_Cromwell's arbitrary government._--If this decimation of the royalists could pass for an act of severity towards a proscribed faction, in which the rest of the nation might fancy themselves not interested, Cromwell did not fail to show that he designed to exert an equally despotic command over every man's property. With the advice of his council, he had imposed, or, as I conceive (for it is not clearly explained), continued, a duty on merchandise beyond the time limited by law. A Mr. George Cony having refused to pay this tax, it was enforced from him, on which he sued the collector. Cromwell sent his counsel, Maynard, Twisden, and Wyndham, to the Tower, who soon petitioned for liberty, and abandoned their client. Rolle, the chief justice, when the cause came on, dared not give judgment against the protector; yet, not caring to decide in his favour, postponed the case till the next term, and meanwhile retired from the bench. Glyn, who succeeded him upon it, took care to have this business accommodated with Cony, who, at some loss of public reputation, withdrew his suit. Sir Peter Wentworth, having brought a similar action, was summoned before the council, and asked if he would give it up. "If you command me," he replied to Cromwell, "I must submit;" which the protector did, and the action was withdrawn.[438]
Though it cannot be said that such an interference with the privileges of advocates or the integrity of judges was without precedents in the times of the Stuarts, yet it had never been done in so public or shameless a manner. Several other instances wherein the usurper diverted justice from its course, or violated the known securities of Englishmen, will be found in most general histories; not to dwell on that most flagrant of all, the erection of his high court of justice, by which Gerard and Vowel in 1654, Slingsby and Hewit in 1658, were brought to the scaffold.[439] I cannot therefore agree in the praises which have been showered upon Cromwell for the just administration of the laws under his dominion. That, between party and party, the ordinary civil rights of men were fairly dealt with, is no extraordinary praise; and it may be admitted that he filled the benches of justice with able lawyers, though not so considerable as those of the reign of Charles the Second; but it is manifest that, so far as his own authority was concerned, no hereditary despot, proud in the crimes of a hundred ancestors, could more have spurned at every limitation than this soldier of a commonwealth.[440]