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Manlius was not improved by his captivity, but was more turbulent and disorderly in his conduct than he had been before. Camillus was now again elected military tribune, and Manlius was impeached: but the place in which he was tried told greatly against his accusers.
In March 1812, when I saw that the approaching war would necessarily take Napoleon from France, weary of the persecutions and even threats by which I was every day assailed, I addressed to the Emperor a memorial explaining my conduct and showing the folly and wickedness of my accusers.
"Ah! you turncoat scoundrel!" he laughed in a sort of fond dejection, "you've come North to be a lover too, have you? You were songless enough down South!" But the quivering gallant went singing across the fields, too drunk with the joy of loving to notice accusers.
Whereupon the king swore to both of them, and then went to tell his accusers that he had a knight ready to fight Sir Blamor.
And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?
"For God's sake, your highness, be not so rash!" exclaimed Latour, as a second stone flew over the head of the prince, and shattered part of a cornice close by. Eugene had not moved. He heeded neither steward nor stone, but stood with folded arms, looking upon the terrible concourse of his mother's accusers.
But it would have been well if his accusers had imitated the wise policy of the Elector.
The Commons summoned the accusers and the accused to the bar. It soon appeared that a grave offence had been committed, but that the offenders were not altogether without excuse. The public money which had been issued from the Exchequer for their pay and subsistence had been fraudulently detained by their colonel and by his agent.
This divine was a man of mean capacity, and of little reputation for learning or virtue. He had been, during the reign of William, an outrageous Whig; but, finding his services disregarded, he became a violent Tory. By a sort of plausible effrontery and scurrilous rhetoric, he obtained the applause of the people, and the valuable living of St. Saviour, Southwark. The audacity of his railings against the late king and the revolution at last attracted the notice of government; and for two sermons which he printed, and in which he inculcated, without measure, the doctrine of passive obedience, consigned Dissenters to eternal damnation, and abused the great principle of religious toleration, he was formally impeached. All England was excited by the trial. The queen herself privately attended, to encourage a man who was persecuted for his loyalty, and persecuted for defending his church. The finest orators and lawyers of the day put forth all their energies. Bishop Atterbury wrote for Sacheverell his defence, which was endorsed by a conclave of High Church divines. The result of the trial was the condemnation of the doctor, and with it the fall of his adversaries. He was suspended for three years, but his defeat was a triumph. He was received, in college halls and private mansions, with the pomp of a sovereign and the reverence of a saint. His sentence made his enemies unpopular. The great body of the English nation, wedded to High Church principles, took sides in his favor. But the arguments of his accusers developed some great principles led to the assertion of the doctrines of toleration; for, if passive obedience to the rulers of the state and church were obligatory, then all Dissenters might be curbed and suppressed. The Whig managers of the trial, by opposing the bigoted Churchmen, aided the cause of dissent, justified the revolution, and upheld the conquest by William
My accusers may procure that judgment, but hurt me they cannot. To fear death is to seem wise without being so, for it is pretending to understand what we know not. No man knows what death is, or whether it be not our greatest happiness; yet all fear and shun it.”
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