History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second

can rarely indeed happen that the mischief to be apprehended from suffering any criminal, however guilty, to escape, can be equal to that resulting from the violation of those rules to which the innocent owe the security of all that is dear to them. If such cases have existed they must have been in instances where trial has been wholly out of the question, as in that of Caesar and other tyrants; but when 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