on the charge of high treason. The impeachment, as it is well known, was ultimately laid aside by the commons, and it was resolved to proceed against the earl by a bill of attainder. But it has recently been discovered that Pym and Hampden resolutely opposed this change in the mode of procedure, believing that the charge of treason could be fully established under the statute of Edward. They were outvoted, however, by a majority of the house led by Falkland, Glyn, Maynard, and others who shortly after abandoned the popular cause and joined the royal party. Pym and his friend no less firmly supported the equitable proposal which the others resisted, that Strafford's counsel should be heard on his behalf before the lords upon the matter of law. Being fully convinced, however, of the guilt of the earl, Pym supported the bill of attainder after the impeachment had been abandoned, and by his powerful appeals and skilful, though often unscrupulous policy, mainly contributed to its success. He not only laboured to prove that the government and policy of Stratford had been subversive of "the fundamental laws" of the kingdom, but in his eagerness to crush his victim he resolved society into its first principles, and affirmed that "the earl is condemned by the light of nature, the light of common reason—the element of all laws out of which they are derived—the end of all laws to which they were designed." The use made by Pym of the paper which the younger Vane surreptitiously and fraudulently obtained from his father's secret cabinet, was as dishonourable to the receiver as it was to the purloiner of the document. But it enabled Pym to make good his old threat to Strafford, when the latter deserted the patriotic party—"We will never leave you till we have taken your head from your shoulders." After the execution of the potent minister, an attempt was made to bring into power the leaders of the popular party. Pym was to have been chancellor of the exchequer, and Hampden, Hollis, and other patriots, were to have had suitable places in the government. But the sudden death of the earl of Bedford, and the reluctance of the king, unhappily frustrated these arrangements. At a later period, however, Charles renewed negotiations with Pym to accept office, but the breach between the king and the popular party had by this time greatly widened, and his majesty's offers were declined.
In the subsequent measures of the parliament Pym took a leading part. The triennial bill was passed, ship-money declared to be illegal, the power of arbitrary taxation by the sovereign annulled, the star-chamber abolished, the court of high commission abrogated, and the feudal encroachments of the crown on forest boundaries permanently repressed. Up to this point liberal politicians of all classes had acted with entire unanimity; but a difference of opinion now arose among them; Falkland, Hyde, Culpepper, and their followers, insisted that the concessions made by the king afforded ample security against any future attempt at misgovernment, while the more extreme party demanded additional securities against the attempt "for the recovery of the old prerogative." Pym was at this moment not only the most popular man in England, but the ablest and most effective practical politician. He was not extreme in his opinions. "He was not," says Clarendon, "of those furious resolutions against the church as the other leading men were." Notwithstanding his attachment to Calvinistic principles, and his strenuous opposition to Laud and the Arminian party, he was a stanch though moderate member of the Church of England; and "even Hampden's accession to what was called the root and branch party of the state had not entirely carried Pym along with it." At this juncture he was, as Clarendon expresses it, "the most able man to do hurt that hath lived in any time," and if he had so pleased he was also at that time the most able to do good. There can be little doubt that if he had continued to act on the principle which regulated the first proceedings of the patriotic party in the Long parliament, and had limited his demands to objects essential to good government, and compatible with the genius of the constitution, taking at the same time all reasonable precautions against the duplicity of the king, the manifold evils of the civil war would have been averted, and the monarchy and the representative institutions of the country brought into concord without any violent or further struggle. Unfortunately however, Pym abandoned the moderate and constitutional position he had hitherto occupied, and framed and proposed the Grand Remonstrance, confessedly for the purpose of stemming the current of returning loyalty, "reanimating the discontent almost appeased, and guarding the people against the confidence they were beginning to place in the king's sincerity." The eloquent and masterly, though not unfrequently violent and unfair tactics of the popular leader, were displayed to great advantage in the fierce and protracted debates which took place during the progress of this measure through the house; and in spite of the desperate resistance of the courtiers and the moderate reformers, headed by Hyde and Falkland, they were crowned with success. It was Pym too who discovered at the critical moment, through Lady Carlisle, and frustrated the attempt of the king to arrest the five members, the final step which led to the civil war. He proposed the famous "nineteen propositions," the adoption of which would have annihilated the monarchical element in the constitution; and in his determination to deprive Charles of all power for evil, he unfortunately advocated a policy which ultimately led to the destruction of the constitution itself, as well as of the monarchy. As the contest deepened and the horizon darkened, the eloquence of Pym shone with brighter lustre. When he made his celebrated speech at Guildhall the applause was so loud at the end of every period, that he was frequently compelled to remain silent for some minutes. When hostilities between the king and the parliament at length broke out, Pym contrived to maintain his position and influence. While the other patriotic chiefs took the field he was appointed in November, 1643, lieutenant of the ordnance, and remained in London conducting the executive, calming the fears of the people, and watching and counteracting the machinations of their adversaries. Worn out, however, with toils and anxieties, his career was rapidly drawing to a close. He died on the 1st of December, 1643, of an imposthume in the bowels, and was buried with great magnificence in Westminster abbey. He left several children by his wife, a lady of remarkable accomplishments, who died in 1620. The house of commons voted £10,000 to the payment of his debts, and appointed themselves guardians of his family.
Pym was probably the most accomplished master of parliamentary science that our country has ever produced. He thoroughly understood his audience, and adapted his arguments and his measures to their character and position with rare sagacity. He was a chief who united most of the qualities that serve and adorn the leader of a party—pre-eminent experience in public affairs, unrelaxing vigilance in the attention bestowed on them, profound mastery in those ready tactics by which occasions to weaken or wound an adversary are fearlessly seized and unscrupulously improved. He was a hearty hater, and gave no quarter to his opponents. "He understood the tempers and affections of the kingdom as well as any man," says Clarendon, "and had observed the errors and mistakes in government, and knew well how to make them appear greater than they were. He had a very comely and grave way of expressing himself, with great volubility of words natural and proper." His style was nervous, terse, and polished, his reasoning close and vigorous, and enforced with great rhetorical skill. His more important speeches bear marks of careful preparation, but he was ready in debate and powerful in reply. Unlike some of his great associates, Pym was a consummate man of the world, and had nothing of the puritan affectation of formality and sternness in his manners or dress. He was emphatically a man of authority, of weight, and was endowed to a remarkable degree with that mysterious faculty which enables its possessor to establish a complete moral ascendancy over others. He was, therefore, the master spirit of the patriotic party, and its real representative in the contest with the king, "so that while he lived there was no law in England so potent as the will of Pym."—J. T.
PYM, Sir William, K.C.H., inspector-general of the army hospitals, and superintendent-general of quarantine, was born at Edinburgh in 1772, and received his general and medical education at the university of that city. Having joined the medical department of the army in 1792, he accompanied, in the latter end of 1793, the expedition to the West Indies under Sir Charles Grey, in the capacity of surgeon to a flank battalion commanded by Sir Eyre Coote; and was present at the reduction of the islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, and St. Lucia. Notwithstanding the fatigues of the campaign the troops continued to enjoy good health until the summer of 1794, when yellow fever broke out among those stationed at Martinique; and it was here that Dr. Pym first encountered that scourge of the tropics, with which his name will ever be associated as one of the most successful inquirers into its nature and properties. Some idea may be formed of the fearful ravages of yellow fever from the fact, that in less than twelve months six
