One of the first acts of the new government was for the ‘securing of suspect persons.’ It could not but be vexing to [Sidenote: 1689.] the men who had delivered their country ‘from thraldom and poperie, and the pernicious inconveniences of ane absolute power,’ when they found themselves—doubtless under a full sense of the necessity of the case—probably as much so as their predecessors had ever felt—ordering something like half the nobility and gentry of the country, and many people of inferior rank, into ward, there to lie without trial—and in at least one notorious case, had to resort to torture to extort confession; thus imitating those very proceedings of the late government which they themselves had condemned. All through the summer of 1689, the register of the Privy Council is crammed with petitions from the imprisoned, calling for some degree of relief from the miseries they were subjected to in the Edinburgh Tolbooth, Stirling Castle, Blackness Castle, and other places of confinement, to which they had been consigned, generally without intimation of a cause. The numbers in the Edinburgh Tolbooth were particularly great, insomuch that one who remembers, as the author does, its narrow gloomy interior, gets the idea of their being packed in it much like the inmates of an emigrant ship. Men of the highest rank were consigned to this frightful place. We find the Earl of Balcarres petitioning (May 30) for release from it on the plea that his health was suffering, ‘being always, when at liberty, accustomed to exercise [his lordship was a great walker];’ and, moreover, he had given security ‘not to escape or do anything in prejudice of the government.’ The Council ordained that he should be ‘brought from the Tolbooth to his own lodging in James Hamilton’s house over forgainst the Cross of Edinburgh,’ he giving his parole of honour ‘not to go out of his lodgings, nor keep correspondence with any persons in prejudice or disturbance of the present government.’ With the like humanity, Lord Lovat was allowed to live with his relative the Marquis of Athole in Holyroodhouse, but under surveillance of a sentinel. Sir Robert Grierson of Lagg—who, having been an active servant of the late government in some of its worst work, is the subject of high popular disrepute as a _persecutor_—was seized in his own house by Lord Kenmure, and taken to the jail of Kirkcudbright—thence afterwards to the Edinburgh Tolbooth. He seems to have been liberated about the end of August, on giving security for peaceable behaviour.