ABSTRACT
Whereas traitorous insurrections have for some time past arisen in various parts of this kingdom, principally promoted and supported by persons associating under the, pretended obligation of oaths unlawfully administered: And whereas the penalties for administering and taking such unlawful oaths, enacted by an act passed in the twenty-seventh year of his Majesty’s reign, entitled, An act to prevent tumultuous risings and assemblies, and for the more effectual punishing of persons guilty of outrage, riot, and illegal combination, and of administering and taking unlawful oaths, have been found insufficient to deter wicked and designing men from administering and taking such oaths: be it enacted by the King’s most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That any person or persons who shall administer, or cause to be administered, or be present, aiding and assisting at the administering, or who shall by threats, promises, persuasions, or other undue means, cause, procure, or induce to be taken by any person or persons, upon a book, or otherwise, any oath or engagement, importing to bind the person taking the same, to be of any association, brotherhood, society, or confederacy, formed for seditious purposes, or to disturb the publick peace, or to obey the orders or rules, or commands of any committee, / or other of men, not lawfully constituted, or the commands of any captain, leader, or commander, (not appointed by his Majesty, his heirs and successors) or to assemble at the desire or command of any such captain, leader, commander, or committee, or of any person or persons not having lawful authority, or not to inform or give evidence against any brother, associate, confederate, 288or other person, or not to reveal or discover his having taken any illegal oath, or done any illegal act, or not to discover any illegal oath or engagement which may be tendered to him, or the import thereof, whether he shall take such oath, or enter into such engagement, or not, being by due course of law convicted thereof, shall be adjudged guilty of felony, and suffer death without benefit of clergy;1 and every person who shall take any such oath or engagement, not being thereto compelled by inevitable necessity, and being by due course of law thereof convicted, shall be adjudged guilty of felony, and be transported for life.
