The execution of Sidney is regarded as one of the greatest blemishes of the present reign. The evidence against him, it must be confessed, was not legal; and the jury who condemned him were, for that reason, very blamable. But that, after sentence passed by a court of judicature, the king should interpose and pardon a man who, though otherwise possessed of merit, was undoubtedly guilty, who had ever been a most inflexible and most inveterate enemy to the royal family, and who lately had even abused the king’s clemency, might be an act of heroic generosity, but can never be regarded as a necessary and indispensable duty. Howard was also the sole evidence against Hambden; and his testimony was not supported by any material circumstance. The crown lawyers therefore found it in vain to try the prisoner for treason: they laid the indictment only for a misdemeanor, and obtained sentence against him. The fine imposed was exorbitant; no less than forty thousand pounds. Holloway, a merchant of Bristol, one of the conspirators, had fled to the West Indies, and was now brought over. He had been outlawed; but the year allowed him for surrendering himself was not expired. A trial was therefore offered him but as he had at first confessed his being engaged in a conspiracy for an insurrection, and even allowed that he had heard some discourse of an assassination, though he had not approved of it, he thought it more expedient to throw himself on the king’s mercy. He was executed, persisting in the same confession. Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had been seized in Holland, and sent over by Chidley, the king’s minister, was precisely in the same situation with Holloway: but the same favor, or rather justice, was refused him. The lawyers pretended, that unless he had voluntarily surrendered himself before the expiration of the time assigned, he could not claim the privilege of a trial; not considering that the seizure of his person ought in equity to be supposed the accident which prevented him. The king bore a great enmity against this gentleman, by whom he believed the duke of Monmouth to have been seduced from his duty; he also asserted, that Armstrong had once promised Cromwell to assassinate him; though it must be confessed, that the prisoner justified himself from this imputation by very strong arguments. These were the reasons of that injustice which was now done him. It was apprehended that sufficient evidence of his guilt could not be produced; and that even the partial juries which were now returned, and which allowed themselves to be entirely directed by Jefferies and other violent judges, would not give sentence against him.