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what is not legally so, is not so; and I not being legally brought to your bar, you ought not to take notice of my being here.

Judge. No, no, you are mistaken: so you may say of all the people gazing here, they not being legally here, are not here: I tell you a man being brought by force hithe, we may tender him the oath; and if he take it not, he may be committed to prison: authority hath given us the power, and the statute law hath given us authority to tender the oath to any person, and so we have tendered it to you, and for your not taking it you are indicted by the grand jury: answer the accusation or confute the indictment; you must do the one or the other; answer guilty, or not guilty.

J. C. Here I was interrupted, but might have said, That the people that were spectators, beholding and hearing the trials, are not to be called gazers, as the judge terms them; because it is their liberty and privelege, as they are Englishmen, and the law of England allows the same: so that they are not to be termed gazers on this account, but are legally in that place to hear trials, and see justice done, and might have spoken (if occasion had been) any thing in the prisoner's defence, tending to clear up the matter in difference, and the court must have heard them or him: and this as a stander by, or amicus curiæ; as saith Cook.

J. C. The law is built upon right reason, or right reason is the law; and whatever is contrary to right reason is contrary to law; the reason of the law being the law itself. I am no

lawyer, and my knowledge of it is but little, yet I have had a love to it for that reason I have found in it, and have spent some leisure hours in the reading thereof; and the law is that which I honour, and is good in its place; many laws being just and good (not all) but, I say, a great part of them, or much of them; and it is not my intention in the least to disparage, or derogate from them.

Judge. Mr. Crook, you have been told, you must plead guilty, or not guilty, or else you, run yourself into a premunire; be not your own enemy, nor be so obstinate.

J. C. I would not stand obstinately before you, neither am I so; if you understand it otherwise, it is a mistake indeed.

Judge. Will you speak to the indictment, and then you may plead? If you will not answer guilty, or not guilty, we will record it, and judgment shall go against you. Clerk, enter him.

Recorder. Mr. Crook, if you will answer, you may plead for yourself; or will you take the oath? The court takes no notice how you came hither: what say you? Will you answer? For a man may be brought out of Smithfield by head and shoulders, and the oath tendered to him and may be committed, without taking notice how he came here.

J. C. That kind of proceeding is not only unjust but unreasonable also (here was some interruption) and against the laws aforesaid, which say, No man shall be taken or imprisoned, but by warrant, or due process of law: so that this speech of the recorder's savours more of passion than of justice; and cruelty, than due observance of law; for every forcible restraint of a man's liberty, is an imprisonment in law. Besides, this kind of practice, to take men by force, and imprison them, and then ask them questions, the answering of which makes them guilty, is not only unrighteouss in itself, but against law and makes one evil act the ground of another; and one injury offered to one, the foundation of another; and this is my case this day-Interruption.

Judge. Mr. Crook, you must not be your own judge, we are your judges; but for our parts we will not wrong you will you answer guilty, or not guilty? If not, you will run yourself into a premunire unavoidably, and then you know what I told you would follow; for we take no notice how you came hither, but finding you here, we tender you the oath.

J. C. Then it seems you make the law a trepan to insnare me, or as a nose of wax, or

what you please: well! I shall leave my cause with the Lord God, who will plead for me in righteousness. But suppose I do take the oath [now] at this time, you may call me again [to-morrow] and make a new tender; or others may call me before them.

Judge. Yes, if there be new matter; or if there fall out any emergent occasion, whereby you may minister on your part new occasion: Mr. Crook, will you swear?

J. C. If I do take it to-day it may be tendered to me again to-morrow, and so next day, ad infinitum, whereby a great part of my time may be spent and taken up, in taking the oath and swearing.

C. Judge. When you have [once] sworn, you may not be put upon it again, except you minister occasion on your part.

J. C. Is this the judgment of the court, that the oath [once] taken by me is sufficient, and ought not to be tendered a second time, without new matter ministered on my part?

Judge. Yes; you making it appear you have [once] taken it.

J. C. Is this the judgment of the whole court? For I would not do any thing rashly. Judges. Yes, it is the judgment of the court; to which they all standing up, said, Yes. J. C. Then it seems there must be some new occasion ministered by me after I have [once] taken it, or it ought not to be tendered to me the second time.

Judges. Yes.

J. C. Then by the judgment of this court, if I may make it appear that I have taken the oath [once] and I have ministered no new matter on my part, whereby I can be justly charged with the breach of it, then it ought not to be tendered to me the second time: but I am the man that have taken it [once] being a freeman of the city of London, when I was made free; witness the records in Guildhall, which I may produce, and no new matter appearing to you on my part; if there do, let me know it; if not, you ought not, by your own judgment, to tender it me the second time; for de non apparentibus, & non existentibus eadem ratio est.-Interrupted by the shout of the court, when these last words might have been spoken.

Judge. Mr. Crook, you are mistaken, you must not think to surprise the court with criticisms, nor draw false conclusions from our judgments.

J. C. If this be not a natural conclusion from the judgment of the court, let right reason judge; and if you recede from your own judgments in the same breath (as it were) given even now, what justice can I expect from you? For, if you will not be just to yourselves, and

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