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From The Saturday Review.

ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS.*

by founding on his many special investigations a continuous narrative of the reign of MR. FORSTER has probably studied more wealth. There is no danger that such a Charles I., and, perhaps, of the Commondeeply than any other living historian the work, however valuable, will close a controevents of the troubled period which immeversy which still retains its inexhaustible diately preceded the Civil War. The contin- interest. Except among young ladies who uous and traditional character of the Eng- write High Church novels, few uncompromislish constitution is remarkably illustrated ing historical Royalists are to be found at the by the carnest sympathy of contemporary present day; but, whatever may be said of inquirers with the great political controver- Clarendon's veracity, his deliberate statesies of two centuries ago. Instead of affect-ments of the law are not to be altogether deing to look down from the height of an enlarged experience on the bygone differ-spised. The parliamentary leaders, though ences of Royalists and Roundhead, Mr. they covered themselves at every step by precedents and assertions of privilege, cannot Forster regards the great contest from the claim the merit of having made a revolution point of view which might have presented with rose-water, nor did they overthow an itself to Pym or Hampden, if they could for ancient monarchy in strict adherence to the a moment have stood apart from the actual letter of the law. Their modern apologist struggle. His solicitude to ascertain the le- is justified in his general approval of their gal position of either party indicates a just policy, and he rightly apprehends their ju appreciation of the instinctive regard for dicious anxiety to keep the semblance of law constitutional forms which has in all ages on their side; but the authoritative interformed the chief security of English freedom. pretation of the legal questions in dispute is While continental demagogues have satisfied themselves with windy abstractions supplied by the later practice of a constituof philanthopy and justice, reformers, and ation by fresh accessions of popular power. tion always modifying itself in each genereven innovators, have always confined them- Queen Victoria retains prerogatives which selves in England to the assertion of some Pym and his colleagues denied to Charles I.; professedly historical and really tangible and the privileges of her House of Commons, right. The laws of Edward the Confessor, though amply sufficient for a sovereign asthe Great Charter, taxation by the House of sembly, are narrower than the claims which Commons, and Habeas Corpus, after serving were expounded at Grocer's Hall by Sir as definite objects of agitation or of conflict, Symonds d'Ewes. have proved solid acquisitions when they have been attained. When a learned and able writer argues in an elaborate work that Charles I. had no right to enter the House of Commons, he incidentally proves that the instinct of rational liberty is at this moment as fresh and living as when it embodied itself in the patriotic sophisms and fictions which, two hundred and twenty years ago, gave a temporary color of legality to the prudent usurpations of the malcontent House of Commons. Mr. Forster's well-di

rected industry has enabled him to collect from unpublished documents a narrative of the attempted arrest, and of its immediate consequences, which is almost as full and accurate as if the story had been told on each successive day by a modern reporter or newspaper correspondent. Future historians may spare themselves any further research into the details of the remarkable crisis which is justly regarded as the virtual commencement of the war. Perhaps it would not be unreasonable to expect that Mr. Forster may also anticipate their labors Arrest of the Five Members by Charles I. A Chapter of English History rewritten. By John Forster. London: Murray. 1860.

members and of Lord Kimbolton by the atThe ex-officio impeachment of the five torney-general, acting under the orders of the king, although not inconsistent with legal analogy, was unsupported by precedent, and it has been condemned by all subseexceed the prerogative could only have been quent opinion and practice. The attempt to excused by the consciousness that the struglimits, and that the victory must rest with the gle had already passed beyond constitutional cussions, the not less extravagant pretenstronger combatant. In the subsequent dissions of the Commons almost effaced the intrinsic irregularity of the impeachment. Amongst other extemporaneous dogmas, it was affirmed that the king could never be an accuser of a subject, because he would be entitled to his lands and goods on a capital conviction. The answer that, whether in misdemeanor or in treason, the crown is always a nominal party to a criminal proceeding, would probably have subjected any dissentient lawyer to committal to the Tower. Although Mr. Forster seems to consider the impeachment bad in substance, as referring to words spoken in Parliament, Pym himself, in the first debate, admitted that the ar

doubted whether officers who rallied round the king on the eve of a civil war were necessarily desperate ruffians.

The able leaders of the Commons took advantage of the king's blunder by claiming, under cover of his irregular proceedings, an immunity for themselves which has never, before or since, been sanctioned by law. Mr. Forster, in an indignant attack on Clarendon, states that "the votes of the committee distinctly limited and defined the breach of privilege as consisting, not in the

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ticles contained distinct charges of treason; and it may be added, that no head of accusation necessarily referred to words or acts which would have been protected by privilege of Parliament. The vague phrases of "traitorous endeavors," "foul aspersions," and "traitorous designs" may probably have been suggested by parliamentary speeches, but a court of justice would have interpreted the language of the articles in conformity with the law; and the special charges of inviting the Scotch invasion, of raising tumults, and of levying war, would, in a regular proceed-accusation or the arrest, but in the means ing by indictment, if they had been supported by evidence as they were, in part, indisputably true-have fully justified a conviction for treason. It was fortunate for the popular party that the king attempted to follow up an irregular impeachment by an illegal arrest. There has, perhaps, never been a moment in the history of any other country, except in times of revolution, when the right of a sovereign to arrest an alleged traitor in person would for a moment have been disputed; but in England an impassable barrier of form and constitutional fiction happily protects individuals as well as the great bodies of the state from the caprices and violence of the executive. Charles I. had still a strong interest in maintaining the forms of law when he made his ill-advised expedition to the House of Commons. When he arrived there, the vacillation of his character was displayed in the careful moderation and ostentatious courtesy of his behavior in a position where firmness and menace could not have been more useless, while they would certainly have been more consistent. Mr. Forster seems too much disposed to repeat the hypothetical accusations of indignant members who supposed that, under certain circumstances, the king might have substituted the swords and pistols of his followers for the overstrained politeness which he actually displayed. It was scarcely worth while to quote from D'Ewes the speculation that "those ruffians, being eighty in number, who were gotten into the said lobby, being armed, all of them with swords, and some of them with pistols ready charged, were so thirsty after innocent blood, as they would scarce have staid the watchword if those members had been there." The twaddling Puritan had just before described the king's followers as "divers officers of the army in the North and other desperate ruffians." As they in fact suppressed their thirst for blood so far as to offer no offence to any member of the House, the ruffian officers, as well as the king, may perhaps be acquitted of a wholly imaginary crime. In the present day, it may even be

and process employed therein, whereby the law of the land and the liberty of the subject, not less than the privileges of Parliament, were violated." Happily, too," he adds, "the Declaration remains which embodied the constitutional suggestions of D'Ewes and the manly proposition of Vane, and it needs but to quote a few of its noble sentences to dissipate these fictions of Clarendon." The fragmentary quotation which follows is consistent with Mr. Forster's views, but he has wholly overlooked and omitted a passage which proves that Clarendon was justified when he stated that the Declaration of the Commons extended to a claim of entire exemption from arrest. After relating the circumstances of the king's visit, and affirming the illegality of royal warrants, the Commons proceeded to declare that "the arresting any member of Parliament by any warrant whatever without consent of that House whereof he is a member, is a breach of the privilege of Parliament, and the person that shall so arrest him is declared a public enemy of the Commonwealth." D'Ewes himself, as quoted by Mr. Forster, puts forward the claim to the full extent, and supports it by an argument as bad in law as the proposition itself. "If the charge," he says, "be for treason committed out of the House, yet still the House must be first satisfied with the matter of fact before they part with their members." "For the Lords did make an Act Declarative in the Parliament Roll de A° 4° Ed. III., No. 6°, that the judgment of Peers only did properly belong to them; so I hold it clear that these gentlemen cannot be condemned but by such a judgment only as wherein the Lords may join with the Commons, and that must be by Bill." In other words, members of the House legally accused of treason or felony, can only be arrested by consent of the House, and only convicted by Act of Parliament. D'Ewes appears to have been aware that the right of the Peers to be tried by their own body, instead of by a jury, had never been shared by the Commons; and yet, with a somewhat impudent transition, he converts the undoubted privilege of

ess.

party undoubtedly felt that success in their great struggle would be hopeless unless the House of Commons could be persuaded or forced to act with unbroken unity. With an instinctive comprehension of the real nature of the contest, they disregarded all formal scruples in pursuit of their object; while, rightly appreciating the character of their countrymen, they never violated a law without a reason, and never allowed the king to perpetrate the smallest irregularity without protest and resistance. Mr. Forster's profound sympathy with their cause seems occasionally to blind him to the constitutional anomalies which were inseparable from a revolutionary epoch. As the Commons, according to his own just remark, began the Civil War when they marched with an armed force from the city to Westminster, it is scarcely worth while to clip and pare their proceedings of the previous week for the purpose of bringing them within the limits of the constitution.

trial by peers into an immunity of all members of the Legislature from all criminal procA few days before, an attempt had been made to establish for the minority in the House of Commons the right of protest which is still the privilege of every peer. Mr. Forster designates the experiment as "a monstrous assumption," and he by no means pities the unlucky mover, who, according to the ordinary practice of the Long Parliament, was instantly committed to the Tower for his unpopular proposal. Sir Symonds D'Ewes' false and fraudulent analogy, which was at once accepted by the Commons, seems at least equally monstrous. Vane's rider to the Declaration, containing a promise that members duly prosecuted shall be brought by the House to a due and speedy trial, is, notwithstanding its temperate language, equivalent to a re-assertion of the usurped privilege of immunity from criminal process. The House in possessing the will to give, claimed a power to withhold, and it would always have been easy to find reasons for protecting The Royalists and their great historian are the leaders who, in fact, dictated the lan- alone interested in the attempt to convert guage which insured their own safety. Clar- the political conflict into a legal controversy. endon lays down the real issue, and states The early labors of the Long Parliament are the law with indisputable accuracy, when he memorable, not for usurpations which have says that the judges ought to have been con- left no permanent trace in the constitution, sulted, and that they must in that case have but for the defeat of a policy which would ruled that by the known law, which had have reduced England to the monotonous been confessed in all times and ages, no priv- servitude of France or Spain. It is imposilege of Parliament could extend to the case sible to value too highly an escape from that of treason." The king had exceeded his deadening system of absolute monarchy legal powers not in the accusation or the ar- which the continent has never since been rest, but in the means and process employed able to shake off. The indispensable restrictherein, and it would not have suited the tions on the royal prerogative were almost purpose of Pym and his colleagues simply to complete at the moment when it became impoint out an error which the king might, on a possible to carry on the struggle by a peacefuture occasion, casily have corrected. The able and ostensibly legal method. The revolution had so far commenced, that it was Restoration and the Revolution confirmed necessary, on both sides, to disregard the and perpetuated the internal balance of constitution, and yet it was desirable to per-power which had been nominally established suade the people that every violent measure was strictly consistent with law.

The audacity of the Commons would have furnished a better excuse for the rashness of the king if he had been on a level with his opponents either in vigor or in the command of available resources. The attempt to arrest the five members was a moderate and legal proceeding in comparison with the impeachment of ten bishops for high treason, on the ground of their imprudent protest against their exclusion by mob violence from their seats in the House of Lords. It is difficult in modern times to understand the conduct of a deliberate assembly in which the members of the minority were liable to censure and imprisonment whenever they ventured to use any inconveniently forcible argument, but the leaders of the popular

before the bishops were committed to the Tower, and before Pym and Hampden were impeached. The Civil War which tempoarily overthrew both royalty and liberty was unfortunately necessary, because neither the king nor the Parliament could rely on the maintenance of the existing compromise. The exceptional courts, the claim to impose taxes by prerogative, the civil and ecclesiastical policy of Laud and Strafford, had been already suppressed. Cromwell and his generals unintentionally superadded the final condition of practical freedom by making a standing army odious for several generations.

The bold and prudent leaders of the Parliament are perhaps the worthiest representatives of the political qualities which distinguish Englishmen. Their habitual at

tachment to law, and to the fictions in which that the struggle should end without an apit becomes idealized, was always subordinate peal to arms. Mr. Forster does full justice to their indomitable resolution in carrying to their intelligent love of freedom as well out the great purpose of their lives. If they as to their personal wisdom and courage. displayed a crafty sternness in their dealings If he somewhat overrates the nicety of their with the king, the survivors of their num- constitutional scruples, the exaggeration only ber afterwards stood proudly apart from the brings out in more conspicuous relief one of successful military chief. The triumph of the most remarkable characteristics which their principles became virtually impossible belong to the men, to their time, and above with the first outbreak of the war; but on all to their country. the other hand, it was perhaps impossible

MAP OF JEDDO.-The Rev. Henry Wood, THE Pitch Committee of the Society of Arts chaplain of the United States steam frigate Pow-will receive with satisfaction tidings that Russia hatan, has recently sent home a map of the Jap-has allied herself to France in the matter of imanese city of Jeddo, which is all the work of posing, as government standard, the normal native artists, and was printed and colored in diapason agreed on in Paris; indemnifying, it that city. We have examined a copy of this is added, the artists, who will suffer great exmap, which is really a fine specimen of drawing, pense on the occasion, by a grant of 45,000f.showing not only all the streets, but the loca- £1,800. This will hardly, for the moment, be tion of the government offices, the temples, bays, emulated in England, and amounts, we think, rivers, ponds, and other collections of water, to a significant comment on the practicability of the merchants' quarters, houses, shops, and the change. At Paris it has been found expedi grounds, small hills and gardens, fields of rice ent entirely to rebuild the organ in the operaand vegetables, the imperial residence, and those house. Who shall answer that these changes, of the hereditary princes, etc., etc. when carried through, are final?

We have never had an adequate idea of the immense size of the city of Jeddo until we inspected this map. The imperial castle alone, which is in the centre of the city, and surrounded by double walls, moats, etc, is from twelve to fifteen miles in circuit. The establishments of some of the hereditary princes cover a square mile, and contain thousands of retainers. The circumference of the city must be at least sixty miles. It contains almost innumerable temples. The streets are laid out with considerable regularity, though with little angularity.

The accuracy of the map is attested by Mr. Wood, who has traversed this great and mysterious city from side to side repeatedly, examined its temples and places of interest, and been twice around the imperial castle. Copies of this interesting map may be obtained at the New England Branch Tract Society's Depository, No. 78 Washington Street.-Boston Journal.

THE Bay of New York is not a poetical title to excite the curiosity of the picture-seeing public, yet we predict an almost unequalled success for the picture of that name that for three months past has been under the patient, living hands of Mr. George L. Brown. The view embraces a large portion of the city, the mouth of the river, the bay, and many other objects, all overarched by a sky of grand conceptions and masterly execution.-New York Evening Post.

FROM 1753, the year of its foundation, to the 31st of March of the present year, the total expense of the British Museum to the nation has been £1,382,733, 13s., 4d.,-no great sum for the inestimable benefit obtained by its outlay, and a considerably less one than would be required to keep a line-of-battle ship afloat for half the period. Mr. Panizzi states that there is room in the building, as it stands at present, for eight hundred thousand additional volumes, and for a million altogether:-at the present rate of increase, space enough to accommodate the receipts of fifty years to come.

IN the Indian Lancet for 1st of April is a communication from Dr. Donaldson, recommending the web of the common spider as an unfailing remedy for certain fevers. It is stated to be invaluable at times when quinine and other ante-periodics fail in effect or quantity, not only from its efficacy, but because it can be obtained anywhere without trouble and without price. This remedy, it was observed, was used a century back by the poor in the fens of Lincolnshire, and by Sir James M'Gregor in the West Indies. The doctor now uses cobweb pills in all his worst cases, and is stated to have said that he has never, since he tried them, lost a pa

tient from fever.

THE MANNING THE FRENCH NAVIES.

THE MANNING THE FRENCH NAVIES,
AND THE NORTH AMERICAN FISH-

ERIES QUESTION.

To the Editor of The Constitutional Press Magazine. SIR: The country is in no slight degree indebted to the Press for the information which has been afforded of the history of the re-organization of the French army. It is only by the Press that any light has been

thrown on the secret causes of the extraordinary development of that military system, which has, in the past year, taken Europe by surprise, and astonished the intelligence of English statesmen not less than that of Austrian generals.

Permit me to communicate some facts, derived from personal knowledge, respecting the similar re-organization of the French navy, and the French system of manning their fleet. We shall find in the naval as well as the military department much to admire in the system of our ingenious allies, and perhaps also much to learn. In seagirt, seafaring England, the manning of the navy has become one of the difficult problems of the day. Whereas in France, from a small nucleus, a great and admirably organized marine has been formed, and the training and disciplining sailors for her navy has become an institution. The French government of late years, feeling their deficiency in seamen and also in the maritime nursery of sailors, has looked around, with prescient common sense, for some practical basis within their reach, on which to found a system of marine. Though few their natural advantages were in this respect, they have found what they sought in their distant fisheries, if these be well utilized and developed; and with admirable skill have they turned to account what would have appeared to an English statesman of the red-tape school but scattered and insufficient elements. France has now in the fisheries of Newfoundland alone more than twenty thousand sailors employed. These men are all subject to naval discipline, they go out in the spring, and return to France in the autumn; they are at all times liable to be called out to serve in the navy; they are kept together, and in every way prepared for the one object in view, viz., the possession of a ready-made material always within reach for manning the fleets. These men and boys are taught seamanship in a rugged school; they are inured to hardships, seasoned to cold, to storms, and the roughest work of the seaman. A fleet, manned from the French North American fishing boats and vessels, would have presented to an admiral, crews somewhat more prepared for service than those which left Portsmouth for the Baltic in 1854.

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE.

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In 1841, when war with England was apprehended, M. Thiers recalled the fishermen, absent in Newfoundland, to enter the navy. In a debate on the navy in the French Chambers, M. Rodet affirmed that, "without the resources which were found in the sailors engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries, the expedition to Algiers could not have taken place."

This result for France has been obtained by two methods; each wise in design, and well carried out. The first was to drive the English fishermen out of the market, and to place France in the shoes of England, both as to commerce and sailors. As it was not easy to do this by fair commercial competition, recourse was had to a system of granting bounties on all codfish taken by the French fishermen on the Newfoundland banks and coast, which bounty-caught fish, coming into competition with the English in foreign markets, enabled the French to undersell the English; and, consequently, forced the British shipper to sell his cargo at a sacrifice, and deterred him from any desire to repeat such shipment.

Lord Dundonald, in writing on this sub"I wish to convey, in as ject in 1852, says, few words as possible, the real cause of the progressive decay, and now total abandonment, of that once important nursery for seaman, with which the duties of my late naval command required that I should make myself intimately acquainted. The result of authentic information, derived from official documents, proved that the British Bank, or Deep-Sea Fishery, formerly employed four hundred sail of square-rigged vessels and twelve thousand seamen; and that now not one of these pursue their vocation, in consequence of the ruinous effect of bounties awarded by the French and North American governments. The former pay their fishermen ten francs for every quintal of fish disembarked in the ports of France, and five francs additional on their importation in French vessels into foreign states, once exclusively supplied by England-a transfer which cannot be viewed simply as a mercantile transaction, seeing that the substitution of a greater number of foreign transatlantic fishing vessels, having more numerous crews, constitutes a statistical difference amounting to twenty-six thousand sailors against England, without including the United Statesa fact that ought not, and, being known, cannot be looked on with indifference."

Such have been the means adopted in a commercial point of view. The French government has, with good reason, congratulated itself on its success, as well as taken The report of the credit for its ability.

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