Thus almost immediately after the passing of the poor law of 1597 efforts are made by the Council to secure its proper administration. On April 5th, 1598, a letter is sent by the Council to the High Sheriff and the justices of the peace in the several counties of England and Wales. The writers do not doubt that the Judges of the Assize have admonished the justices that special care must be taken to execute the laws for the relief of poorer people and maimed soldiers as well as the laws connected with vagabonds and tillage. "Nevertheless," they go on to say, "consideringe the remisseness that hath bin used generally by the justices of the peace in manie parts of the realm" they send a letter themselves directly to the justices and order that care be taken to see the new poor law "generally put into execution[317]." The writers order the justices when they meet in Quarter Sessions after Easter to take "speciall order amongst" themselves "for one strict and uniform course to be houlden for the due observinge and puttinge in execucon of the same lawes and statutes." They were also to meet from time to time and make the under officers give an account of their proceedings. This letter shows the Privy Council enforcing the whole of the ordinary administration of relief by exactly the same means that had formerly been used to enforce the measures concerning corn and vagrants in 1572 and 1586. It is the first time in which this interference seems primarily dictated by motives of humanity and not mainly by a desire to maintain order. [317] Privy Council Register, April 5th, 1598. With a note that it was dated March 25th, 1598 "and stayed until this present." The records of the proceedings of the Privy Council are to some extent preserved in the Privy Council Register. This consists of an almost continuous series of manuscripts preserved at the Privy Council Office. They are now being printed but are still unpublished so far as the seventeenth century is concerned. The volume containing the records from 1603 to 1612 is missing. The Register is by no means complete; only some of the letters and proceedings of the Council are entered there. Again in 1603 during a time of plague proclamations were issued ordering the punishment of rogues, and the return of gentlemen to their homes, in order that they might relieve the poor by their ordinary hospitality and might take action for preventing the infection of the plague[318]. [318] Little Proclamation Book, James I., No. 27 and No. 23.