Read it through once

The whole history of the remaining part of his reign exhibits an uninterrupted series of attacks upon the liberty, property, and lives of his subjects. The character of the government appeared first, and with the most marked and prominent features, in Scotland. The condemnation of Argyle and Weir, the one for having subjoined an explanation when he took the test oath, the other for having kept company with a rebel, whom it was not proved he knew to be such, and who had never been proclaimed, resemble more the acts of Tiberius and Domitian, than those of even the most arbitrary modern governments. It is true, the sentences were not executed; Weir was reprieved; and whether or not Argyle, if he had not deemed it more prudent to escape by flight, would have experienced the same clemency, cannot now be ascertained. The terror of these examples would have been, in the judgment of most men, abundantly sufficient to teach the people of Scotland their duty, and to satisfy them that their lives, as well as everything else they had been used to call their own, were now completely in the power of their masters. But the government did not stop here, and having outlawed thousands, upon the same pretence upon which Weir had been condemned, inflicted capital punishment upon such criminals of both sexes as refused to answer, or answered otherwise than was prescribed to them to the most ensnaring questions.