University of Virginia Library

SECTION III.

The Heir, a comedy.

THE TRIAL.

The persons who composed the commission of Oyer
and Terminer which had been assembled to try Jacob
Leisler, and to decide his fate on the accusations already
charged against him by his active and inveterate enemies
by direction of Governor Sloughter and his new sworn
council, were convened together in a small dark room of
the Stadthuis, in the gloomy, mean, and ill-lighted precincts
of which there was but little that savoured of the
high and solemn sitting of a court, that periled in that
which it was about deliberating on, the life and honour
of a fellow creature. The judges were seated around a
table, in the centre of which was placed a dim and solitary
lanthorn, through the close, thick, and dingy glass of
which poured out the weak and prison rays that scarce
pierced the dismal shadows of the apartment, rendering
with their feeble gladness of light the cheerlessness of the
place more striking; but where its nearer beams were
thrown with more vividness of power on the countenances
of those who were present, and who in deep and anxious
converse huddled within its influence, it discovered in the
speaking visages of the greater part, neither the cool and
composed calmness of men firm in determination, nor the
collectedness of aspect and demeanour to be expected
from such, of whom was demanded fair and unmoved
judgment, both as to the accuser and the accused. Various
were the tell tale and convulsed movements of the

disturbed features of the majority of these men, bespeaking
the hurry of alarm, fever of excited passion and hate
timid anxiety and selfish care for their own preservation
in the course they were called to pursue, that with busy
thoughts shook their distracted minds; for although selected
with caution requisite to the furtherance of their
purposes by those inimical to the deposed ruler of the
province, as persons in whom reliance could be placed in
their absolute devotion to the views of the Bayard faction,
yet so abrupt had been the change of public matters,
that like a vision it could scarce be realized; but
yesterday, the name of him whose fate was in their hands,
to be disposed of now as suited the enmity of his foemen,
was all powerful in the land—and yet within so brief a
space of time as had passed, it had become a stigma and
a reproach to be known his partizan: and then, too, without
previous warning or preparation they had been called
together—they had been suddenly and with haste summoned,
their perturbed feelings having scarce time to
tranquillize, from the late hurried violence and public irritation,
to fulfil the fearful duty, and painful part of which
there was not one, the most ignorant among them, who
dared encourage himself was not already marked out for
their performance; and that however clear of guiltiness,
or even innocent of the shadow of committal of the
crimes coined for his destruction and laid to his charge,
that if the victim of the unhallowed persecution of unceasing
and untiring revenge, was dismissed by their assent
from the power of his enemies, and by their means
was disentangled from his thraldom, untorn and unmangled
by the eager hands of his angered adversaries, their
actions could not have been such as were evidently
expected from them, nor would be pleasant in the sight
of those, who, from whom, if they did not immediately
derive their stations and their consequence, were, in the
least, the master spirits of the day, in whose presence all
favour was gained and in whose smiles were rank
and influence; and then too there were those elder
and wary, to whom experience had taught the instability
of popular opinion, the madness of decision founded on
the sandy support of the prejudices that rule, however
potent, yet but for the hour, the wavering passions of the
crowd, unfaithful and changeable as the wind that sweeps
with wanton career the crest of the sounding surge—whom
years of endurance of the bitterness of disappointed calculation,
of wrecked hopes, and shattered power, while
like some fragile plank upon the stormy billow they swam
the current of uncertain fortune, gathering wisdom from
their own sufferance, had learnt how little faith could be
placed, however favourable for the time the appearance
of affairs, upon the steadiness of success, or the permanency
of the elevation of any rival faction of the day; nor
could doubts in the minds of such be banished that the
party triumphant now might ere long yield its sway as
quickly as it had conquered, to the one whose fugitive
remnants were every where seeking safety in concealment,
fallen and defeated. There was, therefore, in the
manner of the many, who could the less easy from want
of nerve conceal and cloak into the inmost recesses of
their hearts, the secret disturbance of their thoughts,
which was obvious to their companions, an unguarded
vacillation, a fickle, nervous and hesitating temper, both
in word and action; nevertheless, the cunning hand of
the deepest and darkest policy had framed the Court to
perfect the better its own hidden ends; well had been
foreseen and cared for in its composition the various nature
of its members: they were of mingled elements,
mixed of good and ill, artfully giving the shadow of justice
to the proceedings, which had, in truth, been catered out
to their peculiar tools, by Bayard and his associates—in
relief to the weak and undetermined, were stern and resolute
men, the very sycophants of their superiors, who
thought not, cared not for the future while revelling in the
present sunshine, who, without will of their own, were
ready to obey that command which was given them, and
pursue to the very uttermost the road pointed out to
them by those on whose skirts their fortunes hung; and
although there were among the judges of that court one
or two who were really honest, yet these were of that
weak disposition as to be overawed and borne down by
the active loudness of argument of their companions, although
in giving way to their influence, they flattered
themselves they were convinced of the rectitude of the
course they were taking; these were of that class of men,
honest, it is true, in intention, but who hush their consciences,
and who, to their own love of ease and comfort,
yield up to the more ardent in disputation the rights or
lives of their fellows; nor, however despicable, is this
species of being rare, the germ exists in this day—it is
from men of this kind that the fallacy is proved of that which
hath been so highly vaunted as the most perfect of human
institutions, the boasted bulwark of civil and social liberty—
the trial by jury; in which, withal its admirers have shown
is alone exhibited how fleeting a reliance, how false the
faith, and how uncertain the right which depend on the
strength of virtue and the changeable and variable resolutions
of mankind; for what can be more faithless than
that which is ever open to the assaults of interest and of
prejudice, and which being made up by numbers hath the
less power to resist united the attacks of open corruption,
or withstand being tampered with by insidious guiles and
temptation. And however dangerous these, they are
neither the only nor the worst influence which is to be
dreaded in the minds of men taken as judges indiscriminately
from the common crowd; there is among others,
(and it is a fearful principle, a blot dark and deep, a vile
deformity of nature, that with its general prevalence, like
a leprosy, spreads to the heart, making it rotten to the
very core,) that involuntary though natural bias of the
mind, which is momently received by imperceptible seeds
in its inmost recesses, from whence conviction itself cannot
uproot its avidious hold. Prejudice is like that fatal
disease, that in our northern clime wastes away our life
like a waning lamp, and maketh fat the grave; its grasp
is death, though the infatuated victim derides its power,
and when nearest the most fearful hour of its strength,
buoys itself up with hope of life, and dreams of health
while palsied with sickness; so prejudice is drank in greedily,
as it were in our very intercourse with the world
and often when most we condemn it, we are more driven,
by its fatal current—for it is the habitual idea which without
the exercise of judgment, for this at such times is
torpid until too late to be used, or be in the least efficacious,
that ingrafts itself from common rumour, (and belief
is ever ready to swallow aught monstrous, strange, or
ill of our fellows) and from the information of others upon
the pliant thought, it is the sense of the multitude which
the wisest uses as his own, mistaking it for the sober effects
of his own reason, when it is the air blown bubble
that he hears from a thousand lips—when it is the overpowering
impulse of his mind, heated by popular sway and
opinion, preventing a cool and correct direction of the
understanding; slight though its foundation, a breath, a
feather its cause, still will its purpose be the same, and
its reign hold pace with life itself, mixing with its minutest
circumstance, directing its duties and its actions; and
though on its face a gross absurdity, equally vile, terrible,
and detestable to other prevailing opinions, contrary to
right itself, yet guided by it, blinded to the truth, man
rushes headlong on, doing deeds unhallowed, crimes that
were it not for the applauding voice of the inconsistent
world would make him shudder at himself. To-day it
assumes in its terrific career the garb of religious zeal;
then to-morrow it is pretended principle, and again committing
every violence under the name boldly owned of
party, finding admirers, defenders, and followers for every
step it takes, making the laws themselves subservient to
sinister views, however adverse to common sense, to virtue,
and morality; and yet so fickle are the feelings that
arise from the promptings of prejudice, that that which
at one time is iniquity, at another is honesty itself, and the
same voice that elevates deception, cries it down from the
station to which it had lifted it; for it is the weakness of
nature to long after continual novelty, and deceit and falsehood
being the most admired by imagination, most times
rule our fancy, which ever thirsting for variety is the
more prone to credulity, and for the moment is inflamed
in proportion to the force and operation of the first cause
which it receives; but the animosity of the passion thus
addressed being satiated, it is the more avaricious of fresh
gratification, and is ready to be controlled by any dominion
so it be new, and false to that which governed last.
What safety, then, exists to life or property, when at the
mercy of men liable to be sported with by this predominant
power—equally to be played on like the sands by
the sea breeze—who are more times piloted in their passage
of existence by passion than truth? in sooth it is a
mockery, a solemn masquerade that maketh a derision of
justice—that places in the hands of a dozen men, possibly
all ignorant or obstinate, the dearest privileges, the most
sacred rights, and the most hallowed principles of social
connexion. How feeble the chance of right, (though
sometimes blundered on) even if pure and honest, is to
be derived from the minds of a motley and indiscriminately
chosen jury—set to decide the most intricate subject—
affairs of national and mercantile importance depending
on the uninformed fiat of unlettered and unwashed artizans
and tradesmen, to whom the customs, and the law
which is to direct them, are as inexplicable as the labyrinth
of Crete; and then, too, the dangers that beset
them in their own selfishness—the dread of privation in
some, the uninterested feeling of others, whose whole
thoughts are centered in their own absent affairs, and
are ready to sacrifice any thing—conscience, their own
sense of rectitude, to escape from the subject to which
their attention is demanded; then the weak dependence
on the will of others, the composition of their opinion
to the majority; and last, the obstinate ignorance, unconvinced
by fact or reason, of some dogmatical logician,
whose only cause for adherence to the course he takes,
is the pride of bringing others, by dint of stubbornness,
to side with him in ideas which though preposterous,
having first started, he conceives it incumbent on him
to maintain:—all these render perilous the course of justice,
and are as quicksands, through which it is indeed
fortunate if it escape wreck or injury in its passage;
while to the dullest vision, the hollowness of the whole
solemn parade of law is apparent—and to its enactors
may justly be applied, what the ancient sage said of the
priests of Rome, `that he was surprised, that they who
were so well acquainted with the farce and holy juggles
of their religion, could see one another without
laughing.'

But albeit, to return to the matter that hath been digressed
from; the tenor of action planned for the court, before
which Leisler was now about to appear, the rather
for form than for the least opportunity of vindication of
conduct, was such as well became the dark intentions of
his enemies and the more befitted the tyrannic tribunal
of an arbitrary and military despot—a Roman prætor of
a conquered province, than one convened in pursuance
of the strict and equitable law of the province; and
bound in its bearing and decision, by long established
and matured authorities, which had been exercised in
similar cases, without regard to private feelings, either for
or against the delinquent. It is true, that owing to the disordered
and convulsed situation of public affairs during
the latter part of the rule of Leisler himself, that cases
of emergency, that had a bearing on the welfare of the
state as it then stood, such as treasonable attempts to
overthrow the then established authority, by a law, or
rather a necessary edict, passed for its own safety by the
partizan council of the day, were taken under a hasty
and immediate cognizance, and the power of deciding for
life or death was assumed against the criminal, as in the
case of Bayard and Nichols, detailed in one of the former
sections of this narration; the height of party spirit,
and unceasing exertion of their opponents, rendering
an undue severity on the part of the Leslerian faction
towards their invidious foes, oftentimes, if not wholly
excusable, at least, greatly to be extenuated. Yet now,
the case was materially changed in its aspect—owing
to the Bayard party being countenanced by the new govenor,
and thereby apparently upheld by the shadow of
the sovereign in its course, together with the fatal and stunning
blow, stricken so suddenly to the very roots of the late
opposing faction, for the present, at least, there could
not be the same causes, for fear that had visited the power
of Leisler, or the smallest murmur of discontent towards
them—so much in awe did all stand, on that which
seemed to bear the royal sanction, even though through

a satellite; and besides, that a greater odium might fall
upon the government which they had so strenuously
stood out against, and that it might appear unfavourable
abroad, and their procedures the more warranted, they
already had eagerly set out to investigate, and cry down
as violent, rebellious, and illegal, its every act, declaring
not only the laws passed during the period of their power,
as contrary to polity, adverse to the statutes of the
mother country, but null and void as the acts and deeds
of rebellious traitors—who, for pursuing a path under
them, were deserving of the scaffold; and with an eagerness
only to be accounted for by the rabid and ravenous
hunger, to destroy all that could remind them that
they had ever been held under the sway of a man so detested
by them as Leisler, or fearful that something
might be drawn from them, lessening the charges that
they were making to the world against him, and bring on
themselves an accusation of over hastiness, and perhaps
malice, no sooner could they obtain possession of the
public records of the province, (and in the performance
of their wishes, they were, as may be supposed, assiduously
assisted by the zeal of Dirk Van Rikketie, to whom
great advantage therefor was given, by his incorruptibility
and the station he held,) than with a bold hand
they obliterated from the colonial archives nearly every
thing that related to the transaction of the time, which
did not accord with their own story of the Revolution
which had brought forward the name and influence of
Leisler; and indeed, the minutes of the provincial history
(such was the determined hatred of their destruction of
all documents relating thereto) may in vain be searched
as to aught that truly relates to the time—a vacuum, a
silence, dark as the hearts of his foes alone remains,
which even the after fortune of his partizans, the justice
done his family when he lay rotten in the grave by
the undeceived sovereign, has not been able to fill; indeed
the memory that hath followed the fate of this unfortunate
man hath been an unjust one, and is an example of to
what extent power and prejudice can be carried, in its influence
deforming the fair page of the historian, even for
ages after the truth hath transpired, for though a weak,
and mayhap a misguided man, Jacobus Leisler was neither
the bad nor the vile one he hath been painted; in
truth he was one against whom the voice of the world
hath been louder than his career deserved, and the might
of his enemies hath been such as to overshadow all the
good branches, leaving the bared plant of evil to flourish
to after times, making true the sublime sentiment of the
Indian orator, `that it is a truth, and a melancholy truth,
that the good things which men do are often buried in the
ground, while their evil deeds are stripped naked and exposed
to the world;' and yet we are told of the veracity
of this or that chronicler, whose solitary judgment is to
be relied on in the tradition he pens, as bearing the index
of the hearts of those departed to the tomb, and whose
vain conceit lays down the secret sources, the hidden intention,
and the undivulged feelings that prompted the
deed whose effect they alone are able to relate; making
this man, as their fancy chooses, a Nero, and that a Camillus;
sooth, it is all a fiction, hollow and worthless—
can others judge our hearts? where is the man living,
or that can ever exist, who can read that which may outwardly
appear plain? Dare he presume to tell from what
thought, what fancy, or instinctive spring it hath arisen?
If so, he must be endued with more than men from whom
I have drawn my knowledge of the species; yea, far
more than half the bold historian hath chosen to write, is
but a tissue of invented falsehood, baseless and unfounded;
and could the grave be opened, and the harmless
dust that fills them speak as at confessional, there would
be a strange change upon the pages whose substance
hath been so greedily swallowed; the good man would
many times be the bad, and the vile might attain respect,
such as now we dream not on; for so singular is the
course of life, that often that which is excellence, when
it should command admiration, is clouded, like the moon
in a stormy night, in the world's eye, by envious calumny,
unfortunate mischance, suffering, or vile persecution;
but as to the proceedings which were taken against Leisler,
nathless, the somewhat like during his power, the
friends of Bayard, supported their conduct by citing in
defence of the mockery, the laws of England during the
preceding reigns, and the arbitrary course of the Star
Chamber; not regarding, (for revenge and hate will
always find arguments to support the most infamous precedents—and
for the most horrible and monstrous crimes
there is no dearth of the last,) that among the very complaints
against the house of Stuart, and among the very
main springs of the revolution, which they pretended so
much to glory in, as from it the present government of
England had arisen, had been the very acts which they
called forth in their justification; for they had by their
cruelty and injustice aroused an oppressed nation to snap
asunder their chains of thraldom. And as to the success
of the Bayard party in their black design of a heavy
sentence on their prisoner, there was apparently no obstacle,
although in the principal judge of the Oyer and Terminer,
(Sir Thomas Robinson, a man though of dull intellect
and but little native brightness of character, yet of
intentional uprightness,) they found one whose feelings
did not assimilate to the savage thirst of persecution they
desired; and indeed he was the means of impeding
slightly the course proceeded against the victim, as will
shortly be seen, by his doubts on the evidence of the
crimes for which Leisler was arraigned; he was a short,
harsh, cold and austere featured man, with dark eyes and
thick brows, deep, black, and frowning countenance, the
forbidding aspect of which was heightened by a contraction
of the muscles at the corner of the mouth, which appeared
always knit and wrinkled, and bespoke a selfish
though determinate character. About him thronged the
gloomy visages of the others, who were joined with him
in his office, their features pallid and gloomy in the shadows
of the lantern; and as the busy hum of their whispering
voices arose as they eagerly strove to attain of
each other their secret sentiments and bent of mind
toward the prisoner, whose presence was momently
expected, the thought easily pictured them as conspirators
assembled in some lonesome cavern, planning
their murderous path of crime. As the rushing of
a hurried and mingled tread without broke on the
murmured converse of the court, and a loud and hollow
knock upon the door betokened the expected
coming of the prisoner, a deep and intense stillness pervaded
the apartment; by the sound every tongue was
chained to instant silence;—something like a fearful
expectancy seemed imprinted on the anxious countenances
of the persons present, and for a moment, each appeared
to hold his breath at the vibration; for the while, at the
noise the eager communication that had been passing was
stilled, as though the speaker's words had been chilled
upon the warm lip of utterance. Some there were who
turned pale and felt ill at ease, to look upon their victim's
face, as a momentary remorse smote at the dark resolution
of their hearts; others startled as until then they had
not been aware of the stern certainty of that which they
were doomed to take a part in; but there were those,
who with fierce and steady glance, turned their cold and
unfeeling eyes towards the unclosing door of the apartment,
and set their unmoved and forbidden visages in
that fixed cast that tempered and bespoke the character
of their intentions. Clad in his soiled and prison array,
his spirits that had arisen in the semblance of relief from
sufferance and thraldom, afforded in the passage from the
dungeon to the court—sunken and exhausted almost in
the convincement of a moment, like the sudden flash of a
lamp stricken in a charnel-house, and which dies as soon
as lighted, smothered by dank and poisonous vapours from
the rottenness of the surrounding dead,—Jacob Leisler
advanced before the tribunal of his judges; as he walked,
his pace was apparently slow and waning, the rather from
faintness than age, if the wan lustre of his sunken eye,
and his pallid and fallen cheek were read aright;—and as
though scarce able to support his own frame, he leaned
its trembling weight upon his son; and as he clung,
drooping and careworn, to the stripling's patient arm, he
resembled some tottering ruin of an ancient column, upheld
alone from falling by the protecting tendril, whose
roots found succour at its mouldering base—the parent
and the child—the goodly oak bent by the blasting storm
of winter, till it sunk upon the outstretched branches of
its own shoot and scion.

It were a tedious, useless and unnecessary course to
pursue, to set forth at length the many passages, the
minute and tiresome proceedings of this mockery of a
trial,—this false examination of the acts of Leisler; sooth,
it will be sufficient to state, that no form that might
strictly be considered legal was wanting; in that the
farce was played unto its uttermost. There was in this
investigation all the treachery of outward right to the
accused, but encountered by judicial subtleties; Leisler
was, with an apparent anxiety for fairness, forewarned of
that which was his service and privilege as an English
subject, only to be silenced when he applied the arguments
pointed out to him, by the court's deeming them
inapplicable when used: nor was there, as may be supposed,
a lack of prepared testimony from the corrupt
lips of suborned or prejudiced witnesses, in whose partial
relation the simplest action and the purest intentions were
turned to manifest guiltiness. For, to some men the
sacred obligation of an oath, no matter how it affects the
life or fortune of a fellow, is but the bending of a straw,
—the passing of breath, leaving no feeling unless that of
exultation at the triumph it achieved, in the vile breast
from which it took its being; albeit, with most the solemn
action of a vow, the bond of truth hath not the slightest
force or control; sooth, he that hath no veracity withouten
these, nothing human or divine can bind: yet such
is nature, that there are but few when their interest is at
stake, or when guided by ill will or revenge, who will not
almost unknown to themselves, or at least without premeditated
guidance, stretch their evidence to leave an
unfavourable impression against the object of those bitter
feelings, arguing even at the time, that they have spoken
uprightly and given that which was the fact, scarce reflecting
that the words of good were weak and evanescent
to the detail of evil; and then, too often man allows
himself to be borne away, like the forest bark on a mountain
current, without either care, power, or will to stay
his impetuous way, by sudden impulse arisen from the

circumstance of the moment. An instant conceived dislike,
or startling envy, a hatred, to trace whose cause
were vain, have each their predominance, against which
there is no contention: the propensity of spiteful retribution
to retaliate ancient injuries, when the opportunity
offers, is greedily snatched at; and man is wont at such
hours to be ravenous, and lacerate as the lion tears the
lamb, his defenceless prey. The principle too is inherent
in the human formation, and animates at once the
high and the low to pull down all that they conceive soar
above them, either by good fortune or capacity; and
there is nought more than this that will stimulate the
most inveterate falsehood; for by railing at worth and
depreciating it with filthy lies, if not oftentimes its success
is marred, it at least eases of gall, with the idea, the
overflowing hearts of its enemies. Every circumstance,
therefore, that his direst foemen desired, was set
forth in its most vivid colourings against the hapless
prisoner; and if by chance, unmeant, aught in his
favour escaped, it was hastily glossed over until his
case resembled some dark and high wrought portrait
of death—of whose terrors so deep and lasting were the
horrors that struck the eye—that to them the whole attention
was embound and entranced, so that scarce a
glance could be drawn to any redeeming quality or relieving
pleasure that the conynge hand of the artist had
drawn to the groupings on his living canvass.—And it was
easy to determine as this midnight tribunal drew fast to
the closing of the protracted sitting which engaged it,
by the cold and icy looks, and frowning and relentless
visages that peered upon the desolate and fallen, though
once proud and haughty burgomaster of Niew Amsterdam—that
the majority of his judges were impatient to
give the last seal to his miserable fortune, and that if any
latent hope stirred within him (for that deserts but with
life,) it were vain to indulge its faithless whisperings—the
harsh set features around him looked not of mercy or even
compassion: but it was not so with Leisler—well knew
he those whom he dealt with then, and he sought not idly
favours of men who were directed to spurn at him, and to
whom it would have given glee to have had the chance to
refuse his beseeching.—The old man sat at the bar firm
and unmoved, scarce showing by smile or word the scorn
he felt for the taunts of his adversaries, which were allowed
by the Court to be showered on him; he attempted no
defence, he sought not to deprecate the wrath that burst
around his head—for he was taught it were useless as
shouting to the embattled elements: apparently a change
had come on the man in the trials he was now subject to,
which in his former life had been wanting—there was
indeed a natural constitutional obstinacy, the heirloom
of his dutch descent, which he possessed and which in
the hour of success in council he had exercised with all
the infatuation of ignorance to his own injury, but this
very defect seemed metamorphosed into a virtue, an undaunted
firmness of bearing like the mighty hemlock the
wings of the tempest unbending—but once, and that was
at the first, when demanded to answer to the truth of the
charges preferred against his life, he spoke as to the cruelty
of urging on a trial against him unwarned, unnoticed,
and unprepared—of hurrying him from his dungeon as it
were to instant condemnation, without even the chance
given to the most infamous criminal for defence, of reflection,
of summoning such whose testimony might be
of service in contradiction of that which was false in the
accusations, and of consultation with his friends who might
advise on points which to him were unknown, or unthought
of—and then Leisler finding these attempts for
time availed not—for with the most plausible and sophistical
words his judges combatted and overwhelmed
all that he had offered—he strove to justify his conduct
in seizing the government of the province, by insisting
that Lord Nottingham's letter entitled him to act in the
quality of Lieutenant Governor, and plead for himself
and adherents (many of whom he understood his own
trial was but the prelude to proceedings against) their zeal
and service for King William—but when he found all he
had advanced was unattended with any impression, and
that those to whom he spoke listened weary and impatient,
he sank in silence resigned and expectant of the
worst that could be invented for his destruction; deeming
it but waste of word and time to oppose the progress
of concerted action; not so his son—with flushed cheek,
and quick and flashing eye Arnyte heard the garbled tale
of treachery woven to existence from the mouths of men,
many of whom had been the sycophantic spaniels who
had humbly licked the foot-prints of his father but a day
or so gone by, and these without to him apparent cause
for such base ingratitude, were most active and inveterate
as though they desired to suck the blood of their
late patron, eager and contending for the first mouthful,
like wild dogs over the corse on a battle plain; he scarce
wotted that those who fawn the most, or who swear the
loudest of return for received gifts are the most hollow
and faithless, and are soon ready, if themselves are vantaged
thereby, to change the tenor of their sounding oaths,
careless, an it serve their interest, if it destroy him whose
hand had raised them. The youth's heart beat quick, and
his lips trembled as he saw the barefaced slanders received
as reality; his choler rose within him, nor could he control
the indignation that swelled his panting breast, and
like the rabid serpent of the east, leaping from the branch
where it had coiled itself in watch upon its incautious
prey, his quick and angered feelings burst forth at times
driving in their violence the appalled wretch against
whom his speech was directed to fearful silence; the
power of the Judges, the threats of the Court, could
scarce keep bounds upon his irritated temper.

“Great God! do I stand among men who pretend to
civilization?” cried the impetuous stripling, starting at
last astonished from his seat, his feelings inflamed to the
uttermost by an unblushing and unrelenting pursuance in
the Court of its arbitrary and unjust course of proceeding
towards the prisoner, the crisis of whose predetermined
condemnation was now evidently fast approaching: “Great
God! do I stand among men who pretend to civilization?”
exclaimed he with passionate warmth, and with a voice
whose sound kindled in strength to later manhood: “or
is this an assemblage of heathen salvages, the infidels of
the wilderness, wearing the human form, yet lacking its

virtues,—holding the life of a creature but as the wild
hart they slay for sport? can it be, that here among christian
men, words and the relation of deeds, to which the
safety of a human being is enchained are played with at
will, and that grave jurists, experienced in mankind and the
laws can drink in palpable falsities, contrary to their own
knowledge,—adverse to reason, with all the thirstiness of
the foul kite sucking the gore of its slain victim? Is there
no power, no justice in the land to whom appeal can
come; but shall the innocent perish by the tainted breath
of such whose very touch is as the leper, making poisonous
and rotten the wholesome air in which they move?
Can this be intended, or is it but some grave pastime
at which ye are amused withal, that on, the which hath
been set out against Jacob Leisler ye mean to proceed to
judgment, an so—these ye have construed are fine customs,
rare edicts, that read so well for the accused yet
act against him.”

“You are presumptuous, young man, thus unwarranted
to invade, with rude license of speech, the deliberation
of this tribunal;” quoth Sir Thomas Robinson, sternly,
“your hastiness, young Sir, tendeth not in advantage to
the accused, to whom lenity is shown that you are not
now taken from his side—albeit, his apparent weakness
of health seeketh thy arms' support:—my froward master,
this Court knoweth what is proper in its procedures
withouten your sage invective or angry strictures—I pray
ye an ye look to the consequence of your words, keep
silence! we seek not to exercise the powers vested in us
to your harm, though ye have braved them more than
once; therefore bide ye still.” After he thus reprehended
the youth, the judge turned to his associates and continued:
“having now, Sirs, the full evidence of this matter
of accusation against Jacob Leisler before you, I call
on you brothers of this Court for your sentiments thereon,
as to the guilt or innocence of this man, and whether
if you agree as to the crime, there hath been enough produced
for us to found the punishment usual to the offence
of treason—death! How say ye, Sirs?”

“I pray ye, my learned masters, to bear with me but a

moment,” again interrupted Arnyte, greatly alarmed, and
blanched with terror at the words of the judge, at the same
time struck with the truth conveyed in the rebuke he
had received, and becoming aware instantly that his incautious
and unadvised bearing was truly more calculated
to increase the imminent danger of him for whose safety
his heart yearned than to aid him: “I pray ye to bear with
me, Sirs, and pardon the rashness that hath given vent
thus to my fault, and hear me ere you proceed to pronounce
on the offences that have been charged against Jacob
Leisler—hear me, grave Sirs, I pray ye,” he continued,
“for I am a child, pleading for his parent, and by that holy
tie of kindred, than which on earth there lives none
stronger, an ye have one touch of nature in ye, ye will
listen with patience to that which I urge, and though mayhap
aught presumptuous escape me, be not prejudiced
against him for whom I speak, or offended thereat, but
set it down to the unguarded warmth of my green youth,
sore touched at heart by the miseries of my family; set
it down, I pray ye, Sirs, to the anxiety that moves me
for the life and welfare of him from whose loins I have
sprang—who from the seed to the shoot hath succoured,
tended, and protected me, and to whom, next
to God, I am indebted for being. I do not mean,
neither will I, sirs, speak any thing to injure those
who have taken the pains to make so foul that beloved
friend; neither will I urge on you that he hath
been a good and faithful servant of our lord the king—
though that and even more might I insist on. Neither
will I ask of you the law or the statute that teacheth
what is and what is not treason, for it would be unwise in
one so wanting in years like me, to demand of you, old
and sage as you are, where is the mark, the token upon
the crime which ye have placed up against Jacob Leisler.
In troth, from want of knowledge, briefness of days, experience,
and above all the trembling of this heart, which
like a frightened bird beating in alarm at its wiry prison,
throbs against my side with quick and rapid motion of
fear, I am unmeet at time like this to be my father's advocate;
yet of this great principle, which from the cradle
we are taught, it is mine to remind you on—be wary how
from the image of your Creator you take away life; for
that of which you rob it you can never make restoration:
remember sirs, I beseech of you, in this trying time, the
wide difference between accusers, prosecutors, and
judges. How misbecoming in the latter character is
that heat of temper, desire and fervour for triumph,
which are so praiseworthy and commendable in the conduct
of the two former situations. It is good, it is honest,
yea most noble, to work hand and heart to discover
iniquity, to drag the truth to light; but when that great
end is accomplished, every passion that warmed inquiry
should be dismissed, and those to whom the judgment
thereupon is given ought to be calm, unstirred and cautious—for
in this the fiat ye are deeply responsible; better
every hair of your heads were twined by the grave
worms, than that your judgment should be biassed—
that ye should sport the blood of a fellow being to satiate
hate, prejudice, or revenge—for to God Almighty have
ye to reckon for its rectitude or obliquity; nor can ye
say when called, like Cain of the olden day, ye are not
your brother's keeper; for like then blood will smoke
from the earth against ye, and ye will be forced to give a
strict account for every drop to whose shedding ye have
been the remotest accessors: for the judge is God's own
steward, and if in the scale of justice he cast a grain of
sand, bitter shall he rue it. If this be not hearkened to,
(but there is a mark on the door of my house like the
plague were within, forbidding all to enter,—but to shun
the death cry of its chambers,) if the doom is set, oh bethink
of what will be said hereafter! let not the curses of
posterity light on your memory; let not men as they
cross your graves spurn the sod that covers your relics,
repeating as a stigma which will descend from generation
to generation, like a disease of the blood, that ye were
injust judges or corrupted men. No! the rather now let
every man of this court lay his hand upon his heart, and
seriously consider that which he is a-going to do with a single
breath, yea, with the breath of his nostrils, the gift of his
maker, he is about to do justice, or (start not, for it is so)
he is about to commit murder. Nay, frown not, sirs, but
hear me out, I will not trespass long; ye have the choice
—justice on one side, and rank murder on the other, with
all its heightened and aggravated features; for he that,
led by thirst of plunder madly takes the life of the traveller,
is light of crime, to the cool and deliberate judge
that giveth knowingly a wrongful sentence:—the first
doubtless commits a mighty sin, but the last is impious
in his crime, for he applies the ordinance of God to suit
his bloody purpose. Sooth sirs, I pray ye purge your
hearts from all evil passions in this business, and ere ye
utter forth your opinions cleanse your minds of every foul
affection, even as ye would the glassy surface of your
eyes when shaping to the discernment some distant and
doubtful form, from every mote which the wind casts on
the tender vision to impede its subtleness: take heed, I
seek of ye that your intentions be not pretincted by
blight, shade, or colour—beware, I charge on ye that ye
look not with a blood-shotten eye on that which ye are
to make up judgment on; remember that ye are but men,
weak and liable to err, and that he whom ye are to pronounce
on is your fellow, against whom there should be with
you no corruptive of justice—no personal animosity should
with a righteous man weigh a grain in the scale; no
greedy desire of popularity—no thirst of flatteries to the
multitude, should animate the bosom of any one of ye—
banish from the places where you set to decide on life or
death, all principle of selfish fear, that by sparing blood
ye will incense those to whom the accused is odious
—let it not be an ingredient in your sentence that by
mildness to him ye endanger yourselves—fear not that
while Jacob Leisler breathes the life of any one of ye is
not in safety, so that ye hasten his death by so fell a
thought; yea sirs, I do beseech of ye to discharge your
duty before God, so that ye may look on your work with
a clear conscience—for on the effect of this solemn protestation
depends not alone the life, fame, and fortune of
my beloved father who stands before you, but the existence
of one whom you must allow most innocent; I have
another parent to whom the tidings of your sentence brings
joy or wo unutterable, and—pardon, my learned masters,
these rebel tears that wet my cheeks—of that which I
may suffer myself I will not trouble you. I had a word
more to say, but am choaked with sorrow—I have not
strength further to speak—sirs, I have done, bidding ye
again, ere I close my lips, to wash your hands and your
souls of innocent blood.”

As Arnyte commenced this appeal to the uprightness
of the court, his manner was fearful and timorous, his actions
hurried and agitated, and his utterance faint, low,
and broken, and the gasping and somewhat convulsive
efforts with which he endeavoured to gain composure,
were plainly perceptible, with the husky tones of his
voice and the tremor of his limbs; but as he proceeded
onward his confidence apparently increased—and though
ever and anon between the pauses of his speech his lips
trembled and his outstretched hand shook violently, as
the young branches of a tree disturbed by the autumnal
wind, yet his colour heightened and his eye blazed with
a steadier light, and the sound of his words was full and
strong, and flowed boldly forth, like the mighty current
of some noble stream; and there was a solemn bearing in
his mien, that for the time was felt by the most ironhearted
of the judges; for as he stood with foot advanced
and head thrown back, and every limb and feature swelling
with the feeling that stirred him, he looked like one
inspired beyond his years, a forewarning messenger calling
on men about committing ill, to pause upon their
wickedness:—nor did his courage fail him until he drew
nigh to the close of that which he had spoken, then his
own words disturbed him with the horrid pictures that
followed them abruptly in his sensitive imagination; and
as he continued, his cheek grew paler and paler, and every
muscle was moved, and in spite of his attempts to restrain
them, big and beaded drops coursed each other down his
face, until overcome as it were for the moment, he paused
ere he pursued his discourse, to recruit his waning powers
in one strong effort, which he breathed forth in the last
sentence to which he commended the attention of his father's
judges.

When Arnyte had finished speaking there succeeded
an interval, during which there was scarce perceptible
voice, stir, or motion throughout that apartment—it was
an awful pause of conviction for the minute, mingled with
a breathless anticipation of that which might thereafter
chance. Some, who at the first words of the youth had
drawn up their lips with ireful scorn, and prepared to
listen to that which he should offer with cold and hasty
indifference, but of which little remained long ere they
heard him through, now sat motionless, with eye and
attention rivetted on the youthful suppliant, as though
bound by the magic spell of an enchanter, melted down
from the iron confidence of their intended determination,
—stricken, wavering and irresolute, with minds startled
and amazed to wonderment, devouring, as it were with
greediness, the warm and thrilling memory of the stripling's
deprecation, as though it had been a sweet and
touching sound of mistrelsy and song, that had so wrought
on the tender chords of the heart, that though the melody
itself had departed and died in the distance, it seemed as
if perception yet lingered and reigned upon the spirit;
but this endured not;—the slight affection of the moment
passed away like summer rain drops on a bleak and barren
rock, leaving behind neither warmth nor kindliness:
for, bursting the thrall that for the time enchained the
thoughts of the judges, there uprose the worst enemy
Leisler had in the court, and with a malicious, yet cunning
tongue, he hastened to goad the serpent hate to ire from
the sleep in which it had been lulled; he laboured to recall
to the recollection of those around him, with vivid and
skilful description, yet concealing outwardly every sinister
motive for his sentiments,—all that was condemned,
detested and envied in the accused as the grounds of the
opinion which he gave, at the same time expressing in
indignant terms of resentment his apprehension of the
presumptuous boldness, the “endurance of which,” as he
said, “was a matter of surprise, by a court conscious of its
own dignity, of that insolent and unabashed boy who had
dared dictate to the learned and chosen of the land, and
insult them with suggestions unfavourable to their uprightness

and honesty as men and as judges;—“for to what
else,” pursued the speaker, “aims his discourse, but that
he hath doubts of the impartiality, firmness and virtue of
this tribunal? yea,” continued he, “this malapert stripling
beseeches neither from us mercy or compassion, but
hath addressed this court as though it were composed of
malefactors, men ready,—ay, even now baring the murtherous
knife to the throat of the passive and inoffensive
victim; forsooth, why passeth he so glaring an insult on
wise and prudent judges, unswayed by aught that can
interfere with their sworn duty, an it be not that he hopes
by this imprudent strain to make us appear venal and
corrupt partisans, using the name and shadow of our
offices to suit our personal enmity?—to this point palpably
he alone hath laboured, thinking since so lightly
he hath touched on the crimes of the accused, that
by stamping the court with sin he covers the prisoner's
guilt; and this disrespect is the less excusable
in the wilful chatterling, seeing that he lacketh not
sense, but hath the ability and knowledge to act a
better part—but nathless, withal Sirs he is young—young,
a mere child, heedless and unthinking mayhap of the full
construction of that which he hath ventured forth—I
pray ye sirs to pardon him therefore, and attribute his
rashness to his immaturity, and want of experience—besides
the boy hath been warmed naturally—for it is his
parent's cause which hath awakened his words—it is not
therefore worth time to dwell upon the matter longer:—but
I will proceed to state that as the proof appears to me, it
is evident the measures pursued by Jacobus Leisler during
the latter part at least of his power, together with
his dissolving the late Convention, and imprisoning divers
reputable persons inhabitants of the province, and
subjects of the kingdom of England are tumultuous, illegal,
and against their majesties' right, and greatly do I
fear that the late heart-rending and appalling tragedy—the
slaughter and fire at Schenectadie by the salvages, are
mainly to be attributed to his unlawful and injudicious
osurpation of all power, for which he hath had no authority
save the promptings of vile and inordinate ambition,
and moreover I do protest against the forcible seizure
and confiscation of the effects of sundry persons,
and against the unauthorized levying of money on their
majesties' liege subjects in the manner the same hath
been done by this man, and I do not hesitate to say that
his holding the fort against his Excellency Colonel
Sloughter, the governor, is an open and intended act of rebellion
for which alone the severest punishment that can be
inflicted he deserves to suffer: viewing things in this light,
however painful it may be to me as a man situated as I am
—a neighbour for years, an acquaintance of the accused—
yet before God my duty as a citizen and a judge must be
performed, and which I trust to the latest period of my existence
I shall discharge with a pure conscience, and that
my judgment in this affair shall be consonant to the best
of my understanding in all integrity; I must say, that I
do consider that the life of a traitor is but poor atonement
for his offence, which is heinous—being against his
sovereign, his benefactor, and his country; and as this
case stands I solemnly protest I acquit myself honestly
thereby in asserting that on candid and cool deliberation
I declare for the death of the criminal.”

The determination of the generality of mankind hath
its source not from reason or positive conviction of right,
but rather from prepossession, from desire which oftentimes
(as in the case of the judges of Leisler,) is formed
before hearing a just and fair representation of the matter
to be deliberated on—if the wish of the heart be for
acquittal or condemnation, where is the mind of man
(though elevated on the judgment seat, which weak and
presuming creatures of mortality have raised, a mockery
of their Creator, where folly and obduracy, infamy and
corruption are enthroned to pronounce the vain edicts
of social order, as it is called, the technical trickeries
that men term law and justice:) that can resist the predominant
bias—a doubt, a hesitation, it is admitted of the
soundness of such inclination by truth and plausible argument
may be raised for the time, if the intention of the
hearer be honest—yet the hold of this is feeble and soon
banished if the predetermination can be borne out by sentiments

that appear reasonable on the surface, though the
face be hollow as a mask, yet the partial feeling will succour
its unworthiness until it seemeth reality to the ready sight
—indeed the appetite is ravenous, and earnestly and anxiously
searches out support for the inclination which
taketh pains to banish all that interferes with its bent.—
Albeit from such cause fled the late awakened compassion
towards the prisoner from the breast of the Court, and
an eager accordance was rendered by the judges to the
opinion and words last expressed by their comate; one
alone of the tribunal seemed to pause as if scarce satisfied
that the course now strenuously urged, by the others
associated in his power, to be pursued—as if the dire and
fatal judgment which would devolve on him to give unto
the accused as principal of the Court, was adverse to his
sense of right:—in truth the mind of Sir Thomas Robinson
was like one of those cold, sluggish and icy streams
which no wind can stir, nor agitates more than a ruffle of its
waves, which heavily subside in motion almost as soon
as roused—neither vindictive nor compassionate even in
this time of popular excitement, it mattered little to his
private feelings whether clearance or punishment awaited
the accused—laggard in idea, he neither snatched like
his fellows at the arguments proposed against the prisoner
nor sought he out any matter in favour—but like most
men of his formation of intellect at once obstinate and
dispassionate, he had seized on a thought which had
been offered in the course of the examination as a ground
of opinion, and on that he had based himself, and he was
neither therefrom to be moved by aught either fair in
reason or otherwise, for his was a nature that prided itself
in being unbending and unwavering in its integrity.

“Sirs of this court,” quoth he, “with patience I have
listened to that which ye have presented as your different
opinions in this business; and it is a matter wherein I
trust I am in nowise misled by a wrongful judgment, seeing
that in all we agree not; for that I am not able to
side in full with you—I will give you therefor my inducements,
informing first that assuredly the acts as charged
and made out against Jacob Leisler, are of themselves,

excluding every collateral matter, criminal and rebellious
—and in the next, as they stand, the sentence which the
most of this court have decided on, is just; all this I
grant. Nathless ye will remember, sirs, the prisoner
hath asseverated in behalf of his own innocence, the which
in my mind I am unable to do away, that in the exercise
of his gubernatorial sway of this province and its dependencies,
he was authorized by a certain letter from the
lords Caermarthen and Halifax, directed to `Francis Nicholson,
Esq., or in his absence to such as for the time
being take care for preserving the peace and administering
the laws in their majesties' province of New-Yorke, in
America;' which letter is dated the twenty-ninth of July,
1689, accompanying that of Lord Nottingham to Nicholson,
dated the next day, empowering him, Nicholson, to
take upon himself the chief command (Colonel Dongan,
our late governor, having sailed for London on his recall,)
and to appoint for his assistance as many of the freeholders
and inhabitants of the province as he should see fit,
requiring also to do every thing appertaining to the office
of Lieutenant Governor, according to the laws and customs
of New-Yorke, until further orders. Now sirs,
though it may be urged that these could not apply to the
prisoner, he having seized on the government by force,
and driven Nicholson, the person first addressed in the
documents alluded to from the country—he, Leisler, albeit
it must be confessed was then the person who for
the time being held the reins of the government, and
this is the letter of the address on the packet; now
this fact may not be a strict inference, the accused being
not regularly or lawfully chosen to the place he then filled;
yet the success of the Protestant cause in some measure
excuses the means of his elevation, and putteth an
equity about his defence; on this head, to avoid and prevent
what may be a rash decision otherwise, I declare
myself in doubt, and ask your minds more freely and full
thereon; for let us not wantonly, or rather ignorantly,
dip our hands in blood; let us not be lost in any licentiousness
of feeling against the prisoner, but seek alone to
administer justice. And therein I promise myself, if enlightened
of that which I have thrown out, to forget all
except my duty in the vindictiveness of the law against
the guilty: but at present to accord with you under my
hesitation, would be like driving a dagger in a healing
wound, the which I cannot think on without trembling.
Sirs, let the judgment we determine be like my Lord
Bacon said of the laws of Henry IV., “not made upon
the spur of particular occasion for the present, but out of
providence for the future.”

Sir Thomas Robinson having thus freely delivered the
feelings that weighed on his mind, a long discussion ensued
among the members of the court relative thereto;
in the course of which the unrelenting adversaries of the
prisoner growing warm and irritable from the hindrance
likely to arise to their views of an early determination of
Leisler's career, in the doubts expressed as to the guilt
of their victim by the principal judge, ardently and obstreporously
exerted themselves, at times almost to anger
when unsuccessful, to convince him of the hollowness
of that which he had advanced, or rather to overwhelm
his hesitation to accede to that which they so earnestly
desired, with a torrent of sophistry and of sounding words;
but like most arguments with persons at once obstinate
and opinionative, this was unfruitful of success; from the
very heat in which the opposition was urged, Sir Thomas
gathered new strength for the ground he assumed, and
the greater the endeavours the less he was convinced.
There are of that kind, who though the stand in disputation
they have chosen be utterly untenable, and adverse
to reason itself, yet out of pure stubbornness of nature,
or from a spirit disliking to be subdued and acknowledge
error, will not yield, even though o'erborne by
numbers and by truth; but will carp and hang on trifles
and inaccuracies picked from the discourses of those with
whom they are contending; like the shipwrecked mariner,
who while in vain he hath strove to seize the sides
of the slippery crag itself to draw him from the deep,
whose hungry and devouring waves are roaring round
him, in the madness of despair in a last effort, snatches
with wild hopes of success at the sea plant, and the moss

that grows upon its slimy surface, as if there was support
for life in things so tender, frail, and feeble, and which
tear and break at a touch.

Of a species allied to the one last described was Sir
Thomas Robinson; nathless in the present position he had
much of sense to bear him out; nor was the harsh and
eager manner with which the others laboured to enforce
their wishes, favourable with him to the attainment:
indeed so far did it lose effect as to make
those ideas which at first were wavering and indefinite,
apparently mere creatures of the moment, thoughts
bound to conscience—like seated rocks that dive with
deep embedded roots in the dark earth, fearless and
unshaken by hurricane or tempest rain—and besides
adverse to the desire of the Bayard faction, there were
those whom the obstinacy and firmness of Sir Thomas
worked on, among such as had already declared in favour
of the course that had been proposed against Leisler's
life—for there are many who will assent to the most preposterous
or monstrous matter started to them, finding it
undisputed, either incited by a carelessness of disposition,
unapt to reflection, or from a timidness of temperament
to be alone a dissenter from what is agreed on by every
body else, who, when there starts out one bold enough
to attack the doctrine, will either waver from or openly
desert the side which they had at the commencement
blindly or unthinkingly enlisted on. The anti Leslerians
soon perceiving that several of their partizans were growing
cold in the cause, and apparently were desirous of
moderate measures towards the accused, while others,
pricked by remorse, were unsettled and wandering from
that which heretofore had been fixed in their resolution,
became fearful lest by some untoward circumstance
their prey might yet escape them; and being induced
by this thought, the leaders having, among themselves,
unperceived by the rest of the Court, interchanged a
brief and sudden counsel, insidiously, and to appearance,
reluctantly, to gain their ends, accorded with the doubts
which Sir Thomas had honestly expressed, and appeared
thoroughly convinced, having changed for the mo

ment their intended career, that there was an intricate
question arising on the point that had been started, which
they were unable to give a fair decision on; and after flattering
the discrimination of Sir Thomas, they prompted
fresh difficulties, until he himself and his party wearied
and unable to decide in any way, of their own accord proposed
what, however, had first been cunningly suggested
by the foes of Leisler, that the part of the prisoner's defence
from which their controversy had taken its source,
should be referred to the governor and council, praying
their opinion whether the letter of the lords Caermarthen
and Halifax, “or any other letters or papers, in the packet
from Whitehall could be understood or interpreted to
be or contain any power or direction to Captain Leisler,
to take the government of the province upon himself, or
that the administration thereupon be holden good in law;”[9]
and it was settled, that in case the reference was answered
in the negative, that Leisler was guilty of the crime of
high treason and should be condemned to expiate that
offence upon the scaffold. In this artifice, the enemies
of the accused obtained their triumph completely, for
they were well aware of their success in the question,
for the bitterest foemen of Leisler were now alone to
speak, and it requires but little foresight to believe that
where malice and inveterate hate were to determine a less
questionable reliance, than on which hung the life of the
accused would be o'erborne; nathless, at the same time
they whispered themselves confidently that their own
actions would tell better, and such as pretended to a delicacy
of conscience, although they well knew the catastrophe
that was to follow, flattered themselves no blame
hereafter could be theirs, that the direful weight of crime,
if any there was, had been heaped on the shoulders of
others, and that they had pursued a prudent and honest
course; for with such selfish principles doth a little and
narrow minded man entrench and satisfy himself on his
own conduct, seeing with his prejudices, and caring for
himself alone—in such a limited light, in that one single
contracted point of view did the judges of Leisler look
on the procedure by which they became accessaries to
his fate, nor bore in mind the vivid and plain circumstances
that were combined with the act, which while they plumed
themselves on their impartiality, rendered them parties
in guilt; for to the most unwilling, there was evident but
one construction of the act with which the Court concluded
this trial, and that could not be otherwise than
unfavourable, setting the participators in the proceedings
down as either ignorant or sycophants; for they had certainly
performed the parts of the sluth hounds, who, after
driving the game in the huntsman's ring, from which there
was no escape, stand by panting with delight while the
knife is drawn across the throat of the deer, eager and
rejoicing in the portion of the spoil which their masters
might award them for their activity and exertion in
their service; and now having in this manner determined
the fate and trial of Leisler, the Court rose to dissolve
its sitting; and it was commanded, that ere the
judges departed from their seats, that the prisoner should
be conducted back to the cell wherein he had heretofore
been confined, but that additional care should be taken in
his guard, and that like one past condemnation, he should
be strongly and heavily ironed, and no one on any account
whatever, except with a special order, should be allowed
admittance or intercourse with him, but that his dungeon
should be cleared of its other miserable inhabitants, that
his durance might be lone and solitary, as that of a man
sentenced to suffer death.

Long ere the court broke up from its arduous and
wearisome task of deliberation, the light of the lantern
by which they were assembled waned and flickered with
heavy and broken beams; while striking through the
gloom and shadow of the apartment, there darted from
the chinks and vents cut in the shape of half moons in
the casement shutters, bright and vivid gleams proclaiming
that day had dawned without. A pleasure came even
in the midst of his wretchedness with the coming morning,
to the seared heart of Leisler, for another night,—a
fearful night to him had passed,—a night of oppression,
ignominy and suffering; and that which he might have
expected had happened, his veriest doubts had been

assured, and it now became him to play the part alone
which should not hereafter be a reproach to his name;
but otherwise with the sorrow-stricken Arnyte;—in his
misery he noted not the flitting hours, and when he
heard the hoarse voice of the jailer bid his father arise
from the place whereon he had sat during the trial, and
follow him to his prison-house, he with an involuntary
motion started forward to accompany him, but was sternly
forbid;—then with a piteous bewailing, like the infant
torn from its mother, he besought, as he clung to his
father's garment, the allowance of the court to proceed
with him to his incarceration, but he was rudely and
harshly denied the favour he so earnestly requested;
and although again and again he appealed to the personal
commiseration of the judges, the more determinately and
angrily was his perseverance repelled, and he was constrained
with a heart, whose heavy throbbings shook his
bosom nigh to bursting, in its fearful agony, though with
an eye parched and tearless, to gaze on the departing step
of his father, as he quitted the fatal apartment wherein
he had been judged so partially, to proceed with slow and
mournful pace to the dark cell, which the foreboding mind
of Arnyte pictured as the last resting place,—the
only habitation wherein he was to reside with life; and
as the hollow and dismal clanking of a massy weight of
chains already prepared to load the limbs of the unfortunate
prisoner, and carried at his side by one of the jailer's
assistants, struck on the anxious hearing of the youth, the
sharp sound pierced to his very brain, like the warning
tollings of a funereal bell; and when he beheld Leisler
cross the threshold of the doorway that led from the
room, his overwhelming grief of soul burst its bounds,
and for the moment he could not restrain the wild
promptings of nature; but in spite of encircling guards,
fierce looks, and threatening words, he rushed after the
parent from whom he had been severed, and snatching
his hand, he pressed it with a long and convulsive motion,
now to his breast, and now to his quivering lip,
until thrust back by ungentle hands and ruder force; and
when thus at last torn from his trembling hold, he met a
sad, lorn, lingering look which his father as he was hurried
away from him cast back, the deep and touching
expression of that speechless glance came over him like
a withering blow from the wild and darting lightning—he
stood as one frozen to the spot, powerless and inanimate,
with vision strained and gazing on a receding object, in
which every faculty was wrought and magnetized, like
the spirit in the first moments of departure, turning
towards the loved ones of earth whom it is leaving, as it
were for evermore; and when his receding form was
nearly lost to the sight, beneath the darksome shadows of
the ponderous architraves under which he and such as
guarded him passed, and as they disappeared in the long,
narrow and gloomy way, they seemed as though swallowed
in the jaws of the tomb, and when he could distinguish
no trace, when even the echo of the distant footsteps
was silent,—then, as one wounded to the death by
the sudden blow of an unseen enemy, as though stricken
by a blight from the air on which he breathed, the stripling
sank powerless for support against the portals of the
door by which he stood, and involuntarily a groan of bitter
anguish escaped his utterance.

The apartment wherein the court had been held for
Leisler's trial was now fast deserted; one by one of
those who loitered retired each to his way; few even as
they passed him in departure cared to notice the situation
of the desolate offspring of the man, the work of whose
fate they had been busied on so late. Some there might
have been who threw on him a look of pity, but that
scarce ever was lasting more than while he interfered
with the vision;—the next object the sight fell upon
engrossed the mind to forgetfulness;—the feeling was
like the minute whisperings of humanity, that go not to
the disturbance of the selfish heart, from whence they
emanate; and yet there were those whose undisguised
rejoicings of triumph over the fall of Jacobus Leisler
were vented without mercy on the youth, regardless of
his sufferings, which were viewed with the same pleasure
by these as a wanton and cruel urchin delights in the
agonies and miserable palpitations of the quivering and

heaving portions of the worm, whose body his knife hath
cut and lacerated, and through each parted member of
which is running the last and dying throe: but Arnyte,
buried in anguish, listened not to their cold and sneering
contumelies, and they, disappointed in meeting such passiveness,
where was sought fire for fuel to excuse severer
injuries, moved on, leaving the youth lone and neglected.
—Arnyte heard them not as they left him, for a faintness
was on him, and sense, sight and hearing fast failed, and
suffocating emotions shook his frame, as though he had
been grasped by a giant's hand;—he must have dropped
upon the vaulted floor, but for the assistance of some
kind and piteous stranger, whom he wotted not in his moment
of agony. He was led forth without the stadthuis
walls, scarce weening of a step he took; nor was it until
he drank the fresh and morning breeze from the pure
heavens, undefiled, that the weakness of nature gave
itself forth, and his voiceless struggles were past; for
then broke out agonized sobs from his labouring breast,
and tears quick and fast, in beaded drops, wrung like
blood from his heart strings, coursed down his cheeks in
wo;—he wept aloud, and his surcharged bosom found
relief, like the earth long dried and parched by burning
suns of summer, and waterless from enduring drought,
receiving in its fainting bosom the cooling rain, the gentle
dew and offering of the pitying clouds.