In accordance with the advice conveyed in this letter, measures were forthwith taken for raising two additional companies. When formed and officered they were sent to join the troop which Claverhouse already commanded. At the head of this body of some three hundred men he was entrusted with the difficult task of ‘dissipating and interrupting’ the conventicles in the western and south-western districts of Scotland. To understand the principles, motives, and aims of those against whom Claverhouse was now called upon to take action, it is necessary to recall the circumstances which accompanied and some of the events which followed the signing in 1643, of the ‘Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religion, the Honour and Happiness of the King, and the Peace and Safety of the three kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland.’ In the month of August of that year, the respective committees of the General Assembly and of the Convention of Estates had submitted to those bodies a draft of the document, as it had been drawn up by them, after consultation and deliberation with the Committee of the English Parliament. It had been duly sanctioned, and adopted as the most powerful means, by the blessing of God, for settling and preserving the true Protestant religion, with a perfect peace in all his Majesty’s dominions, and propagating the same to other nations, and for establishing his Majesty’s throne to all ages and generations. Two months later—on the 11th of October—the commissioners of the General Assembly issued an ordinance for the solemn receiving, swearing, and subscribing of the League and Covenant. It contained special injunctions to the Presbyteries that they should take account of the performance thereof in their several bounds; that they should proceed with the censures of the Kirk against all such as should refuse or shift to swear and subscribe, as enemies to the preservation and propagation of religion; and that they should notify their names and make particular report of them to the Commission. On the next day, the Commissioners of the Convention of Estates, in their turn issued a proclamation by which, supplementing the censures of the Church, they ordained as a penalty on those who should ‘postpone or refuse,’ that they should ‘have their goods and rents confiscate for the use of the public,’ and that they should not ‘bruik nor enjoy any benefit, place nor office within this kingdom.’