of strength and consistency, that the king ventured first to appoint Oxford, instead of London, for the meeting of parliament; and then, having secured to himself a good pension from France, to dissolve the parliament there met, with a full resolution never to call another; to which resolution, indeed, Louis had bound him, as one of the conditions on which he was to receive a stipend.  No measure was ever attended with more complete success.  The most flattering addresses poured in from all parts of the kingdom; divine right, and indiscriminate obedience, were everywhere the favourite doctrines; and men seemed to vie with each other who should have the honour of the greatest share in the glorious work of slavery, by securing to the king, for the present, and after him to the duke, absolute and uncontrollable power.  They who, either because Charles had been called a forgiving prince by his flatterers (upon what ground I could never discover), or from some supposed connection between indolence and good nature, had deceived themselves into a hope that his tyranny would be of the milder sort, found themselves much disappointed in their expectations.

The whole history of the remaining part of his reign exhibits an uninterrupted series of attacks upon the liberty, property, and lives of his subjects.  The character of the government appeared first, and with the most marked and prominent features, in Scotland.  The condemnation of Argyle and Weir, the one for having subjoined an explanation when he took the test oath, the other for having kept company with a rebel, whom it was not proved he knew to be such, and who had never been proclaimed, resemble more the acts of Tiberius and Domitian, than those of even the most arbitrary modern governments.  It is true, the sentences were not executed; Weir was reprieved; and whether or not Argyle, if he had not deemed it more prudent to escape by flight, would have experienced the same clemency, cannot now be ascertained.  The terror of these examples would have been, in the judgment of most men, abundantly sufficient to teach the people of Scotland their duty, and to satisfy them that their lives, as well as everything else they had been used to call their own, were now completely in the power of their masters.  But the government did not stop here, and having outlawed thousands, upon the same pretence upon which Weir had been condemned, inflicted capital punishment upon such criminals of both sexes as refused to answer, or answered otherwise than was prescribed to them to the most ensnaring questions.

In England, the city of London seemed to hold out for a certain time, like a strong fortress in a conquered country; and, by means of this citadel, Shaftesbury and others were saved from the vengeance of the court.  But this resistance, however honourable to the corporation who made it, could not be of long duration.  The weapons of law and justice were found feeble, when opposed to the power of a monarch who was at the head