear any reputation in England. But tho he did not think so highly of himself, yet he was strongly persuaded that his Oceana was the model of an equal commonwealth, or a government wherin no party can be at variance with or gain ground upon another, and never to be conquer’d by any foren power; whence he concluded it must needs be likewise immortal: for as the people, who are the materials, never dy; so the form, which is the motion, must (without som opposition) be endless. The immortality of a commonwealth is such a new and curious problem, that I could not assure my self of the reader’s pardon, without Edition: current; Page: [xxxv] giving him som brief account of the arguments for it, and they run much after this manner. The perfection of government is such a libration in the frame of it, that no man or men under it can have the interest, or (having the interest) can have the power to disturb it with sedition. This will be granted at first sight, and Harrington appeals to all mankind, whether his Oceana (examin’d by this principle) be not such an equal government, completely and intirely fram’d in all its necessary orders or fundamental laws, without any contradiction to it self, to reason, or truth. If this be so (as the contrary dos not yet appear) then it has no internal cause of dissolution, and consequently such a government can never be ruin’d any way; for he farther shews (what all history cannot contradict) that a commonwealth, if not first broken or divided by factions at home, was never conquer’d by the arms of any monarch from the beginning of the world to this day: but the commonwealth of Oceana having no factions within, and so not to be conquer’d from without, is therfore an equal, perfect, and immortal government. For want of this equality in the frame, he clearly demonstrats how the commonwealths of Rome, Athens, and others, came to be destroy’d by their contending and overtopping partys; wheras that of Venice can never change or finish. He proves that this equality is yet more wanting in monarchys, for an absolute monarchy (as that of the Turk, for example) the Janizarys have frequent interest, and perpetual power to raise sedition to the ruin of the emperor, and, when they please, of the empire: this cannot be said of the armys of Oceana, and therfore an absolute monarchy is no perfect government. In what they improperly call a mix’d monarchy the nobility are somtimes putting chains on the king, at other times domineering over the people; the king is either oppressing the people without control, or contending with the nobility as their protectors; and the people are frequently in arms against both king and nobility, till at last one of the three estates becoms master of the other two, or till they so mutually weaken one another that either they fall a prey to som more potent government, or naturally grow into a commonwealth: therfore mix’d monarchy is not a perfect government; and if no such partys or contentions can possibly exist in Oceana, then on the contrary is it a most equal, perfect, and immortal commonwealth, Quod erat demonstrandum.
It will not be objected to the disparagement of this model, that it was no better receiv’d by Oliver Cromwel; nor is it fair to judg of things at any time by their success. If it should be said, that, after the expiration of his tyranny, the people did not think fit to establish it; I shall only answer, that all the attemts which have bin us’d for introducing arbitrary power have prov’d as unfortunat, wherby it appears at least that the character which Tacitus gave the Romans of his time, may as well agree to the people of England: and it is, that They are able to bear neither absolute liberty, nor absolute slavery.