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numerous family, was, with his son-in-law,
Milborne,
led to the gallows.
Both acknowledged the errors which they had committed ‘through ignorance and
jealous fear, through rashness and passion, through misinformation and misconstruction;’ in other respects, they asserted their innocence, which their blameless private lives confirmed.
‘Weep not for us, who are departing to our God,’—these were
Leisler's words to his oppressed friends,—‘but weep for yourselves, that remain behind in misery and vexation;’
adding, as the handkerchief was bound round his face, ‘I hope these eyes shall see our Lord Jesus in heaven.’
Milborne exclaimed, ‘I die for the king and queen, and the Protestant religion, in which I was born and bred.
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’
The appeal to the king, which had not been per-
mitted during their lives, was made by
Leisler's son; and, though the committee of lords of trade reported that the forms of law had not been broken, the estates of ‘the deceased’ were restored to their families.
Dissatisfied with this imperfect redress, the friends of
Leisler persevered till an act of parliament, stren-
uously but vainly opposed by
Dudley, reversed the
attainder.
Thus fell Leisler and Milborne, victims to party
spirit.
The event struck deep into the public mind.
Long afterwards, their friends, whom a royalist of that day described as ‘the meaner sort of the inhabitants,’ and who were distinguished always by their zeal for popular power, for toleration, for opposition to the doctrine of legitimacy, formed a powerful, and ultimately a successful, party.
The rashness and incompetency of
Leisler were forgotten in sympathy for the judicial
