most religious, if not the most civilized, were abandoned to a part of the nation the most indigent and barbarous; of an unknown language, and ferocious manners; instigated by hereditary prejudices, and addicted to habitual rapine and revenge. The country, oppressed and ravaged like a conquered province, was filled with extortions, depredations, robberies, and more atrocious crimes. Neither age nor sex was exempt from outrage, and torture was freely employed to extort a confession of hidden wealth. The people were stripped and robbed even of their cloaths and furniture, which appeared invaluable to a rude banditti; and the labours of the plough were suspended, and the horses seized, to transport the spoil to their hills.+ BOOK VIII. 1678. lawburrows A committee of council attended the army, to General enforce the bonds. But the gentlemen, who ob- issued. served that the subscribers suffered indiscriminately with themselves, persisted in their refusal, and were ignominiously disarmed, deprived of their saddle horses and swords, and subjected to a new species of legal persecution, An individual, by an application, upon oath, might obtain a writ of lawburrows from a magistrate, to oblige another, of whose violence he was apprehensive, to furnish security for his good behaviour; and thus a precaution used only against personal danger, was converted, by the most oppressive chicane, into 4 Id. Wodrow, į. 467-96. Law's Diary, MS, Air alone lost 16,000. sterling. VIII. 1678. BOOK an alternative for the bonds.5 A general writ of lawburrows was issued at the suit of the king, against a whole country, to find security, according to the terms of the bonds for preventing conventicles, under the penalty of double rents, and any other punishment which the council might inflict. Such as subscribed the bonds were required to dismiss their suspected tenants, whom, unless their conformity were attested by the curate, no landlord was permitted to receive on his estate. To suppress their complaints, and at the same time to prevent their escape, the unhappy sufferers were forbidden to approach the capital, or to depart from the kingdom; and the nobility and gentry were compelled, when interrogated by the council, to exculpate themselves by oath from a fictitious accusation of state crimes. Upon the premature report of an insurrection, Lauderdale and his friends were unable to dissemble their joy; nor could they conceal their dejection when the intelligence was disproved. That their design in these measures was to render the people desperate, and 5" And since every private subject may force such from whom they fear any harm to secure them by lawburrows, and that it hath been the uncontroverted and legal practice of his majesty's privy council, to oblige such whose peaceableness they suspected, to secure the peace for themselves, wives, bairns, &c. therefore the privy council, considering that his majesty has declared his just suspicion of such as refuse or delay to take the bonds, &c." Wodrow, i. App. 182. See Sir G. Mackenzie, ii. 315. VIII. 1678. to impel them to rebellion, can admit of no dis- BOOK pute. But the people were impressed with the same opinion, that an insurrection was desired, and though unable to discover the motives, they were the more careful, by their patient sufferings, to disappoint the manifest expectation of the court." of the no gentry. Notwithstanding the prohibition to quit the Complaints kingdom, fourteen peers and fifty gentlemen, of bility and whom duke Hamilton had been threatened, and the earls of Cassilis and Loudon, lord Cochran, and others, had been charged with lawburrows, and denounced outlaws, repaired to court, and were joined in their complaints by Athol and Perth, two of the committee of council employed in the West. As they had departed without permission, an audience was refused. But the invasion and sufferings of the western counties had excited universal execration; and amidst the fervid debates of the English commons, the voice of two nations was too powerful to be resisted. Was this the spirit of government which was displayed in Scotland? or were these the measures to be adopted in England when the dark designs of the court were mature for execution? An address for the removal of Lauderdale was rejected; but it was 6 Wodrow, i. 477-81. App. 179. Burnet, ii. 185. 7 Burnet, ii. 185. The invasion was disapproved of by many of Lauderdale's friends in council, not admitted to the secrets of the court. VIII. 1678. BOOK necessary to suspend his enormities, to recal the lawburrows and bonds, and to disband the army; and the highlanders, after exacting free quarters, and wasting the country for three months, were dismissed with impunity and wealth to their hills. May 25 Hamilton and the chief nobility were heard in presence of the cabinet council; and when taxed by the king with disobedience to his proclamations, in repairing to court, their only answer was a recital of their unmerited sufferings and their neglected complaints. In the midst of profound tranquillity, when not a shadow nor surmise of insurrection existed, to let one part of the nation, and that the most barbarous, loose against the other; to instigate the excesses of the one by a previous indemnity; and to devote the other, like a hostile country, to indiscriminate ravage; was without example in a civilized state. Lauderdale, who remained in Scotland, secure of impunity, was vindicated by Danby and the duke of York. Field conventicles had been styled in the late acts, the rendezvous of rebellion; and it was inferred from this rhetorical expression, that wheresoever conventicles prevailed, the country was in a state of actual insurrection and revolt. Free quarters for a few days were of little estimation, when the fortunes and lives of the people were proffered by parliament for his majesty's support; the bonds were tendered, not enforced, as an exemption from free quarters; and where the king was ap VIII. 1678. Charles. prehensive of danger from his own subjects, the BOOK writ of lawburrows was a just and necessary alternative for the bonds. The miserable apologies to which tyranny must resort, dishonour and degrade the tongue that utters, and the understanding that receives them. The Scottish nobility imagined at first, that their sovereign was touched with pity and compunction at their wrongs. But when he Rejected by required their complaints to be produced in writing, they demanded a previous indemnity, which he refused to grant; and his refusal sufficiently revealed the insidious design, to bring them to trial, and to convict them of leasing-making, for preferring an accusation against the privy council. Unwilling to disown a minister, who had exceeded perhaps in the execution of his express commands, he declared, that he was well assured of an insurrection having been intended in Scotland, but it should be his care that the actors should suffer; and next day, in a letter which cannot be ascribed to Lauderdale, he bestowed a full approbation upon the measures of the privy council, against the iniquity of whose administration the nobility durst not subscribe their just complaints.8 The absence of his opponents was seized by Convention Lauderdale, as an opportune moment to summon a convention of estates. The nobility who remained at home, were seduced by bribes. The elections were secured, or decided afterwards by |