by joining with any discontented party. Meanwhile the Scots, by their agents, placed a good sum of money, to engage the officers of the prime minister in their behalf; who, in order to their defence, told the council, "He was assured they were but a few inconsiderable people, that lived honestly and poorly, and were not of any consequence." Their enemies offered to prove the contrary: whereupon an order was made to take their numbers, which was found to amount, as I remember, to about thirty thousand. The affair was again brought before the council, and great reproaches made to the first minister for his ill computation; who, presently taking the other handle, said, "He had reason to believe, the number yet greater than what was returned;" and then gravely offered to the king's consideration, "Whether it was safe to render desperate so great a body of able men, who had little to lose, and whom any hard treatment, would only serve to unite into a power capable of disturbing, if not destroying, the peace of the kingdom." And so they were suffered to continue.
P 2
