indispensable duty to meet incessantly on so good an account; nor shall all the powers on earth be able to prevent us.'

Brown: 'You are not here for worshipping God, but for breaking the laws.'

Penn: 'I affirm I have broken no law; nor am I guilty of the indictment that is laid to my charge; and to the end that the Bench, the jury. myself and those who hear us may have a more direct understanding of this procedure, I desire you would let me know by what law it is you prosecute me, and on what law you ground your indictment?'

Howell: 'Upon the common law.'

Penn: 'Where is that common law?'

Howell: 'You must not think that I am able to sum up so many years and over so many adjudged cases, which we call common law, to satisfy your curiosity.'

Penn: "This answer is very short of my question; for if it be common it should not be so very hard to produce.'

Howell: 'Sir, will you plead to your indictment?'

Penn: 'Shall I plead to an indictment that has no foundation in law? If it contain that law you say I have broken, why should you decline to produce that law, since it will be impossible for the jury to determine, or agree to bring in their verdict, who have not the law produced by which they should measure the truth of the indictment?' Howell (waxing warm): You are a saucy fellow. Speak to the indictment.'

Penn: 'I say it is my place to speak to matter of law. I am arraigned a prisoner. My liberty, which is next to life itself is now concerned. You are many mouths and ears against me; and it is

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hard if I must not make the best of my case. I say again, unless you show me and the people the law you ground your indictment upon, I shall take it for granted your proceedings are merely arbitrary.'

Howell: The question is whether you are guilty of this indictment.'

Penn: The question is not whether I am guilty of this indictment, but whether this indictment be legal. It is too general and imperfect an answer to say it is common law, unless we know both where and what it is: for where there is no law, there is no transgression; and that law which is not in being, so far from being common law, is no law at all.'

Howell: 'You are an impertinent fellow. Will you teach the court what law is? It is lex non scripta. That which many have studied thirty or forty years to know, would you have me tell you in a moment?'

Penn: 'Certainly if the common law be so hard to be understood, it is far from being very common but if the Lord Coke in his Institutes (vol. ii. p. 56) be of any weight, he tells us that-common law is common right, and common right is the Great Charter privileges, confirmed by 9 Henry III. cap. 29: by 25 Edward I. cap. 1: and by 2 Edward III. cap. 8.'

Howell: 'Sir, you are a very troublesome fellow, and it is not for the honour of the court to suffer you to go on.'

Penn: 'I have asked but one question, and you have not answered me-though the rights and privileges of every Englishman are concerned in it.'

Howell: 'If I should suffer you to ask questions till to-morrow morning, you would be never the wiser.'

Penn: 'That would depend upon the answers.' Howell (writhing): 'Sir, we must not stand to hear you talk all night.'

Penn: 'I design no affront to the court, but to be heard in my just plea. And I must plainly tell you, that if you deny me Oyer of that law, which you suggest I have broken, you do at once deny me an acknowledged right, and evidence to the whole world your resolution to sacrifice the privileges of Englishmen to your sinister and arbitrary designs.'

Howell: 'Take him away! My Lord, if you do not take some course with this pestilent fellow to stop his mouth, we shall not be able to do any thing to-night.'

Starling: 'Take him away, take him away! Put him into the bale-dock.'

Penn: 'These are so many vain exclamations. Is this justice or true judgment? Must I be taken away because I plead for the fundamental laws of England? However (addressing the jury), this I leave upon your consciences, who are my sole judges, that if these ancient fundamental laws, which relate to liberty and property-and are not limited to particular persuasions in matters of religion-must not be indispensably maintainedwho can say he has a right to the coat upon his back? If not, our liberties are open to be invaded-our wives ravished-our children enslaved our families ruined-our estates led away in triumph. The Lord of heaven and earth be judge between us in this matter!'

Howell: 'Be silent there!'

Starling commanded the officers of the court to carry the prisoner to the bale-dock-a well-like place at the farthest end of the court, in which he could neither see nor be seen. Thither Penn

was forced under a protest against their right to remove him before the jury retired. Mead then addressed himself to his peers.

Mead: 'You men of the jury,-Here I stand to answer an indictment which is a bundle of lies; for therein I am accused that I met vi et armis, illicitè et tumultuosè. Time was when I had freedom to use a carnal weapon, and then I thought I feared no man; but now I fear the living God. I am a peaceable man; and therefore ask, like William Penn, an Oyer of the law on which our indictment is founded.'

Howell: 'I have made answer to that already.' Turning from the bench to the jury, the old soldier told the twelve, that if the Recorder would not tell the court what constituted a riot and an unlawful assembly, he would quote for them the opinions of Lord Coke. A riot, said that great legal writer, was when three or more met together to beat a man, or enter his house by force, or cut his grass, or trespass on his land. Howell took off his hat to the prisoner, and making a low bow, said, in a tone which he meant to be withering, 'I thank you, sir, for teaching me what is law.' Mead: 'Thou mayst put on thy hat: I have no fee to give thee.'

Brown: 'He talks at random: one while an Independent-now a Quaker-next a Papist.'

Mead: 'Turpe est doctori cum culpa redarguit ipsum.'

Starling: 'You deserve to have your tongue cut

out.'

Mead: 'Thou didst promise me I should have fair liberty to be heard. Am I not to have the privilege of all Englishmen?'

Mead was also removed to the bale-dock; and the court proceeded to charge the jury.

Howell: 'You, gentlemen of the jury, have heard what the indictment is; it is for preaching to the people, and drawing a tumultuous company after them; and Mr. Penn was speaking. If they should not be disturbed you see they will go on. Three or four witnesses have proved this-that Mr. Penn did preach there, that Mr. Mead did allow of it. After this, you have heard by substantial witnesses what is said against them. Now we are on matter of fact, which you are to keep and to observe, as what hath been fully sworn, at your peril.'

Penn (from the bale-dock, at the top of his voice): 'I appeal to the jury, who are my judges, and to this great assembly, whether the proceedings of the court are not most arbitrary and void of all law, in offering to give the jury their charge in the absence of the prisoners! I say it is directly opposed and destructive to the right of every English prisoner, as declared by Coke in the 2d Institute, 29 on the chapter of Magna Charta.'

Howell (with playful humour): 'Why you are present; you do hear. Do you not?'

Penn: 'No thanks to the court that commanded me into the bale-dock. And you of the jury, take notice that I have not been heard; neither can you legally depart the court before I have been fully heard, having at least ten or twelve material points to offer in order to invalidate their indictment.'

Howell: 'Pull that fellow down; pull him down. Take them to the Hole.'

So Penn and Mead were taken out of the baledock and carried to the hole in Newgate-the nastiest place in the most loathsome gaol in England, a den which Penn describes as so noisome that the Lord Mayor would think it unfit for pigs