nder the penalty of imprisonment and outlawry, to
find security for his good behavior. Lauderdale entertained the absurd
notion of making the king sue out writs of law-burrows against his
subjects. On this pretence, the refusers of the bonds were summoned to
appear before the council, and were required to bind themselves,
under the penalty of two years' rent, neither to frequent conventicles
themselves, nor allow their family and tenants to be present at those
unlawful assemblies. Thus chicanery was joined to tyranny; and
the majesty of the king, instead of being exalted, was in reality
prostituted; as if he were obliged to seek the same security which one
neighbor might require of another.

It was an old law, but seldom executed, that a man who was accused of
any crime, and did not appear in order to stand his trial, might be
intercommuned, that is, he might be publicly outlawed; and whoever
afterwards, either on account of business, relation, nay, charity, had
the least intercourse with him, was subjected to the same penalties
as could by law be inflicted on the criminal himself. Several writs
of intercommuning were now issued against the hearers and preachers in
conventicles; and by this severe and even absurd law, crimes and guilt
went on multiplying in a geometrical proportion. Where laws themselves
are so violent, it is no wonder that an administration should be
tyrannical.

Lest the cry of an oppressed people should reach the throne, the council
forbade, under severe penalties, all noblemen or gentlemen of landed
property to leave the kingdom, a severe edict, especially where the
sovereign himself resided in a foreign country. Notwithstanding this act
of council, Cassilis first, afterwards Hamilton and Tweddale, went
to London, and laid their complaints before the king. These violent
proceedings of Lauderdale were opposite to the natural temper of Charles
and he immediately issued orders for discontinuing the bonds and the
writs of law-burrows. But as he was commonly little touched with what
lay at a distance, he entertained not the proper indignation against
those who had abused his authority: even while he retracted these
oppressive measures, he was prevailed with to avow and praise them in
a letter which he wrote to the privy council. This proof of confidence
might fortify the hands of the ministry; but the king ran a manifest
risk of losing the affections of his subjects, by not permitting even
those who we