is understood that the sentences of Argyle and Laurie of
Blackwood were not detached instances of oppression, but rather a sample
of the general system of administration. The covenant, which had been so
solemnly taken by the whole kingdom, and, among the rest, by the king
himself, had been declared to be unlawful, and a refusal to abjure it had
been made subject to the severest penalties. Episcopacy, which was
detested by a great majority of the nation, had been established, and all
public exercise of religion, in the forms to which the people were most
attached, had been prohibited. The attendance upon field conventicles
had been made highly penal, and the preaching at them capital, by which
means, according to the computation of a late writer, no less remarkable
for the accuracy of his facts than for the force and justness of his
reasonings, at least seventeen thousand persons in one district were
involved in criminality, and became the objects of persecution. After
this letters had been issued by government, forbidding the intercommuning
with persons who had neglected or refused to appear before the Privy
Council, when cited for the above crimes, a proceeding by which not only
all succour or assistance to such persons, but, according to the strict
sense of the word made use of, all intercourse with them, was rendered
criminal, and subjected him who disobeyed the prohibition to the same
penalties, whether capital or others, which were affixed to the alleged
crimes of the party with whom he had intercommuned.

These measures not proving effectual for the purpose for which they were
intended, or, as some say, the object of Charles II.'s government being
to provoke an insurrection, a demand was made upon the landholders in the
district supposed to be most disaffected of bonds, whereby they were to
become responsible for their wives, families, tenants, and servants, and
likewise for the wives, families, and servants of their tenants, and,
finally, for all persons living upon their estates, that they should not
withdraw from the Church, frequent or preach at conventicles, nor give
any succour, or have any intercourse with persons with whom it was
forbidden to intercommune; and the penalties attached to the breach of
this engagement, the keeping of which was obviously out of the power of
him who was required to make it, were to be the same as those, whether
capital or other, to which the several persons for whom he engage