population
of London. The States General were informed by their correspondent that,
of all sights, that in which the English most delighted was a hanging,
and that, of all hangings within the memory of the oldest man, that of
Friend and Parkyns excited the greatest interest. The multitude had been
incensed against Friend by reports touching the exceeding badness of the
beer which he brewed. It was even rumoured that he had, in his zeal for
the Jacobite cause, poisoned all the casks which he had furnished to the
navy. An innumerable crowd accordingly assembled at Tyburn. Scaffolding
had been put up which formed an immense amphitheatre round the gallows.
On this scaffolding the wealthier spectators stood, row above row; and
expectation was at the height when it was announced that the show was
deferred. The mob broke up in bad humour, and not without many fights
between those who had given money for their places and those who refused
to return it. [681]

The cause of this severe disappointment was a resolution suddenly passed
by the Commons. A member had proposed that a Committee should be sent
to the Tower with authority to examine the prisoners, and to hold out
to them the hope that they might, by a full and ingenuous confession,
obtain the intercession of the House. The debate appears, from the
scanty information which has come down to us, to have been a very
curious one. Parties seemed to have changed characters. It might have
been expected that the Whigs would have been inexorably severe, and
that, if there was any tenderness for the unhappy men, that tenderness
would have been found among the Tories. But in truth many of the Whigs
hoped that they might, by sparing two criminals who had no power to do
mischief, be able to detect and destroy numerous criminals high in rank
and office. On the other hand, every man who had ever had any dealings
direct or indirect with Saint Germains, or who took an interest in any
person likely to have had such dealings, looked forward with dread to
the disclosures which the captives might, under the strong terrors of
death, be induced to make. Seymour, simply because he had gone further
in treason than almost any other member of the House, was louder than
any other member of the House in exclaiming against all indulgence
to his brother traitors. Would the Commons usurp the most sacred
prerogative of the Crown? It was for His Majesty, and not for them, to
judge whether lives justly forfe