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city_n	great_a	time_n	year_n	9,128	5	4.5915	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32757	Innocence vindicated by a brief and impartial narrative of the proceedings of the Court of Sessions in Bristol against Ichabod Chauncy, physitian in that city, to his conviction on the statute of the 35th Eliz. on the 9th of April, and to his abjuration of all the Kings dominions for ever, Aug. 15, 1684 : together with some passages subsequent thereunto / published by the said I. Chavncy.	Chauncy, Ichabod, d. 1691.; England and Wales. Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace (Bristol)	1684 (1684)	Wing C3743; ESTC R22817	12,930	20

and not Corporal Punishments Now if they made me abjure I should then forfeit my Estate by the same Indictment contrary to the Law in their own sense Secondly According to this Statute of the 35th before abjuration I ought to have been Summoned thereto by a Justice of the Peace which yet I had not been Thirdly That they had Convicted me as as a Recusant and the same Statute saith That no Popish Recusant should be required to abjure by vertue of that Act they replyed that I was not Convicted as a Popish Recusant I told them I thought that if they did not find in any Statute mention of Protestant Recusants then it must be supposed that Coram Lege all Recusants were Popish But all these Pleas being over-ruled I was forced to abjure I do desire to asign me London or Harwich but they refused both The Justices appointed me within three Months to depart from the Port of Bristol Now having abjured one would think the Penalties I had already sustained viz the loss of a very considerable Practice eighteen weeks close Imprisonment the forfeiture of my whole Estate both personal and real Banishment from all the Kings Dominions for ever might have surfeited the most exalted malice but as though the Law on which I am Prosecuted had not been severe enough before I depart the Kingdom I must be further stigmatized by a kind of Remonstrance preferred to the Grand Jury at our General Goal Delivery which was about five days after my abjuration The Paper our T. Cl. presents to the Grand Jury contained such black Characters and high Charges against me that they absolutely refused to subscribe it Upon which refusal many hard words of displeasure passed from him to the Grand Jury Whereupon they were desired to draw up such a Paper as they would subscribe concerning me and accordingly to gratify his importunity they produced this following Declaration We whose Names are hereunto Subscribed being the Grand Jurors for the Body of the City and County of Bristol in the Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Goal-Delivery holden the 20th of August 1684. Do in the Names as well of Our Selves as of all His Majesties Faithful and Loyal Subjects within this City return Our most Hearty Thanks to this Court and all others concerned in the Prosecution against Ichabod Chauncy late of this City upon the Statute of 35. Eliz. for that to Our Knowledge during the time of his abode in this City which hath been for some Years he hath been a great Zealot for the Factious Party and by Reason of his Employment of Practising Physick We have Reason to believe that he hath had very Advantagious Success in gaining to their Cause and Cherishing in it very great Numbers of Proselytes He was their Champion to fight out the Battels of that Party whensoever it came in Question before Our Magistrates by which means though he got of them the Character of a stout Combatant yet by the Magistrates of the City he was still Reputed a sawcy Criminal And this hath not only induced them and us but may also every one that may come to the Knowledge of it to be of the same mind when they consider that he hath not only impudence to menace the deliberate just and temperate Proceedings of this Court with a Libel But also to part from it with an Imprecation against it And We do therefore Declare to this Court and to all the World That it is Our Opinion that the Proceedings against Him to the Abjuration of the Realm was not only fair in all the Particulars thereof but of absolute necessity for the quiet and peaceable Government of this City and for His Majesties Service The plain Design of which in general is partly to help Dun out of the Mire by justifying the Town-clark in all his Proceedings against me to load me with a Charge of such heavy Crimes as may dash any Hopes of a Pardon and blast my Reputation for the future wheresoever I may go hereafter Wherefore I think all men would count me very unjust to my self should I not endeavour to wipe of those grievous Scandals which this Remonstrance hath unjustly cast upon me which if not Answered will for the future destroy my Credit and so may undo both my self and Family And therefore cannot but make a few Remarks upon it First they say That in the Names as well of Our Selves as of all His Majesties Paithful and Loyal Subjects within this City We return Our most Hearty Thanks to this Court and all others concerned in the Prosecution against Ichabod Chauncy upon the Statute of 35 Eliz. There are 1000 besides Dissenters in Bristol and about it that will neither concur with you in nor thank you for your Thanks For that to Our Knowledge he hath been a great Zealot for the Factious Party 'T is no new thing to have the best of men so Reputed Ast. 24.5 We have Reason to believe by Reason of his Employment he hath had very advantagious Success in gaining to their Cause I verily believe there is not one Dissenter the more for me in England Unless my severe Prosecution have made some Neither can they name one of those many Numbers of Proselytes which they say I have made and cherished that I ever solicited to forsake the Church He was their Champion to fight out the Battels of that Party whensoever it came in Question before Our Magistrates I was never before the Magistrates of that City but when forced to it and that in my own Cause except once to vindicate my Wife who was near five of the Clock in the Afternoon on a Sabbath Day taken up in the Streets and sent to Bridewel as supposing she was coming from a Conventicle By which means he got of them the Character of a stout Combatant I never till now thought my Reputation had been so great among them for Valour Yet by the Magistrates of the City he was still Reputed a very sawey Criminal If the Magistrates had so ill an Opinion of him 't is strange they should almost all so far Encourage him as to make use of him for a Pliysician to themselves or Relations When they Consider that he hath not only Impudence to menace the deliberate just and temperate Proceedings of this Court with a Libel Produce any Person that ever heard me so menace the Court and I 'll be content to suffer the Punishment of a Libeller But also to part from it with an Imprecation against it The Words wherewith I parted from the Court were these Mr. Town-clark you have now had a full stroak at me all the harm I wish you is that God may not have as full a stroak at you Living or Dying If this be an Imprecation let the World judge Methinks some one in the Grand Jury should have known the just difference between a Deprecation and an Imprecation Against it The words were by name directed to the Town-clark and I never thought till now that the Town-clark had been the Court. We Declare therefore That 't is Our Opinion that the Proceedings against him to the Abjuration of the Realm was not only fair in all the Particulars of it Sure now the Town-clark will be confirmed in his Opinion that there is no need of a Writ of Error since he hath the Opinion of the Grand Jury in Favour of all his Proceedings But who besides him did ever value the Opinion of Grand Juries in matters of Law But of absolute necessity for the quiet and peaceable Government of this City Is he any whit altered from what he was formerly If not How came the City to be peaceably Governed while he was in it near eighteen years together And for his Majesties Service His Majesty is only then served when his just Laws are Executed and not when His Subjects by Arbitrary Proceedings of his Ministers are Oppressed Thus I have given a true and impartial Account of my present Case The main Design whereof is not to cast any undue Reflections on the Law or the King and his Government but to inform the World that I am not the Turbulent disaffected and disloyal Person which my Adversaries have Represented me to be and that my Cause was not managed with so much Evidence and Impartiallity but that there was and is a just ground for me to expect as a matter of right a Writ of Error But if after all this I shall still be denyed from men either wilfully or through Prejudice and Misinformation that which I judge to be my Right I 'll commit my Cause to Him that judgeth Righteously FINIS

about the same thing and was as Zealous for Sir Robert Atkins as any of them this is notoriously known and he confessed it before he departed the Room I Nominated him for one because I thought it hard and unreasonable that he should be a means to bring so many scores if not Hundreds in trouble meerly for his own Advantage in a matter wherein he was equally concerned with them and knew them all innocent upon this he was greatly displeased with me as supposing this Discovery might threaten his place at that Juncture of time though I told the Justices that I knew of no unlawful Act committed by the said Club neither did charge him with any Howbeit ever since this he entertained an implacable Prejudice against me and threatned to divers that he would speedily either cast me in a Goal or make me fly the Country This I suppose he will not deny In pursuance whereof though I stood indicted two years before on the same 35th of Eliz. by him yet the very next Quarter-Sessions prefers two more heavy indictments against me at one and the same time either of them enough to ruine me The one upon the Statute of Eliz. 23. for twenty pound a Month for eleven Months The other on the 35th Eliz. on which last for want of any later Crime he chargeth me for one Committed above four years before the Indictment And having got the Bills found by the Grand Jury so earnestly was he bent upon their Prosecution that he exacts of me Recognizances more than double to what was required of others in the like Case viz. 200 l. to each of mine whereas another indicted on the 35th of Eliz. was bound but in 80 l. But because my chief concern lies with this last Indictment which threatens my Estate Liberty and Life 't is most reasonable I should be most concerned about the Management thereof against me But 't is not fit for me to judge as being too partial in my own Cause I had rather therefore that those whose part it is would undertake it on my behalf But before any true Judgment can pass for or against me 't is needful the Indictment should be produced which runs after this manner Comitat. Civit Bristol THE Jurors for Our Lord the King do upon their Oath present That one Ichabod Chauncy late of the City of Bristol in the County of the said City Physitian Who on the third Day of August in the Thirty first Year of the Raign of Our Soveraegn Lord Charles the Second by the Grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King c. Being of the Age of Sixteen Years and upwards did Obstinately willingly and without any Reasonable Cause refuse accedere Anglice to Repair to any Church Chappel or usual Place of Common-Prayers to hear Divine Service now Established by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm of England And as before from the foresaid third Day of August in the Thirty first Year aforesaid Obstinately Voluntarily and without any Reasonable Cause Abstained from Hearing Divine Service in any Church Chappel or Vsual Place of Common-Prayer unto the fourteenth Day of September in the Year before-mentioned viz. by the Space of one Month and more thence next following And the aforesaid Jurors upon their Oaths aforesaid do further say that the aforesaid Ichabod Chauncy the same fourteenth Day of September in the One and Thirtieth Year aforesaid in the Precincts of the Castle within the said City and County of Bristol in a certain House was there of himself present at an Vnlawful Assembly Conventicle or Convention under Colour and Pretence of the Exercise of Religion against the Form of the Statute in such Case made and Provided And also against the Peace of Our Soveraign Lord the King c. Whether this Indictment be faulty or not in point of Law 't is not proper for me who am the Party concerned and no Lawyer to determine but I 'll tell the Reader that the day before my Tryal 't was the judgment of a cunning Lawyer that pleaded earnestly against me upon it the next day the first letters of whose name is Mr. J. H. that 't was so illegal and faulty that 't was not worth a F and that they could not touch an hair of my head by it and that 't was not worth a Fee to be quit of such an Indictment thus he expressed himself That which to me seems hard in the management thereof is First That notwithstanding 't was by my Councel pleaded that Justices in Sessions had no Power or Authority to inquire into and judge upon Crimes relating to that Statute which Plea was according to the Sentiments of many if not most of the ablest Lawyers in England yea and of one of the Learned Counsel which pleaded against me who but the Sessions before did with great strength of Law and Reason plead against the Jurisdiction of that Court to try a Gentleman in the very same Circumstances and that Mr. Vincent either was actually or like to be discharged by Writ of Error upon the Plea viz. That he was Tryed Coram non Judice i. e. by Justices of the Peace in Sessions that yet they would proceed to assume that Power to themselves though to make me the first example which hath been in England upon this Statute for many years and when my Counsel told them of how ill consequence it might be for them to proceed in case upon a review it should prove that they had not Authority so to do this they were told was to Hector the Court. Secondly That notwithstanding the Statute urged by my Counsel of Eliz. 31. chap. 5. Paragr 5. where 't is expresly said That no Indictment shall lye upon any Penal Statute beyond two years but if it be laid for a Crime beyond it shall be void and of none effect any Statute to the contrary notwithstanding And my Indictment appears to be laid for Crimes more then four years backwards before the Indictment yet must it be allowed for Legal Thirdly That whereas the Indictment chargeth me that obstinately and willingly I refused to come to some Church or Chappel to hear Divine Service wherein doubtless the Stress of the Act lyes for a bare abstinence for four weeks another Law punishes but at four shillings and being at a Conventicle at five shillings or ten at the most but these punishes these two put together with Imprisonment loss of the whole Estate and perpetual Banishment or Death therefore doubtless lyes the chief of the Crime upon obstinate refusing to come to Church this my Counsel told them necessarily supposed some legal Premonition viz. either by the Ordinary or Parson of the Parish c. but no such thing was attempted to be proved against me and yet I must be found guilty of the whole Indictment Fourthly They did moreover admit of so light a proof of the Conventicle which was one Essential Branch of the indictment in this weighty case as would

Petitioner most Humbly prays That your Majesty would be gratiously pleased either to grant Your Majesties gratious Pardon or to give leave that your Petitioner may bring a Writ of Error to Reverse the said Proceedings against him And Your Petitioner as in Duty bound shall ever Pray c. When he heard the Petition was ready he seemed to demur and to signify that something else must be done by me before he could prefer or promote it and accordingly the next Day sends me this following Letter Doctor Chauncy I have of late been desired by some friends of yours Sure he for got that he had before assented to my Loyalty asserted in my Petition to be kind in asisting your Inlargement but not without a sting in the Tayl as if my malice to you had been the single reason of your Confinement without any sence of your Offence to the Law in that particular or the fair Tryal and other legal Proceedings that you had for it or any reluctancy for your often daring and defyance of the Governours of this City as often as you were called before there In the first place I call God to witness I never had any malice against you He had now forgot that I was a chief instrument to help him into his Office For which I have been often enough reproached since nor had I any motive so considerable to induce me to your Prosecution that is the share I had in it but the Apprehension that your Inclinations were devoted against and your Interest very dangerous to the Kings Interest here besides those many Arguments I have of your particular prejudice against me for the sake of my Office and endeavours to supplant me even in that This I don't lay to your charge But if you will do any thing to give satisfaction of your behaviour for the future to the Kings Service I will be so far from opposing your inlargement that I will do what you never had Religion nor good nature enough to think on which is I will use my small endeavour to promote it Your Servant John Romsey One that reads this Letter and knows not the Gentleman would imagine him a person intirely devoted to his Majesties Interest as if that were the Pole Star by which he sayles in the management of all his actions How sincere he may be in his affections to it I 'll not undertake to censure but I believe very many and those not Dissenters do question his judgement in Prosecuting thereof as judging that discouraging the chief Traders of this City by severe Prosecutions on Penal Laws too heavy Fines and Imprisonments whereby some are forced to quit the City and others to withdraw themselves from Trade that they may live retiredly are very unintelligible methods to promote the same Whether by this means the Trade of this sometime flourishing City hath not been greatly abated to his Majesties great detriment needs no other proof then comparing the Kings Customs in this Port since these things began with what they were before Which if I am not greatly misinformed fall short some years 20000 l. per Annum of what they were before I verily believe did this Gentleman find by this management of Affairs his own Interest did suffer proportionably he would soon change his measures But these things bring Grists to his Mill. Well as to the Letter the person to whom he sent it to convey it to me writes me word after this manner SIR Mr. Townclark hath sent the enclosed and expects your answer I perceive if he like not your answer he 'l hinder your Pardon and Writ of Error Whereupon I sent him the following Answer which I thought as modest as the matter would bear SIR That any of my Friends have been using endeavours for my Inlargement I esteem as matter of great obligation they proceeding chiefly from their own good will towards me what expressions they used as of Malice being the single Reason of Proceedings against me I know not neither had they any such Advice from me but if they said that there was more than a little mixture of Prejudice therein I believe they are not single in their Sentiments and whether divers Passages in the Management of my Prosecution gave not Suspicion of such a thing I leave you to judge But you call God to Witness of the contrary therefore all Arguments of that sort must vanish my often defyance and daring Carriage towards the Governours of this City whensoever called before them wherewith you charge me hath been observed for ought I know by none but your self How fair my Tryal was and how Legal the Proceedings against me have been is fitter for more indifferent Persons to judge then either Mr. Rumsey or my self And therefore I desired a Writ of Error which I am told you Obstructed Your Apprehensions that my Inclinations were devoted against and my Interest dangerous to the Kings Interest here were altogether groundless for neither word or deed of mine have ever signified any such inctinations He kenw nothing to alledge when he agreed to the Petition if they have alledge them against me Your Apprehensions of my prejudice against you for the sake of your Office are as groundless as the former whatever I said or did which you judge was with a design to supplant you was to your face and that which you acknowledged true in my hearing As to the latter clause wherein you expect I should give satisfaction of my behaviour for the future I know not what you mean by it you know in my Petion I declare my self ready to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy which I think are the highest obligations of fidelity any honest man can lay himself under and as little Religion as I may be thought to have when once I have taken them shall look upon my self more bound thereby then by all pecuniary obligations Sir if you think fit upon your own Proposals to prefer the Petition to which you agreed and to use your interest toward my inl●regement you may be sure it shall be thankfully acknowledged by Your Friend and Servant J. Ch. He had no sooner received this answer but the very same day viz. Aug. 15 after I had suffered eighteen weeks close Imprisonment in a nasty Goal it being an adjourned Sessions sends for me to Court. Being called to abjure I craved Jeave to give some reasons to the Court why they could not legally call me to it and that First Because 't would be contrary to an express Statute in their own sence For upon my Tryal when my Counsel objected that my Indictment was void as being laid for a Crime committed above four years before whereas the Statute of Eliz. 31. saith That no Indictment upon any Penal Statute shall be of force that calls in question a Fact beyond two years T was then answered that that Law did extend only to those Penal Statutes which did impose Pecuniary Punishments limited to the King