[Footnote: _New England Judged_, ed. 1703, p. 74.]
* * * * *
What the prisoners apprehended was being kept in prison and punished under
an _ex post facto_ law, and this was precisely what was done. When
brought into court they demanded to be told the crime wherewith they were
charged. They were answered: "It was 'Entertaining the Quakers who were
their enemies; not coming to their meetings; and meeting by themselves.'
They adjoyned, 'That as to those things they had already fastned their law
upon them.' ... So ye had nothing left but the hat, for which (then) ye
had no law. They answered--that they intended no offence to ye in coming
thither ... for it was not their manner to have to do with courts. And as
for withdrawing from their meetings, or keeping on their hats, or doing
anything in contempt of them, or their laws, they said, the Lord was their
witness ... that they did it not. So ye rose up, and bid the jaylor take
them away." [Footnote: _New England Judged,_ ed. 1703, p. 85.]
An acquittal seemed certain; yet it was intolerable to the clergy that
these accursed blasphemers should elude them when they held them in their
grasp; wherefore, the next day, the Rev. Charles Chauncy, preaching at
Thursday lecture, thus taught Christ's love for men: "Suppose ye should
catch six wolves in a trap .
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