My dear lads: Although so long a time has elapsed since the great civil war
in England, men are still almost as much divided as they were then as to the
merits of the quarrel, almost as warm partisans of the one side or the other.
Most of you will probably have formed an opinion as to the rights of the case,
either from your own reading, or from hearing the views of your elders.
For my part, I have endeavored to hold the scales equally, to relate
historical facts with absolute accuracy, and to show how much of right and how
much of wrong there was upon either side. Upon the one hand, the king by his
instability, bad faith, and duplicity alienated his best friends, and drove the
Commons to far greater lengths than they had at first dreamed of. Upon the other
hand, the struggle, begun only to win constitutional rights, endedowing to the
ambition, fanaticism, and determination to override all rights and all opinions
save their own, of a numerically insignificant minority of the Commons, backed
by the strength of the armyin the establishment of the most complete despotism
England has ever seen.
It may no doubt be considered a failing on my part that one of my heroes has
a very undue preponderance of adventure over the other. This I regret; but after
the scale of victory turned, those on the winning side had little to do or to
suffer, and one's interest is certainly with the hunted fugitive, or the slave
in the Bermudas, rather than with the prosperous and well-to-do citizen.
Yours very sincerely,
G.A. HENTY.