s; but
there were also many who condemned the existing government as a desertion
of the

[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, April 18, Oct. 4; 1650, March 30; 1651, Sept.
2, Dec. 17; 1652, April 7.]

[Footnote 2: Journals, 1649, April 7, Aug. 1, Dec. 7; 1650, May 21, Nov.
26; 1651, April 15, Sept. 1, Dec. 19; 1652, Dec. 10; 1653, Nov. 24.]

good cause in which they had originally embarked. By the latter Lilburne
was revered as an apostle and a martyr; they read with avidity the
publications which repeatedly issued from his cell; and they condemned as
persecutors and tyrants the men who had immured him and his companions in
the Tower. Preparations had been made[a] to bring them to trial as the
authors of the late mutiny; but, on more mature deliberation, the project
was abandoned,[b] and an act was passed making it treason to assert that
the government was tyrannical, usurped, or unlawful. No enactments,
however, could check the hostility of Lilburne; and a new pamphlet from his
pen,[c] in vindication of "The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People,"
put to the test the resolution of his opponents. They shrunk from the
struggle; it was judged more prudent to forgive, or more dignified to
despise, his efforts; and, on his petition for leave to visit his sick
family, he obtained his discharge.[1]

But this lenity made no impression on his mind. In the course of six weeks
he published[d] two more offensive tracts, and distributed them among
the soldiery. A new mutiny broke out at Oxford; its speedy suppression
emboldened the council; the demagogue was reconducted[e] to his cell in the
Tower; and Keble, with forty other commissioners, was appointed[f] to
try him for his last offence on the recent statute of treasons. It may,
perhaps, be deemed a weakness in Lilburne that he now offered[g] on certain
conditions to transport himself to America; but he redeemed his character,
as soon as he was placed at the bar. He repelled with scorn the charges of
the

[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, April 11, May 12, July 18. Council Book May 2.
Whitelock, 414.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. April 11.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. May 12.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. June 8.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. July 18.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. Sept. 6.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1649. Sept. 14.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1649. Oct. 24.]

prosecutors and the taunts of the court, electrified the audience by
frequent appeals to Magna Charta and the liberties of Englishmen, and
sto