the burgher guard. De Ruyter subsequently found it necessary to apply to the Prince of Orange for a safeguard for the protection of his family. ness and courage of a captain of | Though the accuser was a man of notoriously infamous character, and had been punished for some crime by the judicial tribunal of Putten, of which Cornelius de Witt was bailiff, his assertion was deemed sufficient to outweigh the strong and unexceptionable testimony on the other side. Abandoning the hope of ridding themselves of the illustrious brothers by the method of assassination since the failure of the late attempts, their enemies were obliged to devise other means of effecting their ruin. One Tichelaar, a barber surgeon, was now suborned to accuse Cornelius de Witt of offering bribes to induce him to put an end to the life of the Prince of Orange, either by steel or poison. It happened that the whole conference, in which he affirmed that this design was opened to him, and which was only of a quarter of an hour's duration, was overheard both by the servant and son of the bailiff, whom his wife, suspicious of an attempt similar to that which had been made to assassinate him shortly before, had, should cut me in pieces," he answeron the entrance of Tichelaar, sta-ed to the exhortations addressed tioned at the door of the room into which he was admitted. According to their evidence Tichelaar offered to confide some secret matter to the bailiff, when the latter replied that if it were anything good he would willingly assist him, but if otherwise, he should be obliged to publish it. This both the son and the servant repeated immediately to the other members of the family, and De Witt himself communicated the particulars of the interview to the secretary of the municipal court of Dordrecht. The bailiff was cited to appear before the court of Holland, and arrested by its authority, in viola- . tion of his privileges as a citizen of Dordrecht. Unhappily, upon his trial, he lost his presence of mind, and when confronted with his accuser, denied ever having seen him; a course which gave his judges either a suspicion of his guilt or a pretext for affecting to believe in it. He was accordingly condemned to the torture, which was applied in its utmost severity. But he sustained his agonies with unshaken constancy, steadily refusing to make the slightest admission of guilt. "Though you to him by his judges, "I cannot confess a crime of which I had not even formed an idea. You yourselves well know that I am innocent." During the most excruciating sufferings, he was still able to find consolation in the strength of a mind imbued with noble sentiments; and his richly fraught memory suggested to him the words of the poet so applicable to his present situation. Justum et tenacem propositi virum, Non vultus instantis tyranni, HOR. Carm. Lib. iii. Ode 3. Unable to prove his guilt, and not daring to provoke the anger of the populace by his acquittal, the judges adopted a middle course, more abhorrent, perhaps, to the principles of justice than if they had awarded him the punishment due to the offence on insufficient evidence. They condemned him to be deprived of all his offices and banished for ever from the province, and to pay all the costs of the suit, without any mention in the act of condemnation of the crime for which he was to suffer. On the imprisonment of his brother, John De Witt had resigned the office he had filled so many years with credit to himself and advantage to his country. But neither the degradation of the one, nor the unjust severity exercised against the other, could satisfy foes who thirsted for their blood. From the time of the arrest of Cornelius De Witt, immense crowds had daily assembled before the doors of the prison at the Hague, threatening death to all concerned if he were permitted to escape. Within a few hours after the delivery of the sentence of the court, a person of distinction, whose name is not mentioned by historians, came to the keeper of the gaol where Cornelius De Witt was confined, desiring him to contrive a meeting between the brothers. In obedience to this mandate, the gaoler sent his servant to inform De Witt that his brother was acquitted, and that he earnestly desired to see him. His friends, fearful of some treachery, besought him to pause and inquire into the truth of the summons before he obeyed it; and his only daughter threw herself at his feet, and implored him with floods of tears not to risk unnecessarily a life so precious. But his anxiety for his brother, with whom he had ever lived on terms of the tenderest affection, proved stronger than their remonstrances; and setting out on foot, attended by his servant and two secretaries, he hastened to the prison. On seeing him, Cornelius De Witt exclaimed in astonishment, "My brother, what do you here?” "Did you not then send for me?" he asked; and receiving an answer in the negative: "Then," rejoined he, we are lost." 66 During this time one of the judges sent for Tichelaar, and suggested to him that he should incite the people not to suffer a villain who had intended to murder the prince to go unpunished. True to his instructions, the miscreant spread among the crowd collected before the prison doors the report that the torture inflicted on Cornelius De Witt was a Not the frown of the threatening only escaped the death he deserved mere pretence, and that he had because the judges favoured his 1 The man just and firm of purpose, Not the rage of his fellows bidding him act basely, tyrant, Shake in his unbroken resolution. crime. Then, entering the gaol, | should be drawn off from their station, in order to protect the houses from pillage. First a verbal order, and on Tilly's refusing obedience to such, a written one, was sent, commanding him to divide his troops into four detachments, and post them upon the bridges leading into the town. "I shall obey," said he, as he perused the mandate; “but it is the His anticipations were too soon realised. No sooner had he departed than the rioters were supplied by some of those mysterious agents who were actively employed throughout the whole of these he presented himself at the window, and exclaimed to the crowd below, "The dog and his brother are going out of prison! Now is your time; revenge yourselves on these two knaves, and then on thirty more, their accomplices!" The populace received his address with shouts and cries of "To arms, to arms! Treason, treason!" and pressed in a still denser crowd to-death-warrant of the brothers." wards the prison door. The States of Holland, immediately on information of the tumult, sent three troops of cavalry, in garri- | son at the Hague, for the protection of the gaol, and called out to arms six companies of the burgher | transactions, with wine, brandy, guards. But in the latter they only added fresh hosts to the enemies of the unfortunate captives. One company in especial, called "The Company of the Blue Flag," was animated with a spirit of deadly vengeance against them; its leader, Verhoef, having that morning loaded his musket with a determination to kill the De Witts or perish in the attempt. They pressed forward towards the prison, but were driven back by the determined appearance of the cavalry, commanded by the Count de Tilly. So long as these troops remained, it was evident that the fell purpose of the rioters was impracticable. Accordingly, a report was raised that a band of peasants and sailors was coming to plunder the Hague; and two captains of the burgher guards took occasion from thence to demand of the Council of State that the soldiers and other incitements to inflame The nelius De Witt leaning on his brother for support. They had not advanced above two or three paces when a heavy blow on the head from behind precipitated the former to the bottom. He was then dragged a short distance towards the street, trampled under foot, and beaten to death. Meanwhile, John de Witt, after receiving a severe wound on the head with the butt-end of a musket, was brought by Verhoef, bleeding and bareheaded, before the furious multitude. One Van Soenen immediately thrust a pike into his face, while another of the miscreants shot him in the neck, exclaiming as he fell," There goes Rais down the Perpetual Edict.” ing himself on his knees, the sufferer lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven in deep and earnest prayer. At that moment one Verhagen struck him with his musket. Hundreds followed his example, and the cruel massacre was completed. Barbarities too dreadful for utterance or contemplation, all that frenzied passion or brutal ferocity could suggest, were perpetrated on the bodies or these noble and virtuous citizens; nor was it till night put an end to the butchery that their friends were permitted to convey their mangled remains to a secret and obscure tomb. THE POPISH PLOT. (Hume's History of England.) A.D. 1678. | of men's minds we are to account for the progress of the POPISH PLOT, and the credit given to it; an event which would otherwise appear prodigious, and altogether inexplicable. THE English nation, ever since the fatal league with France, had entertained violent jealousies against the court; and the subsequent measures adopted by the king had tended more to increase than cure the general prejudices. Some On the 12th of August, one mysterious design was still sus- Kirby, a chemist, accosted the pected in every enterprise and king, as he was walking in the profession; arbitrary power and park: "Sir," said he, "keep withpopery were apprehended as the in the company your enemies scope of all projects; each breath have a design upon your life; and or rumour made the people start you may be shot in this very with anxiety: their enemies, they walk." Being asked the reason thought, were in their very bosom, of these strange speeches, he said, and had gotten possession of their that two men, called Grove and sovereign's confidence. While in Pickering, had engaged to shoot this timorous, jealous disposition, the king, and Sir George Wakethe cry of a plot all on a sudden man, the queen's physician, to struck their ears: they were poison him. This intelligence, he wakened from their slumber; and added, had been communicated to like men affrightened and in the him by Doctor Tongue; whom, if dark, took every figure for a permitted, he would introduce to spectre. The terror of each man his majesty. Tongue was a divine became the source of terror to of the Church of England; a man another. And an universal panic active, restless, full of projects, being diffused, reason and argu- void of understanding. He brought ment, and common sense and com- papers to the king, which conmon humanity, lost all influence tained information of a plot, and over them. From this disposition were digested into forty-three |