The very day after the commutation became known--namely, July 3rd--a further attempt was made by a hunchback named Bean. As in the other cases, a morbid vanity appears to have been the feeling which prompted the act. Bean escaped at the moment, but was soon afterwards arrested, and, being tried for misdemeanour--not, like the others, for high treason--was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment. The folly of charging such offenders with high treason, when it was quite certain that they would not be visited with the penalty of that offence, but with a much lighter punishment, uncertain, capricious, and variable in its nature and operation, had suggested a change of the law, and the Bill, which was in progress through Parliament at the time of Bean’s attempt, received the Royal sanction a few days later. Sir Robert Peel, while consulting with Prince Albert shortly after the attempt, was so overcome by the sudden entry of her Majesty that he burst into tears, although usually a very self-contained man. The frequent repetition of such outrages was indeed a serious matter, and after the Francis affair the Queen admitted that for some time she had had a presentiment of danger hovering over her. On the occasion of Bean’s attempt, her Majesty was not aware that anything had occurred until after her return to the Palace. Being informed of the fact, she calmly observed that she had expected a repetition of these attacks as long as the law remained unaltered by which they could be dealt with only as acts of high treason. The change in the law was doubtless advisable, since it is well known that it is not so much the severity as the certainty of punishment which deters the evilly-disposed; yet such acts will occur from time to time as long as vanity and envy remain passions of the human heart. CHAPTER VII. CONVULSIONS IN THE EAST.