The first
attacks were by far of the most alarming character, but Her Majesty,
whose escape on one occasion seemed due only to her husband's prompt
action, never betrayed any agitation or alarm; and her dauntless
bearing, and the care for others which she manifested by dispensing
with the presence of her usual lady attendants when she anticipated
one of these assaults, immensely increased the already high esteem in
which her people held her. The first assailant, a half-crazy lad of
low station named Oxford, was shut up in a lunatic asylum. For the
second, a man named Francis, the same plea could not be urged; but
the death-sentence he had incurred was commuted to transportation for
life. Almost immediately a deformed lad called Bean followed the
example of Francis. Her Majesty, who had been very earnest to save
the life of the miserable beings attacking her, desired an alteration
in the law as to such assaults; and their penalty was fixed at seven
years' transportation, or imprisonment not exceeding three years, to
which the court was empowered to add a moderate number of
whippings--punishments having no heroic fascination about them, like
that which for heated and shallow brains invested the hideous doom of
"traitors.
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