next morning Wagstaff issued orders for hanging them, but was stopped in the act by the remonstrances of Colonel John Penruddock and others.  From Salisbury, finding no encouragement among the citizens, the insurgents moved westward till they reached South Molton in Devonshire, where they were overtaken on the night of Wednesday, March 14, by Captain Unton Crook.  There was a brief street-fight, ending in the defeat of the Royalists, and the capture of Penruddock and about fifty more.  Wagstaff escaped.  Of the contemporary insurgents in the north there had meanwhile escaped Malevrier and also Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who had come from abroad to head the Royalist insurrection generally, had gone to the north, but had not awaited the actual upshot.  He lay concealed in London for a time, and got to Cologne at last.  In the trials which ensued those who suffered capitally were Penruddock, beheaded at Exeter, a Captain Hugh Grove and several others at other places in the West, and two or three at York.  Many of the inferior culprits, capitally convicted, had their lives spared, but were sent in servitude to Barbadoes.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Clarendon, 824-827; Whitlocke, IV. 188; Godwin, IV. 167-169; Carlyle, III. 99-100.]

Revenue had been one of the first cares of the Protector and Council in resuming power after the Dissolution.  By a former ordinance of theirs of June 1654 (Vol.  IV. p. 562), the assessment for the Army and Navy had been renewed for three months at the rate of L120,000 per month, and for the next three months at the lowered rate of L90,000 per month.  This ordinance had expired at Christmas 1654; and, though the Parliament had then passed a Bill for extending the assessment for three months more at L60,000 per month, the Bill had never been presented to Cromwell for his assent.  On the 8th of February, 1654-5, therefore, a new Ordinance by his Highness and Council fixed the assessment for a certain term at L60,000 per month.  This acceptance of the reduction proposed by the Parliament gave general satisfaction; and there is evidence that at this time Cromwell and the Council let themselves be driven to various shifts of economy rather than overstrain their power of ordinance-making in the unpopular particular of supplies.  But, indeed, it was on the question of the validity of this power generally, all-essential as it was, that they encountered their greatest difficulties.  A merchant named Cony did more to wreck the Protectorate by a suit at law than did the Cavaliers by their armed insurrection.  Having refused to pay custom duty because it was levied only by an ordinance of the Lord Protector and Council of March, 1654, and not by authority of Parliament, he had been fined L500 by the Commissioners of Customs, and had been committed to prison for non-payment.  On a motion for a writ of habeas corpus his case came on for trial in May 1655.  Maynard and two other eminent lawyers who were his counsel pleaded