his preference of even an unfair peace to the most just war?  Did they sufficiently weigh the dangers that might ensue even from victory; dangers, in such cases, little less formidable to the cause of liberty than those which might follow a defeat?  Did they consider that it is not peculiar to the followers of Pompey, and the civil wars of Rome, that the event to be looked for is, as the same Tully describes it, in case of defeat—­proscription; in that of victory—­ servitude?  Is the failure of the negotiation when the king was in the Isle of Wight to be imputed to the suspicions justly entertained of his sincerity, or to the ambition of the parliamentary leaders?  If the insincerity of the king was the real cause, ought not the mischief to be apprehended from his insincerity rather to have been guarded against by treaty than alleged as a pretence for breaking off the negotiation?  Sad, indeed, will be the condition of the world if we are never to make peace with an adverse party whose sincerity we have reason to suspect.  Even just grounds for such suspicions will but too often occur, and when such fail, the proneness of man to impute evil qualities, as well as evil designs, to his enemies, will suggest false ones.  In the present case the suspicion of insincerity was, it is true, so just, as to amount to a moral certainty.  The example of the petition of right was a satisfactory proof that the king made no point of adhering to concessions which he considered as extorted from him; and a philosophical historian, writing above a century after the time, can deem the pretended hard usage Charles met with as a sufficient excuse for his breaking his faith in the first instance, much more must that prince himself, with all his prejudices and notions of his divine right, have thought it justifiable to retract concessions, which to him, no doubt, appeared far more unreasonable than the petition of right, and which, with much more colour, he might consider as extorted.  These considerations were probably the cause why the Parliament so long delayed their determination of accepting the king’s offer as a basis for treaty; but, unfortunately, they had delayed so long that when at last they adopted it they found themselves without power to carry it into execution.  The army having now ceased to be the servants, had become the masters of the Parliament, and, being entirely influenced by Cromwell, gave a commencement to what may, properly speaking, be called a new reign.  The subsequent measures, therefore, the execution of the king, as well as others, are not to be considered as acts of the Parliament, but of Cromwell; and great and respectable as are the names of some who sat in the high court, they must be regarded, in this instance, rather as ministers of that usurper than as acting from themselves.