years." "If he is a young man," said Jeffreys, "he is an old rogue.
Ladies, you do not know the villain as well as I do. The punishment is
not half bad enough for him. All the interest in England shall not alter
it." Tutchin in his despair petitioned, and probably with sincerity,
that he might be hanged. Fortunately for him he was, just at this
conjuncture, taken ill of the smallpox and given over. As it seemed
highly improbable that the sentence would ever be executed, the Chief
Justice consented to remit it, in return for a bribe which reduced the
prisoner to poverty. The temper of Tutchin, not originally very mild,
was exasperated to madness by what he had undergone. He lived to be
known as one of the most acrimonious and pertinacious enemies of the
House of Stuart and of the Tory party. [453]

The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and
forty-one. These men, more wretched than their associates who suffered
death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed on persons who enjoyed
favour at court. The conditions of the gift were that the convicts
should be carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should not be
emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their banishment should
be some West Indian island. This last article was studiously framed for
the purpose of aggravating the misery of the exiles. In New England or
New Jersey they would have found a population kindly disposed to them
and a climate not unfavourable to their health and vigour. It was
therefore determined that they should be sent to colonies where a
Puritan could hope to inspire little sympathy, and where a labourer born
in the temperate zone could hope to enjoy little health. Such was the
state of the slave market that these bondmen, long as was the passage,
and sickly as they were likely to prove, were still very valuable. It
was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them, after all
charges were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteen pounds. There was
therefore much angry competition for grants. Some Tories in the West
conceived that they had, by their exertions and sufferings during the
insurrection, earned a right to share in the profits which had been
eagerly snatched up by the sycophants of Whitehall. The courtiers,
however, were victorious. [454]

The misery of the exiles fully equalled that of the negroes who are now
carried from Congo to Brazil. It appears from the best information which
is at pres