Of the siege of Colchester during the Rebellion, and of the cruel vengeance exacted by Fairfax, under the relentless influence of Ireton, on Lucas and Lisle, mention has been made at an earlier point, but at the moment of mention I was not aware that the populace of Colchester, like that of most of East Anglia, was essentially in sympathy with the Parliament, and had helped its cause over and over again. It was the necessity of war that drove the Royalists--"undaunted Capel" was of their number too--into Colchester, and it may well be that through familiarity with the place Lucas was enabled to make exceptionally capable use of the outlines of the town for purposes of defence. For the Lucases were tenants in fee of the Abbey of St. John, the gate of which still remains, restored it is true. "The last abbot," says Murray, "was hanged at his own gate for contumacy in refusing to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy." The last owner, whose ancestors had come in by purchase and not by force, faced death hard by with equal resolution and cheerfulness for the cause which he held dear. The defence had been a gallant but a hopeless enterprise. Reduced to the last extremity for lack of provisions, "after feeding on the vilest aliment," worn out by hunger and desperate sallies, surrounded by a hostile population, the leaders must indeed have been weary of life. How they lost it we know; but Ireton was not satisfied with the blood of the leaders. The common soldiers were dispatched to the American plantations, were in fact converted into white slaves by the champions of freedom and of religion; and the unhappy townsfolk, who certainly had no wish to take the Royalist side, although it is probable that many of them felt personal regard for Lucas and his family, were mulcted in the sum of £12,000, a very large sum in those days. "Soon after, a gentleman appearing in the King's presence, clothed in mourning for Sir Charles Lucas; that humane Prince, suddenly recollecting the hard fate of his friends, paid them a tribute, which none of his own unparalleled misfortunes ever extorted from him; He dissolved into a flood of tears." These words, with their peculiar punctuation and their copious capitals, are those not of the stately and partisan Clarendon but of David Hume, whom Adam Smith considered "as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit." _Leviore plectro._ No wise man will go to Colchester without sampling the oysters, for which Colchester has been famous since it was Camulodunum. They are traditionally the best in the world, although perhaps something may be urged in favour of the Marennes of France (but the green colour is somewhat against them), or of the giant oysters of New Zealand, which were unknown, as New Zealand was, when the tradition of Colchester natives was already ancient.