be charged more than twenty shillings for
himself, family and servants, though ever so numerous; while all other
families, under the number of twenty were charged per head. Poll taxes
had always been odious, but this being also oppressive and unjust, it
excited as it naturally must, universal detestation among the poor and
middle classes. The person known by the name of Wat Tyler, whose proper
name was Walter, and a tiler by trade, lived at Deptford. The gatherer
of the poll tax, on coming to his house, demanded tax for one of
his daughters, whom Tyler declared was under the age of fifteen. The
tax-gatherer insisted on satisfying himself, and began an indecent
examination of the girl, which, enraging the father, he struck him with
a hammer that brought him to the ground, and was the cause of his
death. This circumstance served to bring the discontent to an issue. The
inhabitants of the neighbourhood espoused the cause of Tyler, who in a
few days was joined, according to some histories, by upwards of fifty
thousand men, and chosen their chief. With this force he marched
to London, to demand an abolition of the tax and a redress of other
grievances. The Court, finding itself in a forlorn condition, and,
unable to make resistance, agreed, with Richard at its head, to hold
a conference with Tyler in Smithfield, making many fair professions,
courtier-like, of its dispositions to redress the oppressions. While
Richard and Tyler were in conversation on these matters, each being on
horseback, Walworth, then Mayor of London, and one of the creatures of
the Court, watched an opportunity, and like a cowardly assassin, stabbed
Tyler with a dagger, and two or three others falling upon him, he
was instantly sacrificed. Tyler appears to have been an intrepid
disinterested man with respect to himself. All his proposals made to
Richard were on a more just and public ground than those which had
been made to John by the Barons, and notwithstanding the sycophancy of
historians and men like Mr. Burke, who seek to gloss over a base action
of the Court by traducing Tyler, his fame will outlive their falsehood.
If the Barons merited a monument to be erected at Runnymede, Tyler
merited one in Smithfield.]

[Footnote 32: I happened to be in England at the celebration of the centenary of
the Revolution of 1688. The characters of William and Mary have always
appeared to be detestable; the one seeking to destroy his uncle, and
the other her father,