n a man is once in a situation to be tried, and his
person in the power of his accusers and his judges, he can no longer be
formidable in that degree which alone can justify (if anything can) the
violation of the substantial rules of criminal proceedings.

At the breaking out of the Civil War, so intemperately denominated a
rebellion by Lord Clarendon and other Tory writers, the material question
appears to me to be, whether or not sufficient attempts were made by the
Parliament and their leaders to avoid bringing affairs to such a
decision? That, according to the general principles of morality, they
had justice on their side cannot fairly be doubted; but did they
sufficiently attend to that great dictum of Tully in questions of civil
dissension, wherein he declares his preference of even an unfair peace to
the most just war? Did they sufficiently weigh the dangers that might
ensue even from victory; dangers, in such cases, little less formidable
to the cause of liberty than those which might follow a defeat? Did they
consider that it is not peculiar to the followers of Pompey, and the
civil wars of Rome, that the event to be looked for is, as the same Tully
describes it, in case of defeat--proscription; in that of
victory--servitude? Is the failure of the negotiation when the king was
in the Isle of Wight to be imputed to the suspicions justly entertained
of his sincerity, or to the ambition of the parliamentary leaders? If
the insincerity of the king was the real cause, ought not the mischief to
be apprehended from his insincerity rather to have been guarded against
by treaty than alleged as a pretence for breaking off the negotiation?
Sad, indeed, will be the condition of the world if we are never to make
peace with an adverse party whose sincerity we have reason to suspect.
Even just grounds for such suspicions will but too often occur, and when
such fail, the proneness of man to impute evil qualities, as well as evil
designs, to his enemies, will suggest false ones. In the present case
the suspicion of insincerity was, it is true, so just, as to amount to a
moral certainty. The example of the petition of right was a satisfactory
proof that the king made no point of adhering to concessions which he
considered as extorted from him; and a philosophical historian, writing
above a century after the time, can deem the pretended hard usage Charles
met with as a sufficient excuse for his breaking his faith in the firs