he was
arrested, he was not told. One of his sisters pleaded in vain to the
King. He was falsely accused of complicity in an imaginary plot, of
which nothing could be made by its investigators. No heed was paid
to the frank denials of a man of the sincerest nature, who never had
concealed his thoughts or actions. "Why," he was asked, at his first
examination by Lord Lauderdale, who was one of his kinsmen, "why did
he, as a private man, meddle with politics? What had a private man to
do with government?" His answer was: "My lord, there is not any public
person, nor any magistrate, that has written on politics, worth a
button. All they that have been excellent in this way have been private
men, as private men, my lord, as myself. There is Plato, there is
Aristotle, there is Livy, there is Machiavel. My lord, I can sum up
Aristotle's 'Politics' in a very few words: he says, there is the
Barbarous Monarchy--such a one where the people have 110 votes in making
the laws; he says, there is the Heroic Monarchy--such a one where the
people have their votes in making the laws; and then, he says, there is
Democracy, and affirms that a man cannot be said to have liberty but in
a democracy only." Lord Lauderdale here showing impatience, Harrington
added: "I say Aristotle says so. I have not said so much. And under what
prince was it? Was it not under Alexander, the greatest prince then in
the world? I beseech you, my lord, did Alexander hang up Aristotle? did
he molest him? Livy, for a commonwealth, is one of the fullest authors;
did not he write under Augustus Caesar? Did Caesar hang up Livy? did
he molest him? Machiavel, what a commonwealthsman was he! but he wrote
under the Medici when they were princes in Florence: did they hang up
Machiavel, or did they molest him? I have done no otherwise than as the
greatest politicians: the King will do no otherwise than as the greatest
princes."

That was too much to hope, even in a dream, of the low-minded Charles
II. Harrington could not obtain even the show of justice in a public
trial. He was kept five months an untried prisoner in the Tower, only
sheltered from daily brutalities by bribe to the lieutenant. When his
habeas corpus had been moved for, it was at first flatly refused; and
when it had been granted, Harrington was smuggled away from the Tower
between one and two o'clock in the morning, and carried on board a ship
that took him to closer imprisonment on St. Nicholas Island, o