" Lord
Lauderdale here showing impatience, Harrington added: "I say
Aristotle says so. I have not said so much. And under what prince
was it? Was it not under Alexander, the greatest prince then in the
world? I beseech you, my lord, did Alexander hang up Aristotle?
did he molest him? Livy, for a commonwealth, is one of the
fullest authors; did not he write under Augustus Caesar? Did
Caesar hang up Livy? did he molest him? Machiavel, what a
commonwealthsman was he! but he wrote under the Medici when
they were princes in Florence: did they hang up Machiavel, or did
they molest him? I have done no otherwise than as the greatest
politicians: the King will do no otherwise than as the greatest
princes."
That was too much to hope, even in a dream, of the low-minded
Charles II. Harrington could not obtain even the show of justice in
a public trial. He was kept five months an untried prisoner in the
Tower, only sheltered from daily brutalities by bribe to the
lieutenant. When his habeas corpus had been moved for, it was at
first flatly refused;. and when it had been granted, Harrington was
smuggled away from the Tower between one and two o'clock in
the morning, and carried on board a ship that took him to closer
imprisonment on St. Nicholas Island, opposite Plymouth.
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