the direction of Barclay and Parkyns,
for a bloody sacrifice on the north bank of the river Thames. The
indignation of the common people of Norwich was not to be restrained.
They came in multitudes, though discouraged by the municipal
authorities, to plight faith to William, rightful and lawful King. In
Norfolk the number of signatures amounted to forty-eight thousand, in
Suffolk to seventy thousand. Upwards of five hundred rolls went up
to London from every part of England. The number of names attached to
twenty-seven of those rolls appears from the London Gazette to have been
three hundred and fourteen thousand. After making the largest allowance
for fraud, it seems certain that the Association included the great
majority of the adult male inhabitants of England who were able to sign
their names. The tide of popular feeling was so strong that a man who
was known not to have signed ran considerable risk of being publicly
affronted. In many places nobody appeared without wearing in his hat a
red riband on which were embroidered the words, "General Association
for King William." Once a party of Jacobites had the courage to parade
a street in London with an emblematic device which seemed to indicate
their contempt for the new Solemn League and Covenant. They were
instantly put to rout by the mob, and their leader was well ducked. The
enthusiasm spread to secluded isles, to factories in foreign countries,
to remote colonies. The Association was signed by the rude fishermen
of the Scilly Rocks, by the English merchants of Malaga, by the English
merchants of Genoa, by the citizens of New York, by the tobacco planters
of Virginia and by the sugar planters of Barbadoes. [687]

Emboldened by success, the Whig leaders ventured to proceed a step
further. They brought into the Lower House a bill for the securing of
the King's person and government. By this bill it was provided that
whoever, while the war lasted, should come from France into England
without the royal license should incur the penalties of treason, that
the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act should continue to the end of
the year 1696, and that all functionaries appointed by William should
retain their offices, notwithstanding his death, till his successor
should be pleased to dismiss them. The form of Association which the
House of Commons had adopted was solemnly ratified; and it was provided
that no person should sit in that House or should hold any office, civil