ntful Whig, "to see Your Lordship
in this place." "I served my master," said Jeffreys: "I was bound in
conscience to do so." "Where was your conscience," said Tutchin, "when
you passed that sentence on me at Dorchester?" "It was set down in my
instructions," answered Jeffreys, fawningly, "that I was to show no
mercy to men like you, men of parts and courage. When I went back to
court I was reprimanded for my lenity." [413] Even Tutchin, acrimonious
as was his nature, and great as were his wrongs, seems to have been
a little mollified by the pitiable spectacle which he had at first
contemplated with vindictive pleasure. He always denied the truth of
the report that he was the person who sent the Colchester barrel to the
Tower.

A more benevolent man, John Sharp, the excellent Dean of Norwich, forced
himself to visit the prisoner. It was a painful task: but Sharp had been
treated by Jeffreys, in old times, as kindly as it was in the nature
of Jeffreys to treat any body, and had once or twice been able, by
patiently waiting till the storm of curses and invectives had spent
itself, and by dexterously seizing the moment of good humour, to obtain
for unhappy families some mitigation of their sufferings. The prisoner
was surprised and pleased. "What," he said, "dare you own me now?" It was
in vain, however, that the amiable divine tried to give salutary pain
to that seared conscience. Jeffreys, instead of acknowledging his guilt,
exclaimed vehemently against the injustice of mankind. "People call me
a murderer for doing what at the time was applauded by some who are now
high in public favour. They call me a drunkard because I take punch to
relieve me in my agony." He would not admit that, as President of the
High Commission, he had done any thing that deserved reproach. His
colleagues, he said, were the real criminals; and now they threw all
the blame on him. He spoke with peculiar asperity of Sprat, who had
undoubtedly been the most humane and moderate member of the board.

It soon became clear that the wicked judge was fast sinking under the
weight of bodily and mental suffering. Doctor John Scott, prebendary of
Saint Paul's, a clergyman of great sanctity, and author of the Christian
Life, a treatise once widely renowned, was summoned, probably on the
recommendation of his intimate friend Sharp, to the bedside of the dying
man. It was in vain, however, that Scott spoke, as Sharp had already
spoken, of the hideous butcheries