as the charge against Essex was fully substantiated in every point—we know that the people did in fact murmur against the sentence. How much more, and how much more dangerously, would they have murmured, if the case had been left by the counsel for the prosecution only half made out! How unjust would it have been, not only to the State, the safety of which depended upon the right dealing with it, but to the prisoner himself! Such an attempt by so popular a man as Essex was a very serious thing. The advantage of a few hours might have turned it into the first stroke of a civil war. The punishment of it was a momentous question of State; and the question was what it really deserved, therefore what it really was;-not whether a capital sentence was justified by the bare letter of the law, but whether the execution of that sentence was demanded by justice and State-policy. For this purpose, to present the case in its true colours was surely the imperative duty of all persons charged with the prosecution. To let the Queen and the people believe that Essex's real object was only to defend himself against assassination, would have been most unjust to them. To explain to the Queen privately, or to the people extra-judicially, the falsehood and frivolity of that plea,-without having publicly challenged it at the bar,-would have been most unjust to him. The first would have betrayed the State in concealing the truth; the second would have betrayed the prisoner in cheating him of his opportunity of defence.

Now as to this fresh allusion which the reviewer says was "more unjustifiable" than the other-this topic which he “cannot understand why Bacon had recourse to"-he could have had no difficulty in understanding it if he had known how the case stood at the time when it was introduced. I can hardly think he would have disapproved of it. Essex's first story was that he was merely acting in self-defence against private enemies from whom he had reason to apprehend an attack. In answer to this it had been shown that there was no ground for any such apprehension, and that it was, in fact, a mere pretext like that of Pisistratus. But this excuse, even if true, would have accounted only for the muster of friends and the restraint of the Councillors. How was he to account for his projected attempt upon the Court and for his endeavour to raise help in the city? To this question he replied that his object was only to secure access to the Queen, that he might "unfold to her his griefs against his private enemies." Bacon answered,-Grant that you meant only to go as a suppliant, “shall petitions be presented by armed petitioners? This must needs bring loss of liberty to the Prince. Neither is it any point of law (as my Lord of Southampton would have it believed) that condemns them of treason, but it is apparent in common

sense. To take secret counsel, to execute it, to run together in numbers, armed with weapons,-what can be the excuse? Warned by the Lord Keeper-by a herald-and yet persist; will any simple man take this to be less than treason?" Upon this Essex argued that "if he had purposed anything against others than those his private enemies, he would not have stirred with so slender a company." "Whereunto Mr. Bacon answered" (continues the Report), "It was not the company you carried with you, but the assistance you hoped for in the city, which you trusted unto. The Duke of Guise thrust himself into Paris on the day of the barricados, in his doublet and hose, attended only with eight gentlemen, and found that help in the city which (thanks be to God) you failed of here. And what followed? The King was forced to put himself into a pilgrim's weeds, and in that disguise to steal away and 'scape their fury. Even such was my Lord's confidence too; and his pretence the same; an all-hail and a kiss to the city; but the end was treason, as hath been sufficiently proved."

This is all the passage. Is there anything strange in the introduction of such a topic? Surely it was very necessary to meet Essex's argument, which was, in fact, a very plausible one. For if he could have proved that his purpose was merely to present himself to the Queen in formâ supplicantis, without any force to back him-I do not say without meaning to use force, for his meaning would have been no guarantee for his actions; he could not himself know what he would have been led to do when he once found himself in that position-but if he could have shown that he had taken no measures and made no endeavour to provide himself with force more than for his personal protection-then, although the act might still perhaps have been treason in law, yet the aspect of his offence, politically as well as morally considered, would have been totally altered. Now the fact that he went into the city with a slender company, armed only with pistols, rapiers, and daggers, seemed to keep this story in countenance. It was necessary to reconcile that fact with the more criminal intention imputed to him, or the case against him would have been left incomplete in a material part. And the example of the Duke of Guise was so directly in point, and lay so obviously in the way, that one does not see how Bacon could have passed it by. And none of the reports of the trial represent him as having wandered into any declamations or aggravations in the matter. He appears to have confined himself strictly and exactly to what was material.

The reviewer, it is true, having no information but what he found in Montagu, and being strongly inclined to believe Essex and to disbelieve Bacon, may have persuaded himself that the

imputation of a criminal intention was false-that the march into the city was only a rash act without an object. But I do not see how any one who has read the confessions and depositions can doubt that he went into the city in the hope of gathering a force there strong enough to make head against the Government. It may be true that his ultimate objects (so far as he himself knew them) were limited to what we should nowadays call a change of ministry. But his immediate object was to make himself, by force of arms, master of the then established and lawful Government. How can anybody doubt this, who knows that the preparatory conferences had turned upon the means not only of surprising the Court, but of gaining possession of the Tower and of raising a party in the city? He did, I dare say, mean to assume the attitude of a suppliant; but being well aware that his supplication would not be freely granted, he meant to provide against that accident by coming with a power strong enough if necessary to enforce it.

This, then, was the part taken by Bacon in "shedding the Earl's blood," for he is not accused of having advised the execution. And we have now before us the whole case upon which the reviewer rests his conclusion that Bacon forsook Essex for the sake of "wealth, precedence, titles," &c. I say that his conclusion is built on an imperfect knowledge of the facts; that if he had known a little more about the real conditions of the case he would have concluded differently. If he had known the nature of the charges which Essex was called on to answer before the Council at York House on the 5th of June, 1600, and the reason why he was to make his answer before a Court so constituted, he would not have thought that Bacon, in taking the part assigned to him, was forsaking the part of a friend. If he had known that between the 6th of June and the end of September Bacon was doing all he could to persuade the Queen to receive Essex into favour again and to persuade him to deserve to be received, he would not have thought that he had resolved on the 5th of June to forsake him because he foresaw that his fall was at hand. If he had known that early in July Essex was relieved from his keeper, that on the 26th of August he was freed from all further restraint, and that from that time he suffered nothing at the hands either of the Queen or of his enemies, worse than exclusion from Courtfavour, he would not have taken him for an unhappy young nobleman driven to despair by persecution, or his endeavour to raise a rebellion in the city on the 8th of February, 1600-1, for a frantic enterprise entitled to excuse on the plea of provocation. If he had known that this enterprise was the result (though spoiled by hurry in the execution) of three months' deliberation, that it had been planned beforehand in minute detail, and that its object was

to master the Court by an armed force and impose terms upon Queen Elizabeth, he would not have thought that a member of Queen Elizabeth's learned counsel ought to have gone over to the leader's side, and taken upon himself the duties of a modern counsel for the prisoner; still less that, if he felt himself bound in consideration of his general retainer to act as one of the counsel for the prosecution, he ought to have made use of his office to hide from the Court all those features in the transaction which revealed its real character. He would have thought, in short, not that Bacon forsook Essex, but that Essex had forsaken himself, and left his most faithful friends no choice but to take part against him.

The charge of "blackening the Earl's memory," in so far as it supposes misrepresentations of fact, may be explained in the same way as the others. How much the reviewer had read of the "Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, Earl of Essex" (beyond the title, which he could not have got from Montagu's "Life" without referring to one of the volumes of the "Works") I have no means of knowing. The terms which he applies to it are at once so vague and so inappropriate that I doubt for my own part whether he had read it at all. But the question is not material. Whether he passed it by altogether with the contempt which he thought it deserved, or whether he read it through with a running assumption that every fact which he had not heard of before, and which did not fit with his own conception of the case, was a fiction, the result would be the same. Every sentence which contradicted or corrected his own story would be set down as containing a falsehood; and the number would be large. Luckily, however, the question does not depend upon the personal credit of rival authorities. The substantial truth of the official narrative is proved by independent evidence; and even if every item of news that can be picked out of a contemporary letter, reporting the last rumour of Paul's Walk, were allowed to be of more value than an attested deposition, and alterations made accordingly, the story, though it would be rendered less consistent here and there with itself, would not be materially altered.

But the reviewer's account of the occasion of this publication shows that he was unaware of some discoveries, made after the trial, which he would certainly have allowed to be material, and might perhaps have allowed to modify his opinion. What I have to say about these I must reserve for another paper.

JAMES SPEDDING.

THE

HE long debates in the present session on the Merchant Shipping Bill, and the numerous amendments that were introduced, have brought into strong relief widely different opinions; but on one point unanimity has prevailed. It has been acknowledged by all that the security of life will have been but imperfectly assured, if our ships are made seaworthy in their hull and equipment alone, and are not manned by skilful and welldisciplined seamen. While, however, the essential importance of securing an efficient body of seamen has been strenuously insisted upon, it has been alleged, with scarce one dissentient voice, that the British seamen of the present day have degenerated grievously from their predecessors.

It is proposed, in the following pages, to bring together the opinions of the most competent authorities, and thus to supply the materials for solving a problem of vital importance to an insular people, who are dependent on the mariner alike for their material prosperity and their influence abroad.

Several witnesses before the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships spoke strongly to the deterioration of our seamen; but the most important evidence in support of this view of the case was furnished by the Committee of Shipowners formed at Liverpool in 1870. In November, 1869, Mr. Shaw Lefevre, who was then Secretary to the Board of Trade, had visited Liverpool, with the view of obtaining information upon subjects connected with