――――Hic murus aheneus esto, Nil conscire sibi, nullâ pallescere culpâ.
_Tertullus_’s accusing _Paul_ came also to my mind, and I looked upon myself as highly honoured in having such things spoken against me ♦falsely for CHRIST’s great name’s sake. To prove what the Defendants council had insinuated, they called up a young man, who was brother to one of the Defendants, and one of the mob. He swore point blank, “That Mr. _Adams_ said, if people went to church, they would be damned; and if they would come to him, he would carry them to JESUS CHRIST. He swore also, that the pool in which Mr. _Adams_ was thrown, was no deeper than half way up his legs. He said first, that there were about ten of them that came to the house of Mr. _Adams_; and then he swore that there were about threescore. He said, there was a low-bell, and that one of the Defendants did ask Mr. _Adams_ to come down off the stairs, but that none of them went up to him; upon which Mr. _Adams_ willingly obeyed, went with them briskly along the street, and, as he would have represented it, put himself into the skin-pit and pool, and so came out again.” He said also some other things; but through his whole evidence appeared so flagrantly false, that one of the counsellors said, “It was enough to make his hair stand an end.” The Judge himself wished, “He had had so much religion as to fear an oath.” So he went down in disgrace. Their second evidence was an aged woman, mother to one of the defendants. She swore, “That her son did go up the stairs to Mr. _Adams_, and that Mr. _Adams_ tore her son’s coat, and would have broken his neck down stairs.” But she talked so fast, and her evidence was so palpably false, that she was sent away in as much disgrace as the other. Their third and last evidence was father to one who was in the mob, though not one of the defendants. The chief he had to say was, “That when Mr. _Adams_ was coming from the pool, one met him, and said, “Brother, how do you do?” Upon which he answered, “That he had received no damage, but had been in the pool, and came out again.” So that all their evidences, however contrary one to another, yet corroborated ours, and proved the riot out of their own mouths. The book was then given to a justice of the peace, who had formerly taken up Mr. _Cennick_, for preaching near _Stroud_, and had lately given many signal proofs that he was no friend to the Methodists. But he intending to speak only about their characters, and the council and Judge looking upon that as quite impertinent to the matter in hand, he was not admitted as an evidence.――――Upon this, his Lordship, with great candour and impartiality, summed up the evidence, and told the jury, “That he thought they should bring all the Defendants in _guilty_; for our evidences had sufficiently proved the whole of the information, and also that the riot was premeditated.” He said, “That, in his opinion, the chief of the Defendants evidence was incredible; and that, supposing the Methodists were heterodox, (as perhaps they might be) it belonged to the ecclesiastical government to call them to an account; that they were subjects, and rioters were not to be their reformers.” ――――He also reminded them of the dreadful ill consequences of rioting at any time, much more at such a critical time as this; that rioting was the fore-runner of, and might end in, rebellion; that it was felony, without benefit of clergy, to pull down a meeting-house; and, for all as he knew, it was high-treason to pull down even a bawdy-house. That this information came from the _King’s-Bench_; that his Majesty’s justices there thought they had sufficient reason to grant it; that the matters contained in it had been evidently proved before them, and consequently they should bring all the Defendants in guilty.”
♦ “falsly” replaced with “falsely”