The editor
admits that Harrison, as an article of merchandise, was not worth his
freight to Deal, still less to Smyrna. His son, in his absence, became
Lady Campden's steward, and behaved but ill in that situation. Some
suspected that this son arranged the kidnapping of Harrison, but, if
so, why did he secure the hanging of John Perry, in chains, on
Broadway hill, 'where he might daily see him'?
That might be a blind. But young Harrison could not expect John Perry
to assist him by accusing himself and his brother and mother, which
was the most unlooked-for event in the world. Nor could he know that
his father would come home from Charringworth on August 16, 1660, in
the dark, and so arrange for three horsemen, in possession of a heavy
weight of specie, to stab and carry off the aged sire. Young Harrison
had not a great fardel of money to give them, and if they were already
so rich, what had they to gain by taking Harrison to Deal, and putting
him, with 'others in the same condition,' on board a casual ship? They
could have left him in the 'stone-pit:' he knew not who they were, and
the longer they rode by daylight, with a hatless, handcuffed, and
sorely wounded prisoner, his pockets overburdened with gold, the more
risk of detection they ran.
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