raordinary ferment seemed to agitate the whole mass
of the population. With the exception of the army, every class of men was
dissatisfied. Though the war had ceased twelve months before, the nation
enjoyed few of the benefits of peace. Those forms and institutions, the
safeguards of liberty and property, which had been suspended during the
contest, had not been restored; the committees in every county continued to
exercise the most oppressive tyranny; and a monthly tax was still levied
for the support of the forces, exceeding in amount the sums which had been
exacted for the same purpose during the war. No man could be ignorant that
the parliament, nominally the supreme authority, was under the control of
the council of officers; and the continued captivity of the king, the known
sentiments of the agitators, and, above all, the vote of non-addresses,
provoked a general suspicion that it was in contemplation to abolish the
monarchical government, and to introduce in its place a military despotism.
Four-fifths of the nation began to wish for the re-establishment of the
throne. Much diversity of opinion prevailed with respect to the conditions;
but all agreed that what Charles had so often demanded, a personal treaty,
ought to be granted, as the most likely means to reconcile opposite
interests and to lead to a satisfactory arrangement.

Soon after the passing of the vote of non-addresses,[a] the king had
appealed to the good sense of the people through the agency of the press.
He put it to them to judge between him and his opponents, whether by his
answer to the four bills he had given any reasonable

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1648 Jan. 18.]

cause for their violent and unconstitutional vote; and whether they, by the
obstinate refusal of a personal conference, had not betrayed their resolve
not to come to any accommodation.[1] The impression made by this paper
called for an answer: a long and laboured vindication of the proceedings of
the House of Commons was prepared, and after many erasures and amendments
approved; copies of it were allotted to the members to be circulated among
their constituents, and others were sent to the curates to be read by them
to their parishioners.[2] It contained a tedious enumeration of all the
charges, founded or unfounded, which had ever been made against the king
from the commencement of his reign; and thence deduced the inference that,
to treat with a prince so hostile to popular rights, so oft