ons of civil right between
man and man; and to punish with merciless rigor all who murmured at the
acts of the government, or who applied, even in the most decent and
regular manner, to any tribunal for relief against those acts.

This was his end; and he distinctly saw in what manner alone this end
could be attained. There was, in truth, about all his notions a
clearness, a coherence, a precision, which, if he had not been pursuing
an object pernicious to his country and to his kind, would have justly
entitled him to high admiration. He saw that there was one instrument,
and only one, by which his vast and daring projects could be carried
into execution. That instrument was a standing army. To the forming of
such an army, therefore, he directed all the energy of his strong mind.
In Ireland, where he was viceroy, he actually succeeded in establishing
a military despotism, not only over the aboriginal population, but also
over the English colonists, and was able to boast that, in that island,
the King was as absolute as any prince in the whole world could be.

The ecclesiastical administration was, in the mean time, principally
directed by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Of all the prelates
of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed furthest from the principles
of the Reformation and had drawn nearest to Rome. His theology was more
remote than even that of the Dutch Arminians from the theology of the
Calvinists. His passion for ceremonies, his reverence for holidays,
vigils, and sacred places, his ill-concealed dislike of the marriage of
ecclesiastics, the ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal with
which he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence of the
laity, would have made him an object of aversion to the Puritans, even
if he had used only legal and gentle means for the attainment of his
ends. But his understanding was narrow; and his commerce with the world
had been small. He was by nature rash, irritable, quick to feel for his
own dignity, slow to sympathize with the sufferings of others, and prone
to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish
and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal.

Under his direction every corner of the realm was subjected to a
constant and minute inspection. Every little congregation of Separatists
was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotions of private families
could not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigor