le, not to law, but
wholly to the caprice and arbitrary will of individual masters. They
demanded, therefore, that Richard should emancipate them from this
bondage, and make them free.

It was determined by Richard and his counselors that this demand
should be complied with, or, at least, that they should pretend to
comply with it, and that decrees of emancipation for the different
counties and districts which the various parties of insurgents had
come from should be immediately issued. This decision seemed to
satisfy them. The leaders, or at least a large portion of them, said
that it was all they wanted, and several parties immediately began to
set out on their return to their several homes.

But there were a great many who were not satisfied. An insurrection
like this, whatever may be the object and design of the original
movers in it, always brings out into prominence, and invests with
temporary power, vast numbers of desperate and violent men, whose
passions become inflamed by the excitement of movement and action, and
by sympathy with each other, and who are never satisfied to stop with
the attainment of the objects originally desired. Thus, in the present
instance, although a great number of the rebels were satisfied with
the promises made by the king at Mile-End, and so went home,
multitudes still remained. Large parties went to London to join those
who had already gone there in hopes of opportunities for pillage.
Others remained at their encampments, doubting whether the king would
really keep the promises which he had made them, and send the decrees.
Then, besides, fresh parties of insurgents were continually arriving
at London and its neighborhood, so that the danger seemed by no means
to have passed away.

The king immediately caused the decree to be prepared. Thirty
secretaries were employed at once to write the several copies
required. They were all of the same form. They were written, as was
customary with royal decrees in those times, in the Latin language,
were engrossed carefully upon parchment, signed by the king, and
sealed by his seal. The announcement that the secretaries were
preparing these decrees, when the work had been commenced, tended
greatly to satisfy the insurgents, and many more of them went home.
Still, vast numbers remained, and the excitement among them, and their
disposition for mischief, was evidently on the increase.

Such was the state of things during the night of Friday. Th