Even those multitudes who received pardon, were obliged to atone for their guilt by fines which reduced them to beggary; or where their former poverty made them incapable of paying, they were condemned to cruel whippings or severe imprisonments.

Nor could the innocent escape the hands, no less rapacious than cruel, of the chief justice.

Prideaux, a gentleman of Devonshire, being thrown into prison, and dreading the severe and arbitrary spirit which at that time met with no control, was obliged to buy his liberty of Jefferies at the price of fifteen thousand pounds; though he could never so much as learn the crime of which he was accused.
Goodenough, the seditious under sheriff of London, who had been engaged in the most bloody and desperate part of the Rye-house conspiracy, was taken prisoner after the battle of Sedgemoor, and resolved to save his own life by an accusation of Cornish, the sheriff, whom he knew to be extremely obnoxious to the court.

Colonel Rumsey joined him in the accusation; and the prosecution was so hastened, that the prisoner was tried, condemned, and executed in the space of a week.

The perjury of the witnesses appeared immediately after; and the king seemed to regret the execution of Cornish.