Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
heart_n according_a speak_v word_n 2,531 5 4.0410 3 false
View all documents for the selected quad

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

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

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