muster having only one musket among them. Burley, thus miserably failing in his design, was at once arrested and consigned to a dungeon in Carisbrook Castle. His trial at Winchester, with the notorious Serjeant Wild as the prosecutor, is given with great minuteness of detail in the book before us, and affords us a melancholy example of how the fountain of British justice was troubled and polluted in those stormy old times. By the most inexcusable wresting of the sense of an old statute, together with gross unfairness in conducting the processes, Burley was found guilty of treason, and, after a brief reprieve, was executed. Some curious information is given us concerning the private habits of the king at this period. "It was his usual practice, the weather being fair, in the morning and afternoon, to walk round the castle walls, accompanied by Hammond, who, as a farther means of recreation, converted the place of arms without the castle wall, but within the counterscarp, into a bowling-green, with a summer-house, where, as the spring advanced, the king was in the practice of spending many vacant hours. At his dinner-table his majesty conversed with his attendants, principally respecting the occurrences transpiring in the other parts of the kingdom; and after dinner soon retired to his chamber, where he remained secluded, but invariably observed his allotted hours for devotion and writing. The unpleasant altercations with the governor, for a short time, apparently ceased; and, notwithstanding his restraint, it was the custom of diseased persons, troubled with the evil, to resort to the island from all parts of the kingdom, and to stay in Newport and the surrounding villages, until they could find means of access within the castle, there to watch the opportunity of the king's going to the bowling-green, to present themselves before him and be touched for their distemper." The king also, who, as is well known, was somewhat vain of his controversial acumen, was frequently engaged in knotty but amicable disputations with gentlemen, divines, and scholars, who visited him in his captivity. Among these was Among these was Mr. Troughton, a graduate in one of the universities. During one of the animated discussions which took place with this young disputant, a singular incident occurred. Mr. Troughton was standing between a lieutenant of foot (who had his sword in his hand, intently listening to their conversation) and a Mr. Duncomb, when the king, "in the heat of the moment, seized the sword so unexpectedly as not only to astonish the officer but frighten the captain, who did not comprehend the reason, until Mr. Duncomb, falling upon his knee, his majesty laid the sword upon his shoulder, and thereby conferred the honour of knighthood, saying it was done in pursuance of a promise he had made to his relations." About the month of February, a number of carefully selected persons were sent by the parliament to wait upon and guard the king; but it is a carious illustration of the dissimulations and infidelities of those times, that the very men who were chosen for their supposed stanch adherence to the parliamentary party, should have become the secret friends of Charles, and have facilitated the transmission of his clandestine correspondence, and even have been the chief promoters of the scheme of his escape. Among these individuals, the names of Osborne, Colonel Titus, Dowcett, and Firebrace, will be recognised as most conspicuous by the historical student. The king's communications with his queen, his children, and some of his more zealous adherents, were kept up in cipher. A Major Bosville was intrusted for some time with the management of this extensive correspondence, and, in pursuance of his object, was accustomed to personate a variety of characters, being sometimes disguised as a mariner, and at other times as a peasant or a mendicant; on detection, he was on more than one occasion incarcerated. Several ladies of distinction also incurred great hazards in the same secret service. Osborne, who had been fixed as a spy near the king's peroffice it was to hold his glove during dinner, son, under the title of gentleman-usher, and whose availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded for slipping a note with an offer of his devoted services in the finger of it, which afterwards became the medium of uninterrupted communication between them; "whilst Firebrace, by ingratiating himself into the favour of one of the king's keepers, so far obtained his confidence as to be permitted to assume his duty of waiting at the door opening into the back-stairs, whilst he absented himself at supper, and, by so doing, obtained a series of uninterrupted interviews with the king, who invariably retired to his chamber after he had supped; but as danger might be apprehended during these stealthy interviews, from the intrusion of the principal guardian, the expedient was adopted of perforating a chink in the wainscot behind the hangings, which, Firebrace writes, served as well as the opening of the door; and was more safe, for, upon the least noise, by letting fall the hanging all was safe;' and by this means Charles received and delivered many an important despatch, and devised the arrangements for attempting his escape from an imprisonment which was now become intolerable." These intrigues and artifices, however, did not escape the vigilance of the committee in London, whose spies brought them intelligence of the contemplated flight, whilst the secret cipher having been disclosed to them, they were enabled to decipher many of the epistles that came into their hands. Thus, when the night drew on for the execution of the carefully elaborated scheme, precautions had been taken by the governor to frustrate it. These, however, turned out to be unnecessary, since, when everything was in readiness for an apparently successful consummation of the plot, the king found it impossible to thrust his body through the mullions of the window. Firebrace, who stood beneath the window to receive the freed monarch on his descent from his prison, thus describes the midnight scene. the appointed time; his majesty put himself forward, "In the middle of these hopes, I gave the sign at but then too late found himself mistaken, he sticking fast between his breast and shoulders, and not able to get forward or backward, but that, at the instant before he endeavoured to come out, he mistrusted and tied a piece of his cord to a bar of the window within, by means whereof he forced himself back. Whilst he stuck I heard him groan, but could not come to help him, which (you may imagine) was no small affliction to me. So soon as he was in again, to let me see (as General suspicion and distrust resulted from this event, for the governor did not know in whom he could repose confidence. But, although redoubled vigilance and more rigorous measures were resorted to, the disappointed captive did not relinquish his purpose. A supply of aquafortis and small files was sent for from London, to remove the obstructing bars of the window of the new apartment to which the king had been removed on the discovery of the former attempt. This fact coming to the knowledge of the committee at Derby House, they employed their agents to intercept the messenger, but without success. The aquafortis, however, was spilt by accident, but the files safely reached the castle. Just as the arrangements were ripening for a fresh attempt at self-deliverance on the part of Charles and his friends, the following remarkable scraps of information respecting what was going on at Carisbrook were sent down from Derby House for the guidance of the governor : "There is an intention to get the king away tomorrow night or Thursday morn; for Sunday a ship is fallen down from hence to Queenborough, whereabout she rides to waft him to Holland. Mrs. Whorwood is aboard the ship, a tall, well-fashioned, and well-languaged gentlewoman, with a round visage, and pock-holes in her face; she stays to wait upon the king. A merchant is gone from this town last night, or early this morning, to acquaint the king that all things are ready; four horses lie in or near Ports mouth, to carry the king by or near Arundel, and from thence to Queenborough. A parliament man, or one that was one, who liveth near Arundel, is to be the king's guide. The man is supposed to be Sir Edward Alford. The merchant that is come down to the king is a lean, spare young man. The place by which the king is to escape is a low room, through a window that is but slightly made up. He hath one or two about him that are false. Have a special care of the king's bowling, which is the next plot. If this be prevented, they will then have a ladder set up to the wall against the bowling-alley, and horses and a boat ready, and try that way." It is conjectured, we may observe, that Lady Carlisle, a lady in London to whom Charles wrote, was the party who betrayed his confidence. After waiting anxiously for a dark night to favour the execution of their designs, it was at length resolved that the attempt should be made on Sunday the 28th of May. On the evening of that day, therefore, Charles betook himself early to his chamber, and, in the stillness of midnight, having stealthily cut the former impediment to his flight, was on the point of passing through the aperture, when, noticing more persons below than he expected, and perceiving the absence of Mr. Dowcett, who was to have received him, his suspicions were excited, and he hastily withdrew. On this occasion, the plot had been disclosed to the governor by two of the soldiers who had been suborned to aid in its execution. Not deeming it desirable to interrupt its progress, he allowed all the parties implicated thoroughly to commit themselves, and then, in the moment of apparent success, secured the persons of most of them. In connexion with this attempt at escape occurred the affair of Major Rolph, who, it was alleged by some of the king's friends, was lurking in ambush on that disastrous night with the intention of shooting his majesty, and in this base manner terminating the difficulties that had so long perplexed the nation. His imprisonment, but for further particulars we must refer the trial, and acquittal excited great public agitation; reader to the work before quoted, in which the subject is treated at length. It is generally supposed to have been during the period of despondency immediately succeeding this second failure of his hopes, that Charles wrote a composition well known under the title of "The King's Portraiture in his Solitudes and Sufferings." Other compositions have likewise come down to us, the offspring of those hours of seclusion and sorrow; among which is a poem called Majesty in Misery; or, An Imploration to the King of Kings;" wherein the dethroned and aggrieved monarch bitterly, and with much caustic satire against the pretensions of his foes, bewails the indignities of his lot. Thus sadly does he sing: "With my own power, my majesty they wound; From the overwhelming weight of anxiety and despair that now oppressed him, his hair rapidly became grey, which, with his beard, he suffered to grow unchecked and hang dishevelled and nelected, and his whole aspect became so mournful and dejected as to excite the compassion of foes as well as friends. Shortly after these events followed the treaty at Newport, conducted with such imposing state that the estimated expenses amounted to no less than 10,000Z.-an enormous sum in those days. His majesty and his court occupied the Free Grammar School, which was suitably prepared for their reception, whilst the negotiations were carried on for a period of sixty-one days in the Townhall. It is to be regretted that the habitual duplicity of Charles was conspicuously displayed on this occasion. In his private letters to Colonel Titus, the expression frequently occurs, "If the parliament offer a treaty, I shall make use of it only to my escape." And in his correspondence with Mr. Hopkins, while the treaty was pending, he says: "To deal freely with you, the great concession I made this day was made merely in order to my escape, of which, if I had not hope, I would not have done," etc. But meanwhile, the army, from its recent and decisive victories was becoming the paramount power in the nation, was looking on impatiently at these dilatory proceedings; and feeling assured, from the insincere and vacillating policy of the king, that no satisfactory settlement was likely to ensue from the prolongation of the negotiations at Newport, by a few rapid strokes of state strategy Hammond was temporarily withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the king, large which bodies of troops were suddenly debarked upon the island, and Charles, after a night of harassing dread, was seized one morning at daybreak by a party of officers, and hurried away to Hurst Castle, on the opposite coast. From this place he was borne to Whitehall; and from thence, after a series of violent and unconstitutional measures by the revolutionary party then dominant, he was led to the scaffold; where, in the presence of thousands of spectators, and in front of the banqueting hall of his own palace, his head was severed from his shoulders. This was an act which, notwithstanding all the provocatives to its perpetration, few historians have dared to justify, and which the accomplished Macaulay has not hesitated to designate as both an "error and a crime." OPIUM FACTORY AT PATNA. ONE morning, before the heat of the sun's early rays could render exercise or recreation disagreeable, we sallied forth from our neat little bungalow, determined to take an hour's stroll amongst the neighbouring fields and compounds, as the inclosures are called in India. The birds had got the start of us, though the day had barely dawned; and these feathered children of song were tuning their voices melodiously before raising up to heaven one universal hymn of praise. Dew lay heavy upon the grass, and whole detachments of noisy crows were hopping lightly over it, as though afraid of wetting their feet, and occasioning a loss to society from the results of a fatal bronchitis. Sauntering leisurely about, we found ourselves trespassing upon one of the many vast opium fields belonging to the company at Patna; and being warned of the fact, and of the penalty incurred by any one injuring the poppy plants, by a surly peon, with a prodigious moustache and beard, we immediately withdrew to a neighbouring pathway, and from the safe side of a ditch, dug as an outline mark, contemplated the process of puncturing the poppy for opium. The plants were all what is called the white poppy, and grew to a height varying from three to four feet high; the leaves much resembled those of a lettuce, and the flower was in shape like a tulip. Those employed to operate upon the plant were well skilled in the art, and knew exactly which plants to puncture and which to leave alone. Those punctured were supposed to be of a full growth. In these, an incision was made at the top of the plant, whereupon a white milky juice immediately exuded. Whilst some were thus occupied, others, who were equally conversant with the duties, were qusily inspecting such plants as had undergone the operation the day previous; and where the substance had hardened and assumed a concrete form, they scraped it carefully from the plant, and collecting it in baskets, ranged these baskets in a long row for the inspection of an English superintendent, who had by this time arrived on the field, and who simply made a note of the quantity collected, and then galloped off to another field, to go through a similar process. By this time the sun was waxing warm; but we had become so intensely interested by what we had witnessed, that we determined, if possible, to be an eye-witness to the whole process of opium making, and with this laudable resolution returned home and breakfasted. After this essential meal, we repaired to the house of a stout old neighbour, a man who was reputed to be worth lacs of rupees, and who from his connexion with the company was well in a position to initiate us into all the mysteries and secrets of the opium trade. In the first place, he gave us to understand that the growth of the white poppy was a monopoly rented by the Opium Company. All persons residing within the limits were at liberty to cultivate the poppy, and even to manufacture it, but the drug, when prepared, must be sold to the company at a fixed price. The revenue produced by this monopoly alone was sometimes a million of pounds sterling per annum. The price fixed by the company left the cultivator such meagre profits that few thought it worth the trouble and the risk of cultivating, and the peasants only undertook the job on account of money advances being made by the officers, which was always an irresistible temptation to people in such straitened circumstances as they were. On the other hand, the company could never count with anything like certainty on the year's produce. One season perhaps barely covered the expenses attendant on cultivation, whilst another greatly enriched the cultivator. The raising of the plant was extremely hazardous, as the poppy is a delicate plant, and subject to blight or to injury from strong winds, and many other hidden dangers that can never be securely reckoned upon or guarded against. Thanking our friend for all this valuable information, and for the trouble he had been at in writing out for us an order of admittance to the company's factory, we hired palanquins, and were forthwith carried to the scene of operations, where, the order being duly honoured, we were ushered by officious peons into the presence of an intelligent young Englishman, who undertook to be our chaperon. The building was of immense extent and consisted of a suite of rooms constituting the various departments of the factory. The first one our obliging young guide introduced us into was a spacious room, in which, in regular succession, were ranged the baskets of hardened poppy juice, awaiting the judgment to be passed upon them by the tester or examiner. This room was called the testing-room. Here competent judges decided at once what juice was good, and condemned the bad the good was hard and brittlish white; the bad, light, intensely black, mixed with impurities, soft, friable, and greasy; this latter was instantly ordered to be thrown into the Ganges, whilst the good was carried forthwith into the mixing-room. By throwing the bad into the Ganges, imposition is prevented, as well as the introduction of a spurious drug into India or China. Our chaperon informed us that about 6,500,000 lbs. weight of this poppy juice was annually passed and manufactured, yielding a revenue of three millions and a half sterling annually. The medical and excise department consume of this 240,000 lbs. weight per annum. : The second room that we passed into was called the mixing-room. Here, in a prodigious number of vats, the coolies were busy actively stirring the concrete substance mixed up with water until it assumed the substance of a paste; and this paste, when arrived at a proper subsistence, is passed into the balling-room, where we now proceed with our friend. In the balling-room there are 146 men and 150 boys employed incessantly balling the opium. A good workman can make 100 balls a day. The men are all seated on the ground, on the left-hand side of the room, furnished with a small low table, a chatty of water with which to make the paste malleable as it dries, and a brass cup to shape the ball in. So expert are these men, that seldom or ever has any paste to be added or any taken off in order to make exact weight; and each ball is expected to weigh a certain number of maunds, equal in English weight to 149 lbs. The business of the boys-and most assuredly they have no sinecure of it-is to run backwards and forwards between the men occupied in balling and those placed exactly opposite to weigh these balls. If anything is over or any weight wanting, the ball is carried back again. The usual mixture employed to constitute these balls is a certain quantity of opium and water, and poppy petals. The petals are used to prevent the balls adhering to each other whilst undergoing the process of drying. The drying-room is the next we pass into. Here the balls are left to dry in baked earthenware cups. Men with sharp styles are puncturing them to prevent any gas collecting from fermentation. The stacking-room is the last and the largest on the establishment, and is arranged something on the principle of a wine vault; that is to say, the balls are stacked on open worked shelves rising one above another from the floor to the ceiling. No fewer than 450 boys are engaged in this room, and find incessant occupation in stacking, examining, airing, turning, and rubbing the balls with a certain dust, which operations secure the opium from mildew or the attacks of moths. These are in due season packed in cases made from timber hewed in the Nepaul forest, and the cases are lined with hides. Thus completed, the cargo is shipped on the company's fleet of budgerows, which then proceed down the river towards Calcutta, accompanied by the dinning music of tomtoms, and screaming imperatively to all boats that may check their progress to make room for the Behauder Company's opium fleet. Arrived at Calcutta, the agents of the company receive and warehouse the opium, and in due course it is shipped on board the fine swift vessels belonging to the company, and which are styled opium clippers. Few vessels in the world can compete with some of these for swiftness of sailing; but then the captains have orders to carry as much sail as they can, and this order they obey to the letter; the least mishap that may be expected between Diamond Harbour and Singapore being some half-dozen spars and yards carried away by the wind. This opium was originally carried to Whampoa, then to Macoa, and lastly to Sintin, though now the whole of the east coast of China is frequented. Having once had occasion ourselves to make a voyage in a vessel which carried a cargo of opium to China, a few words descriptive of that portion of the trade may interest even those who are most opposed to its iniquities. We left Calcutta in the Mohr," a name which signifies the Peacock, a splendid barque. No vessel in India could compete with her in sailing; and though a dead beat against the monsoon, we reached Singapore on the thirteenth day, a voyage unprecedented in the annals of Indian shipping. This was all very gratifying to those who had millions of pounds sterling at stake on the vessel's swiftness, but it was anything but conducive to the comfort of those on board. As far as eating and drinking went, we lived like men; but in all other respects, like rhinoceroses, or alligators, or any other amphibious animal; for from the day we left the sand-heads to the day we sighted Penang, such a thing as a dry jacket was unknown on deck. After taking on board an ample stock of ships' stores at Singapore, we loosed from thence and held on as direct a course as we could steer for Sintin; where, after much buffeting with typhoons and a skirmish with a piratical junk, we eventually arrived. The "Mohr" carried eight brass guns and an experienced crew. On arriving at Sintin, we were ordered away to cruise on the east coast till the cargo should be sold. This was managed clandestinely and with great skill. The company had agents on shore who had established a code of private signals. The "Mohr," accordingly, would run along the coast at signalizing distance, and, firing shotted guns, stand out to sea again till out of sight of land, and then heave-to for smugglers, who generally came off during the night. We had, however, to keep a sharp look-out that no imposition was practised, or that pirates did not board us under the guise of smugglers. These smugglers either produce an agent's order and certificate that the money was paid, or else purchase opium on their own account, paying down the silver beforehand; for it is an established rule of the company's, and one from which they never deviate, that money must be paid before delivery. Opium was always prohibited by the Chinese authorities; but, in point of fact, many of these were associated with or bribed by the east-coast smugglers, and found it most convenient to wink at the many cargoes that were run just under the very noses of the preventive service. We have now brought our opium from the fields of Patna into the distant empire of China. The "Mohr" disposed of her cargo, ballasted, and ran for Canton; and whilst on shore here, we on many occasions witnessed the deadly and deleterious effects of this narcotic, as used by the natives either for mastication or smoking. Amongst the many evils brought upon China through the medium of opium, was the war of 1839; but the Opium Company, in their apology for monopolizing opium, endeavoured (to make use of a French expression) to hide themselves behind their fingers, with the meagre plea, that the monopoly prevents its introduction and use in British India, at the same time that it insures to the Chinaman the pure material. The poppy is most probably a native of India, though now growing wild in Southern Europe and even in England. It is an annual. Opium is prepared in India, Turkey, and Persia; in England opium is used for medicinal purposes, and that most in demand is imported from Turkey. Turkish opium yields a greater quantity of morphia than that grown in India or Persia. |