At the breaking out of the Civil War, so intemperately denominated a
rebellion by Lord Clarendon and other Tory writers, the material
question appears to me to be, whether or not sufficient attempts
were made by the Parliament and their leaders to avoid bringing
affairs to such a decision? That, according to the general
principles of morality, they had justice on their side cannot fairly
be doubted; but did they sufficiently attend to that great dictum of
Tully in questions of civil dissension, wherein he declares 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