of the offenders to be distrained for the charges of transportation, or his service made over as a labourer for five years. The payment of one hundred pounds would discharge from such imprisonment and transportation; and such a fine was to be appropriated for the repair of churches and highways. Escape before transportation subjected the victim to death. Power was given to prevent Conventicles being held, or, if held, to dissolve them. Any one who allowed a meeting in a house or outhouse, in woods or grounds, incurred the same penalties as the attendants. Gaolers were forbidden to allow offenders to remain at large, or to permit any person to join them. The houses of Peers were exempted from search, except by Royal warrant, or in the presence of a Lieutenant, a Deputy-Lieutenant, or two Magistrates. Quakers, for refusing to take oaths, were to suffer transportation. Noblemen, if they offended against the law, were, in the first two instances, to pay double fines--and in the third instance to be tried by their peers.[448] The Bill proceeded upon the principle, already established by the Act of Uniformity, that Nonconformist clergymen were incompetent to preach; and it laid down another principle, a legitimate corollary of the former, that Nonconformist laymen were, as such, incompetent to worship. The intolerant measure would seem to have passed the two Houses with little or no discussion, as not any notice is taken in the _Parliamentary History_ of speeches delivered upon the occasion; and Clarendon remarks, that, at this time, there was great order and unanimity in debates, and Parliament despatched more business of public importance and consequence than it had done before, in twice the time.[449] [Sidenote: 1664.] As we examine the Act, we cannot help calling to mind the ordinance of the Long Parliament in 1646, forbidding the use of the Prayer Book "in any private place or family." Here, as in other cases, are seen the footsteps of avenging Deities; and, as is their wont, they meted out penalties exceeding the original offence. In this case, fines of five pounds and ten pounds, indeed, just equalled the pecuniary mulcts of Presbyterian law; but the _one_ year's imprisonment, without bail or mainprise, threatened by the Long Parliament against a third offence, was now thrown into the shade by the enactment--first, of a penalty of transportation for seven years, in cases where means did not exist for paying the sum of one hundred pounds; and next, of capital punishment, in case of the convicted Conventicler being caught after making his escape.