ty and in Salisbury; and the remainder were
sent to be sold for slaves in Barbadoes.[1] To these executions succeeded
certain measures of precaution. The protector forbade all ejected and
sequestered clergymen of the church of England to teach as schoolmasters
or tutors, or to preach or use the church service as ministers either in
public or private; ordered all priests belonging to the church of Rome
to quit the kingdom under the pain of death; banished all Cavaliers and
Catholics to the distance of twenty miles from the metropolis; prohibited
the publication in print of any news or intelligence without permission
from the secretary of state; and placed in confinement most of the nobility
and principal gentry in England, till they could produce bail for their
good behaviour and future appearance. In addition, an ordinance was
published that "all who had ever borne arms for the king, or declared
themselves to be of the royal party, should be decimated, that is, pay a
tenth part of all the estate which they had left, to support the charge
which the commonwealth was put to by the unquietness of their temper, and
the just cause of jealousy which they had administered." It is difficult
to conceive a more iniquitous imposition. It was subversive of the act of
oblivion formerly procured by Cromwell himself, which pretended to abolish
the memory of all past offences; contrary to natural justice, because it
involved the innocent and guilty in the same punishment; and productive

[Footnote 1: State Trials, v. 767-790.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1655. May 16.]

of the most extensive extortions, because the commissioners included among
the enemies of the commonwealth those who had remained neutral between
the parties, or had not given satisfaction by the promptitude of their
services, or the amount of their contributions. To put the climax to these
tyrannical proceedings, he divided the country into eleven, and, at one
period, into fourteen, military governments, under so many officers, with
the name and rank of major-generals, giving them authority to raise a
force within their respective jurisdictions, which should serve only on
particular occasions; to levy the decimation and other public taxes; to
suppress tumults and insurrections; to disarm all papists and Cavaliers;
to inquire into the conduct of ministers and schoolmasters; and to arrest,
imprison, and bind over, all dangerous and suspected persons. Thus,
this long and sanguinar