government.[1] To destroy the prospect, by showing the hopelessness of resistance, the army was successively augmented to the amount of twenty thousand men;[2] citadels were marked out to be built of stone at Ayr, Leith, Perth, and Inverness; and a long chain of military stations drawn across the Highlands served to curb, if it did not tame, the fierce and indignant spirit of the natives.  The parliament declared the lands and goods of the crown public property, and confiscated the estates of all who had joined the king or the duke of Hamilton in their invasions of England, unless they were engaged in trade, and worth no more than five pounds, or not engaged in trade, and worth only one hundred pounds.  All authority derived from any other source than the parliament of England was abolished[a] by proclamation; the different sheriffs, and civil officers of doubtful fidelity, were removed for others attached to the commonwealth; a yearly tax of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds was imposed in lieu of free quarters for the support of the army; and English judges, assisted by three or four natives, were appointed to go the circuits, and to supersede the courts of session.[3] It was with grief

[Footnote 1:  Balfour, iv. 315.  Heath, 304, 308, 310, 313.  Whitelock, 514, 534, 543.]

[Footnote 2:  Journals, Dec. 2, 1652.]

[Footnote 3:  Ludlow, 345.  Heath, 313, 326.  Whitelock, 528, 542.  Journals, Nov. 19.  Leicester’s Journal, 129.  The English judges were astonished at the spirit of litigation and revenge which the Scots displayed during the circuit.  More than one thousand individuals were accused before them of adultery, incest, and other offences, which they had been obliged to confess in the kirk during the last twenty or thirty years.  When no other proof was brought, the charge was dismissed.  In like manner sixty persons were charged with witchcraft.  These were also acquitted; for, though they had confessed the offence, the confession had been drawn from them by torture.  It was usual to tie up the supposed witch by the thumbs, and to whip her till she confessed; or to put the flame of a candle to the soles of the feet, between the toes, or to parts of the head, or to make the accused wear a shirt of hair steeped in vinegar &c.—­See Whitelock, 543, 544, 545, 547, 548.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1651.  Jan. 22.]

and shame that the Scots yielded to these innovations; though they were attended with one redeeming benefit, the prevention of that anarchy and bloodshed which must have followed, had the Cavaliers and Covenanters, with forces nearly balanced, and passions equally excited, been left to wreck their vengeance on each other.  But they were soon threatened with what in their eyes was a still greater evil.  The parliament resolved to incorporate the two countries into one commonwealth, without kingly government or the aristocratical influence of a house of peers.  This was thought to fill up the measure of Scottish misery.  There