hem to the
blush. Not only should they not be punished; they should not undergo the
humiliation of being pardoned. He would not know that they had offended.
Charnock was left to his fate. [677] When he found that he had no chance
of being received as a deserter, he assumed the dignity of a martyr, and
played his part resolutely to the close. That he might bid farewell to
the world with a better grace, he ordered a fine new coat to be hanged
in, and was very particular on his last day about the powdering and
curling of his wig. [678] Just before he was turned off, he delivered
to the Sheriffs a paper in which he avowed that he had conspired against
the life of the Prince of Orange, but solemnly denied that James had
given any commission authorising assassination. The denial was doubtless
literally correct; but Charnock did not deny, and assuredly could not
with truth have denied, that he had seen a commission written and signed
by James, and containing words which might without any violence be
construed, and which were, by all to whom they were shown, actually
construed, to authorise the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green.

Indeed Charnock, in another paper, which is still in existence, but has
never been printed, held very different language. He plainly said that,
for reasons too obvious to be mentioned, he could not tell the
whole truth in the paper which he had delivered to the Sheriffs. He
acknowledged that the plot in which he had been engaged seemed, even
to many loyal subjects, highly criminal. They called him assassin
and murderer. Yet what had he done more than had been done by Mucius
Scaevola? Nay, what had he done more than had been done by every body
who bore arms against the Prince of Orange? If an array of twenty
thousand men had suddenly landed in England and surprised the usurper,
this would have been called legitimate war. Did the difference between
war and assassination depend merely on the number of persons engaged?
What then was the smallest number which could lawfully surprise an
enemy? Was it five thousand, or a thousand, or a hundred? Jonathan and
his armourbearer were only two. Yet they made a great slaughter of the
Philistines. Was that assassination? It cannot, said Charnock, be the
mere act, it must be the cause, that makes killing assassination. It
followed that it was not assassination to kill one,--and here the
dying man gave a loose to all his hatred,--who had declared a war of
exterminat