Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	law_n	write_v	2,881	5	5.4884	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41804	An appeal of murther from certain unjust judges, lately sitting at the Old Baily to the righteous judge of heaven and earth; and to all sensible English-men, containing a relation of the tryal, behaviour, and death of Mr. William Anderton, executed June 16. 1693. at Tyburn, for pretended high treason.	Grascome, Samuel, 1641-1708?	1693 (1693)	Wing G1566; ESTC R216496	30,841	41

doubting of your Lordships Inclinations not only to do him all Justice but to shew him all the Mercy and Favour you can that may consist with your Lordships Justice and humbly conceiving That this Court by further considering your Petitioner's Case may even yet be capable of Relieving your Petitioner especially if upon hearing what your Petitioner can say your Lordships shall be satisfied That your Petitioner hapned to be Convicted through any Errour or Mistake as no Man was ever exempt from Errour and the best of Men are always readiest to confess it Your Petitioner therefore humbly beseecheth your Lordship's Patience seriously to read and consider some few of many Reasons which your Petitioner hath heard from others which he herein has set down as briefly as he can as followeth First They lay down That the Treason laid in the Indictment being that Of the intent of the heart expressed in the Statute by Compassing and Imagining the King's Death requires by Law Two Proofs The one of the Fact the other of the Inference and that both these must be plain That of Fact called the Overt-Act must be proved by direct and positive Evidence by Two Witnesses at least and not by Circumstantials only as this of Printing was against your Petitioner there being no positive Proof at all not so much as by One Witness given of his Printing either of the Books laid in the Indictment And then that of Fact being thus proved must by necessity of Inference as evidently and certainly prove That the Party in doing such Overt-Act could intend or imagine thereby nothing less than the King's Death And if either of these Proofs fall short of such necessary Certainty such Indictment must fail the Law for great Reasons regarding only such plain and direct Proofs in these great Charges Now can a Printer Quatenus only the Printer of these Books be thereby inferred to Assent to and Approve of the matters and things contain'd in these Books and that necessarily too Quatenus the Printer By the same Legal Logick every Printer may be proved to have in his heart and approve of all the Opinions Notions and Imaginations contained in all the Books he ever Printed For a Quatenus ad omne valet Consequentia 'T is true say They Writing and Speaking have in some Instances been accounted as Overt-Acts and there might be good Reason for it as a Man expressing his own Mind by his own Writing and by his own Words which according to the manner of his Writing or Speaking may evidently appear to come from his Own heart And your Petitioner doth not doubt but that the Writing a Book as in Cardinal Pool's Case and the Signing the Warrant for the Execution of King Charles the First as in the Case of the Regicides which Cases were urged by some of the Court against your Petitioner were sufficient Overt-Acts to prove the Compassing and Imagining the King's Death But can these Instances be any thing to the Case of a Printer whose business it is as a Printer only to print the Thoughts of Others being accounted in Law only as a meer Mechanick and whose end thereby is to get Money for his Work And for further reason in this matter they observe That as it doth not appear that bare Printing was ever pretended to be an Overt-Act within Stat. 25 Edw. 3. so when the Parliament of 13 Car. 2. carried up Treason to the highest for the Preservation of the King's Person during his Life and among other things particularly therein took notice of Printing yet would they not thereby lay so great a Penalty upon the Printers as no doubt considering the unreasonableness of Comprising such Tools and Mechanicks within an Act intended for Persons of higher Designs But this Parliament kept the Printers in their Remembrance as intending to consider them by themselves in another Act as they very soon after did for the very same Parliament in 13 and 14 Car. 2. make an Act which they stile An Act for preventing Abuses in Printing Seditious Treasonable and Unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating Printing and Presses and therein as they fix them their Rules and Bounds so they allot them their Punishment Which for the first Offence is Disability for three years and for the second perpetual Disability Fine Imprisonment or other corporal Punishment at Discretion Wherefore the Premises throughly weighed and considered your Petitioner humbly implores your Lordships That in favour of Life in a new and extraordinary Case and That too of Treason your Lordships would be pleased to extend so much Mercy to your Petitioner as to suspend your Judgment and pronouncing Sentence upon on him untill your Lorships shall have heard what can be further Offered by Counsel on his behalf And your Petitioner shall ever pray c. Here is no need of a Comment this Petition speaks for it self and doubtless will continue to speak to their everlasting Shame who answered it only with Neglect and Scorn When the last day of the Sessions came and the Prisoner was asked in course what he had to say why Sentence should not be passed upon him He desired that his Petition might be read but the Court not being willing to take notice of the knowledge of any such Petition thereby to elude his Request he foreseeing it had provided one ready and offered it to be read but no Man daring to take and read it he took the freedom to read it himself and then offered these things further in Arrest of Judgment which he drew up by way of Queries 1. Whether if a Jury not being competent Judges of the matter of Fact whereof they are to judge and bring in their Verdict against the Defendent contrary to Law I say whether Judgment ought to pass upon the Defendent because of that Verdict 2. Whether if a Judg who is Counsel for the Defendent and therefore indispensibly bound to take particular Cognizance of what the Defendent urgeth in his own behalf as well as what is alledged against him in summing up the Evidence doth omit out of forgetfulness or otherwise the only material Point upon which the whole Indictment is founded and which the Defendent so much urged in his own behalf and also which inevitably led the Jury into this Mistake of their Verdict whether I say this be not sufficient to stay Judgment 3. Whether any Judg c. can construe Printing to be a sufficient Overt-Act till it be so declared by Parliament 4. Whether the Stat. of 13 Car. 2. does not plainly intimate the contrary And likewise the 13 and 14 Car. 2. lately revived These Queries and this Petition will some time or other be thought considerable and the rather for that the Prisoner did make it his humble and last Request That these things being matter of Law he might be allowed Counsel to plead them or any other matter of Law in his Case And he backt his Request with this modest Reason That being matter of

should have made it apparent that their grand Evidence was a perjured Rogue This was the only piece of Evidence that did in the least seem to affect the Prisoner and therefore ought to have been fairly and fully canvassed and not so lightly huddled and sham'd over all the other Evidence was nothing to the purpose and if even this had been true it could not have cast him For the having Books in a Desk is neither Compossing Printing nor Publishing which is the Crime charged in the Indictment The substance of the aforesaid Testimony concerning the Books being taken out of the Desk was seconded by the Evidence of Hooper Beadle of the Hall and the Constable and his Beadle Now though the Falshood of the thing is already made manifest yet I shall retain some Charity for these Persons till I find cause to the contrary because it is very probable that they might be deceived For if Stephens or any Agent of his in the time of the huddle and removal of things did put such Books into the Desk and afterwards examine it before the said Constable and Beadles they might ignorantly swear to his Contrivance and they might truly say such Books were taken out of the Desk and not know that Stephens and not Mr. Anderton put them in But there is one thing which shews them to be too loose and heedless in the matter of an Oath in that they alledged so many of the French Conquests to be there when it is certain there was not the fourth part of so many in the house which as I have already told you were sent him the day before and which the Government it self now if it did not then well knows were not Printed by him And yet after all this multitude they were content to fall to one of each that they might be particularly sworn to and when Mr. Constable was asked how he knew those to be the Books and was desired by the Prisoner to read the Titles of those Books whereof he accused him truly it appeared that the learned Gentleman had been bred to no such dangerous things as Writing or Reading Now could a more unquestionable Witness have been produced to printed Books and their Titles than a Man that cannot read But for a help at a dead lift it was said that he had made his private Mark on the said Books but then it ought to be considered That his private Mark was made to the two Books at the Lord Chief Justice Holt's Chamber which Robin Stephens produced out of his Pocket when the Prisoner was brought to be examined Now what did his Mark set on two Books at the Lord Chief Justice's Chamber which were all the while before in another Man's Custody signify to prove that those were the Books which were about four hours before taken out of a Desk in S. James's Robin Stephens might have produced what Books he pleased and in all likelihood this Man would have set his private Mark on them but if he would have been sure he ought to have set his private Mark at the time of their being taken out of the Desk but if there were not villanous Treachery in the case there was no such Book to be marked Would any Judge who had either a Grain of Sense or Conscience hang a Man upon such Evidence as this I suppose it is for a blind that Stephens swore that coming to the Door i. e. Scudamore's and asking what Lodgers they had turning his head aside he saw the Prisoner's Mother in the Yard who crying out Murther the Prisoner came out of the House and fell upon him For I cannot imagine what should make him swear such a needless Lye unless it were to cover the Treachery whereby the Prisoner was betray'd and to bear the World in hand that he accidentally discovered him by espying his Mother For his Mother was not in the Yard but in the common Room which they used for their Kitchen and Stephens came into the Yard and directly to the Door which by chance at that time was bolted and when he could not by force get in for the Prisoner's Wife and Mother spying him out at the Window would not open the Door he took down a pane of Glass and was striving to come in that way whereupon they opened the Door and at the out-cry of his Mother and Wife in that Room the Prisoner Mr. Anderton came upon him who had escaped the Buzzard had it not been for the strong Guard he had set This piece of Evidence also admirably well agrees with another That he saw him shoving up a Bed which ran upon Wheels Now the Bed stood in a Room from which you must come thorough two Doors into the Yard In short Mr. Anderton did not shove up the Bed nor was he first seen to Stephens at this time of his apprehension either in that Room or in the Yard but in their Kitchen or common Room lying between both And indeed as to this matter the Prisoner convinced him of the Falshood of it in the open Court but however it was taken no notice of The Witness must not be disparaged or discouraged though some Men will be apt to wonder at his Wit how he could contrive to forswear himself in so many particulars Besides Stephens the Constable and the Beadles there were also two Printers sworn viz. Roberts and Snowden the Substance of whose Evidence was That they had seen the Characters in the Hall together with the c. and that they did believe it was the Letter that Printed that Book i. e. the Book then shewed in Court as also that the two Books were Printed with one and the same Letter or Character Now if this Evidence be true it ought to have acquitted him if it be false it ought not to have hurt him For the Government well knows where and by whom one of the Books was printed and that it was not Printed by Mr. Anderton nor had he any manner of hand in it or any communication at that time with those Printers and if both the Books were printed with the same Letter or Character then I think it is a pretty fair and clear Inference That he printed neither of the said Books and consequently ought upon this Evidence to have been discharged But be the matter true or false what signifies believing in this case Is one Man to be hanged for anothers believing Malice is put to its shifts when without any colour of Legal Evidence it is forced to believe a Man out of his Life But if such Evidence as this shall be looked on as good and satisfactory in matter of Life I think the whole Society of Printers are deeply concerned in it and that they are all in very dangerous Circumstances for I am assured by a very understanding Printer that there is not a Printing-house in Town but hath of the same sort of Letter or Character so that upon such an Oath as this any or all