They were convicted in the face of the letter and of the spirit of the law.

Some received sentence of death at the bar of the King's Bench, some at the Old Bailey.

They were hanged in sight of the regiments to which they had belonged; and care was taken that the executions should be announced in the London Gazette, which very seldom noticed such events.

[282] It may well be believed, that the law, so grossly insulted by courts which derived from it all their authority, and which were in the habit of looking to it as their guide, would be little respected by a tribunal which had originated in tyrannical caprice.

The new High Commission had, during the first months of its existence, merely inhibited clergymen from exercising spiritual functions.