THE KING AND THE BONDMEN.
gentlemen and lawyers, so they would have no
foreigners-England was for Englishmen. These
murders were followed by the plunder of the mer-
chants' warehouses; and all the rich velvets and silks,
and embroideries, brought from over the sea, were
trampled under foot in the streets or torn to pieces,
and for a whole week this work of pillage went on,
accompanied by drunkenness and murder, for any one
that dared to interfere was knocked down without
further question, and at last the rioters began to quarrel
with each other, and numbers lost their lives.
 In all this, we see the effects of ignorance ; had the
peasants been better informed, or had wiser leaders,
the excesses might have been avoided. On the other
hand, had they not been oppressed they would not
have needed to fight for their liberty. We see in the
event that wrong, whether on the part of those who rule,
or those who are ruled, always brings its own punish-
ment. Slavery, however, is so terrible a lot, that we
cannot always blame those who make a struggle for
freedom.
 While this was going on, messengers had passed
several times between the king and other parties of
the peasants, who, when they got the charters for
which they clamoured, were still dissatisfied and made
fresh demands, declaring they would not go home till
they had liberty to buy and sell where they liked;
they began, too, to talk of further violence more
terrible than any which they had yet attempted; and
threatened that if their requests were not granted,
they would murder the king and all the nobles, and
set fire to the whole city.
 Matters were in this state when another message
came from the king, by which he promised that if the
villains would meet him the next morning in Smith-