Was anything known of the fate of former captives?
Yes; the pirates who ravaged Baltimore, in Ireland, four yean ago, were Turks like these. They were allowed to land their captives, as slaves, at Rochelle; and some travellers in France had seen those victims on their march to Marseilles. They were dusty and footsore, and loaded with chains. These Port Eliot children could not wear chains, nor cross France on foot: but they would be made slaves of. Could no petition obtain from the king some ship to follow these pirates? Could not the case be set before the French court, so as to recover the children from a French port, if the Turks should stop there as usual?
Mr. Knightley gave some shadow of comfort by telling that John Eliot was on his way to inform Mr. Hampden of the case. Several voices cried, that if anybody could obtain ships for pursuit, it was Mr. Hampden. But then arose the question whether there were any ships that could go.
To this many voices replied. The sums paid for shipmoney were very large. Some London citizens had paid in one lump three or four hundred pounds; and there was no security against the call being repeated at any time. Every lodger in London was charged from ten to forty shillings: and the kingdom at large was reckoned to have yielded 700,000l. by this tax alone. After all, there was no sign of guarding the seas. The citizens were not allowed to fulfil the original order, to provide a ship in fair trim for this or that district. At best, this would have been an arbitrary charge: but it was insufferable that the money should be extorted, instead of the ship, and that the seas should be unguarded after all.
One after another of these quiet country squires and yeomen for the first time breathed doubts whether such things should be submitted to. The anguish of the mothers, whose wailings came upon the wind, moved not only the hearts but the tempers of the citizens. Was it possible that the King did not know what was done in his name? Some turned their eyes on Knightley, who might have been in London lately, and who was, at all events, the son-in-law of Mr. Hampden.
“Is it possible,” Richard asked, “that the King should be unaware, while Mr. Hampden is withstanding him to the face about this very tax?”
The stir among the squires, and then, by degrees, among the crowd, astonished him. He observed to those next him that one might think it was news to the people that Mr. Hampden was refusing to pay shipmoney. He learned that it was news; and the anxiety was so great to hear the fact, and how it had happened, that Richard soon found himself addressing a crowd of several hundreds, so eager to hear that a sudden silence prevailed in the market-place. A voice called out to him from the thick of the throng, desiring him to speak freely, as there were none but friends present; and this brought out, on the other hand, several kindly cautions to beware what he said, as there might be treachery in the invitation to open his heart.
Richard replied that everybody was welcome to all he had to tell, which was known to the whole kingdom, except such by-places as this Cornish coast. His tidings were simply that his father-in-law, and several other Buckinghamshire gentlemen, had declined paying this tax half a-year ago, and that Mr. Hampden meant to stand by his refusal, in order that one case might ascertain the law for all.
Loud cheers arose at this announcement, stopped at last only by the wish to hear the how, the when, and the why of the whole story.
“It is easily told,” Richard observed, as he mounted another step of the market cross on which he was standing. “I will tell you the story in a moment, if you will take it into your hearts as I speak it. Mr. Hampden may have to suffer a great deal on account of his refusal to pay. The charge is only a few shillings; but the expenses may be thousands of pounds; and, to a man who has nine children, that must always be a matter of importance. But he is in a worse peril than that. He may have to go to prison again; and no man knows better the miseries of such an imprisonment as he may have to endure. I need not tell you Cornish men what it is to lie hidden for years in the damps and dreariness of the Tower, or the Gate House. You remember how long and vainly you waited for a sight of your own great neighbour who never more came home to the Priory, because he had stood up against the forced loan in the last parliament. Year by year you hoped to see his face again—and when rumour said he was ill, you drew from your sorrow the hope that he would be released, and would come to be restored by his beloved Cornish air.”
“Aye, we did!” exclaimed a voice; and then a hundred echoed it—“Aye, we did! we did! But we never saw him. Some people do not believe that he is dead. They think he will come down some day. Is it sure that he is dead?”
“It is too sure; but the doubt is not wonderful, seeing that his oppressors have been afraid to let his dead body out of their keeping. You have not been allowed to lay him in his family grave with honour. You did ask it—”
“Aye, we did!”
“Family, neighbours, friends, all asked it; and what was the answer? An order to the Lieutenant of the Tower to bury the body within the walls. So prison damps rest on his grave, in some corner of that dismal place, instead of this spring sunshine on the breezy hillside. Mr. Hampden was very dear to him, as you know by his being now guardian to John and Edmund Eliot. Mr. Hampden has lost some of the brightness of his own life in prison; he has felt in his heart every torment that afflicted his friend: yet he has now offered himself for the trial of this case of ship-money, which is really and truly the same cause under another name. He believes that many citizens will follow the course of refusing to enable the King to do without parliaments; but if no one but himself were to make the venture, he would still do it, for love of the liberties of England.”
A hundred voices vowed that, with such a man to lead, there would be half England to follow. But how did he do it?
“When the writs came down into Buckinghamshire,” Richard said, “those who disputed the King’s right refused to pay. Then new sheriffs were appointed by the King’s authority, and there was a general expectation of some rebuke to the late High Sheriff. Sir Peter Temple accordingly received a writ commanding him to account to his successor for the amount of the ship-money, and to deliver over the former warrant to him. Then the country gentlemen understood that the business would be followed up, and that every man who refused to pay must prepare for consequences. It was in cold weather that the parish meeting was held in which this affair was to be adventured. You may remember what the 11th of last January was on this sunny coast of yours, with mild sea airs to temper the frosts. With us on the Chiltern Hills it was bitterly cold; and the church at Kimble was not a warm place of meeting. Yet it was well filled; and there was a glow in many faces when men’s eyes met, and sufficient heat from their tongues before all was done.”
“And how was it done?”
“The assessors declared the rate, whereof Mr. Hampden’s part was thirty-one shillings and sixpence. Mr. Hampden and the rest, including the parish constables, declined to pay the whole, or any part.”
“Did the constables refuse?”
“They did—to their honour; and they wrote down their own names in the return, without any shrinking. Before they parted off to their homes, some on and some under the hills, Mr. Hampden told them that having put his name first on the record, he was prepared to take the first place in answering for that record.”
“And has any consequence ensued?” asked several voices. “Has he been called to account? Is the King offended?”
“No doubt the King is offended. He overlooks Mr. Hampden’s open profession that the King and the Government should be abundantly supplied with all that they can need, or honestly desire; but that it must be on the condition that the supplies should be obtained in the safe and sacred way of a parliament, and not by putting the whole nation at the mercy of the King’s or the Queen’s fancy—”
“Aye! the Queen’s!” observed several hearers.
“Or,” continued Richard, “at the mercy of men and women of low repute who obtain monopolies from the royal favour—the right of selling for their own profit the most necessary articles of use.”
Every