y's wishes and the recommendation of his
commissioner.

While the legislature was doing its part, the executive government was
not behindhand in pursuing the system which had been so much commended. A
refusal to abjure the declaration in the terms prescribed, was everywhere
considered as sufficient cause for immediate execution. In one part of
the country information having been received that a corpse had been
clandestinely buried, an inquiry took place; it was dug up, and found to
be that of a person proscribed. Those who had interred him were
suspected, not of having murdered, but of having harboured him. For this
crime their house was destroyed, and the women and children of the family
being driven out to wander as vagabonds, a young man belonging to it was
executed by the order of Johnston of Westerraw. Against this murder even
Graham himself is said to have remonstrated, but was content with
protesting that the blood was not upon his head; and not being able to
persuade a Highland officer to execute the order of Johnston, ordered his
own men to shoot the unhappy victim. In another county three females,
one of sixty-three years of age, one of eighteen, and one of twelve, were
charged with rebellion; and refusing to abjure the declaration, were
sentenced to be drowned. The last was let off upon condition of her
father's giving a bond for a hundred pounds. The elderly woman, who is
represented as a person of eminent piety, bore her fate with the greatest
constancy, nor does it appear that her death excited any strong
sensations in the minds of her savage executioners. The girl of eighteen
was more pitied, and after many entreaties, and having been once under
water, was prevailed upon to utter some words which might be fairly
construed into blessing the king, a mode of obtaining pardon not
unfrequent in cases where the persecutors were inclined to relent. Upon
this it was thought she was safe, but the merciless barbarian who
superintended this dreadful business was not satisfied; and upon her
refusing the abjuration, she was again plunged into the water, where she
expired. It is to be remarked that being at Bothwell Bridge and Air's
Moss were among the crimes stated in the indictment of all the three,
though, when the last of these affairs happened, one of the girls was
only thirteen, and the other not eight years of age. At the time of the
Bothwell Bridge business, they were still younger. To recite all th