Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	john_n	knight_n	sir_n	20,604	5	7.8822	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37282	The humble addresse and remonstrance of Richard Dawson gentleman, now prisoner in the Fleet To the Right Honourable Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled. With all possible submission, representing the sad oppressures under which he groans, his estate being pluckt away from him by injustice, perjury, and subornation thereto, forgery, counterfeiting his hand and seal, and other unjust, illegal unconscionable grievances; by the ... confederacy of Roger Porrington gentleman, Philip Read attorney of the Kings Bench, Edward, and Francis Luttrel, solicitor, and counsellor of law, Sir John Lenthall knight marshall of the Kings Bench, and others, set on, encouraged, and defended by them.	Dawson, Richard.	1661 (1661)	Wing D459B; ESTC R215262	24,858	36

THE HUMBLE ADDRESSE AND Remonstrance OF RICHARD DAWSON Gentleman now Prisoner in the FLEET To the Right Honourable the Lords Commons in Parliament Assembled With all possible Submission Representing the sad Oppressures under which he groans his Estate being pluckt away from him by Injustice Perjury and Subornation thereto Forgery Counterfeiting his Hand and Seal and other Unjust Illegal Unconscionable Grievances By the 〈…〉 Confederacy of Roger Portington Gentleman Philip Read Attorney of the Kings Bench Edward and Francis Luttrel Sollicitor and Counsellor of Law Sir John Lenthall Knight Marshall of the Kings Bench and others set on incouraged and defended by them Because of the Cry of the Oppressed and the Groans of Prisoners I will Arise saith the Lord. Let God Arise and His Enemies will be Scattered London Printed for the Author 1661. Right Honorable Lords and Worthy Gentlemen THE External happynesse of mankind consisting in Society of which the briole or check is the Law which curbs and restrains the unruly exorbitances of unreasonable men what can be fall more miserable in this life than to have this remedy by the Injustice of its Execution made worse than the disease to find Judgement turn'd into Gall and Wormwood as is evident in your poor Petitioners Case who to the ruine of his Wife and Children hath for several years found experimental proof thereof which being his lot in those times when our Sun of Earthly happyness was eclipsed and only the Screetchowles of Horror and Distraction were heard in our almost ruined Land when Corruption and Villany was the natural milk to feed our Infant Monster the Commonwealth His hope and assurance is that the return of our Sun of Majesty will be like unto that of him who hath been and is his true pattern the Sun of Righteousnesse with healing under his wings to poor oppressed and otherwise despairing Prisoners among whose number your Petitioner humbly acknowledgeth himself Nor is he only prickt forward to this Addresse by the sharpnesse and tediousnesse of his sufferings and present distress brought upon him thereby but is also incouraged nay more assured of successe in confidence of your Honors true Gallantry Justice and Wisdom who your selves in these late overturning times have tasted of the same cup of affliction many of you drunk thereof deeply Yea His Most Sacred Majesty hath not escaped the same Lot but in imitation of our Saviour his immediate Lord and pattern hath suffered in the like kind though not in the same manner and therefore my confident assurance is that having in this Humble Addresse to deal with such a King the like of whom England never saw nor brought forth experimentally by Gods inscrutable providence made sensible of the distresses and sufferings of his meanest Subjects such Lords and Nobles who themselves have been tryed in the same Furnace of Affliction and for many years last past have not through their Princes displeasure but for being Loyal to their Prince by the meanest and worst of Plebeians been plundered and stript of all and afterwards imprisoned with as much reproa●h and contempt as if they had been Chips of the same Block with the most Contemptible Commoner Such Knights and Burgesses to Sit in Parliament who if in these times of distraction they lived in England and are unacquainted with the miseries of Imprisonment it argues in them little Cordial Fidelity to their Soveraign Lord or his Father of Blessed memory whose real friends mildest Lot was reiterated and severe Imprisonments others being Banished not a few Murthered On which Considerations your Humble Petitioner begs of and Humbly beseecheth you who by the good hand of our most Gracious God have been dragged many of you out of the Dungeon some recalled from Exile to injoy your Antient Priviledges and Freedoms and sit according to your true desert and merits at the Helm of State to cast back your Gracious Eyes upon such who once were fellow Sufferers with you and not like Pharaohs Butler being now your selves restored to forget the languishing Estate of Joseph viz. your once fellow Prisoner This my Lords and Honorable Gentlemen I speak not as in the least doubting or fearing any such thing but out of the meer sense of my long and most unjust suffering pardon my boldnesse that I am thus importunate if possible to find an effectual and speedy remedy And not to trouble your Honours with a long Preamble whose very weighty occasions cannot admit a tedious discourse I shall come Humbly to represent my Grievances so illegal so many and carryed on with a high hand on purpose to ruine your Petitioner whom several persons of note and power have confederated to undoe and destroy in so barbarous and wickedly malicious a manner and way as I question not but in the following particulars to make so plainly evident to your Honors and Wisdoms as will cause your hearts in reading of them to relent and commiserate your poor Petitioners Case yea so to pity him as effectually to relieve him In the year of our Lord 1648 Octob. 21. Richard Dawson Gentleman then residing in the County of Norfolk and dealing in the Capacity of a Grasier had at one time forcibly taken from him 267 Oxen which were all driven into the Castle of Pomfret by some who pretended themselves Souldiers of that place and there came to the possession of one Roger Portington the Governour denying that he had any thing to do with them when Dawson owner of the Cattle demanded them of him but sent him to Portington to treat with him concerning them being as he affirmed wholly in his power and withall required Portington to rostore them to Dawson but he refused to return them or any part of them using this exasperating expression to the owners face That would he give 100 l. for ten of the worst he should not have them with which most rugged answer Dawson being justly provoked as well as exasperated by his great losse in the year 1649 he brought his Action of Trover and Conversion against Portington which being tryed by Nisi prius at Guild Hall in the year 1650. the Plantiff recovered against the Defendant Portington with costs of Suit 1297l 13s 4d according to which verdict Judgement was entred and Dawson had granted him a Writ of Execution thereupon A man would now have thought that the Plantiff had not been far from his mony having able bail for bringing forth the Body of the Defendant and him a man of sufficient estate to satisfie a greater debt But the sequel of this discourse will make it most evident that as our Laws have been and are in the Execution of them still abused there is no Case so notoriously corrupt and injust but meeting with a suitable Conscience joyned with ability of Purse he may be provided with Lawyers who for the sake of gain will maintain and defend the same in despight of Justice For this Portington to discharge his Bayl rendred himself Prisoner to the

Norfolk but not performing his word Dawson made several times other demands of the said Warrant but had for answer It was lost Yet before several persons of Repute and Credit Read acknowledged himself fully satisfied by Dawson and nothing to remain due to him from the same However Sept. 12 1657. Read having privately without the least knowledge or suspition of Dawson entred that Judgement took out Execution upon it against the goods of Dawson and by virtue thereof did levy in the County of Norfolk to the value of 700l and after sent one Thomas Hide into Huntingtonshire who by his order without Writ of Execution or any other Authority but his direction took away 47 fat Bullocks worth 200l and sold them nor content with this he in the same year and month in the County of Norfolk at a place called Wallpool in Marshland did by Colour of the said Execution seize of the proper goods of the said Dawson viz. Hay in Stacks and Reecks to the value of 500l which though he had no power to condemn and dispose of yet he detained by colour of his own Execution till he could and did procure one Robert Dun by a pretended Execution to Levy the same and sell it Upon which illegal abuse Dawson made complaint to the then judges of the Kings Bench in those dayes called the Upper Bench by whose order Read was committed Prisoner in the Custody of Sir John Lenthall but by favour of some of his Fraternity forthwith had his Liberty which he imployed so well that before the end of the same Term he procured one Disney to commit wilful perjury with intent to overthrow Dawson in his most just cause he when Read first moved to him that he should make such an Oath replyed Master I know no such thing who then swore by his Maker that unlesse he would make that Oath as he directed him he was utterly undone so partly by importunity partly by promises he procured the said Disney desperately to swear against his own knowledge Whereupon Dawson endicted Disney for this perjury and this Master for subornation thereto since which Disney's Conscience accusing him he hath confest to several persons of worth and repute that his Master Read would never permit him to be at rest till he had perswaded him to make Oath of such things of which he had not the least knowledge For which Cause in Easter Term 1658. Dawson filed a Declaration in the Kings Bench against Read who did and still doth practise there as an Attorney upon the Case in a special Action which the first of July he brought to a Tryal and recovered 700l dammage besides costs of Suit 18l for which the following Michaelmas Term he had Judgement and Execution granted thereupon against the person of Read which Writ being delivered to the Sheriff of Norfolk the businesse was so jugled between them that although Read was often in the Sheriffs Company yet he was not taken in Execution nor would the Sheriff at the instance of Dawson return the Writ for several Terms and at last returned a non est inventus thereupon when Read during the time of detaining this Writ without Execution or Return had embroyled Dawson in a tedious and chargeable Chancery Suit which because of its Exemplary Injustice and Corruption discovered in the manageing thereof shall be particularly here set down Not long after Dawson had got against Read this Judgement and Execution the Defendant sues for relief in Chancery and serves Dawson with a Subpaena to that purpose and proceeds the Vacation following to examine witnesses and by favour with the Master of the Rolls William Lenthall procures the cause to be forthwith set down for a hearing in Easter Term suddenly then following 1659. which Term being adjourned the Cause was again set down for hearing at the Rolls the 9th of June following where as soon as it was opened by Reads Counsel Lenthall the Consciencious Master of the Rolls called for Dawson and in seeming familiar friendship told him he would make a bargain with him viz. that Read should within two dayes pay him Four hundred pounds and the differences between them made up and fully ended thereupon to whom Dawson replyed his debt was 718l in recovery of which it had cost him no lesse then 500l When Lenthall saw that this bait would not allure Dawson to bite at it who had sufficient former experience of his corrupt basenesse and dissembling villany as before the Close of this discourse shall be discovered in another case he then demanded of Reads Counsel if they could produce any Presidents where relief in Equity had been granted in the like case after recovery Judgement and Writ for Execution who replyed there were several Presidents upon which answer Lenthall put off the hearing till the 18th following of the same month against which time he willed them to have those presidents in readinesse and then he would determine the Cause but in the mean time tyed up Dawson not to take Read in Execution the appointed day for hearing being come upon reading the first president Lenthall told them plainly it made not at all for but against them but he had since the last hearing Considered of the Cause on his pillow and so forthwith without farther hearing Counsel on either side ordered them to go to a new Tryal at Law after which he would reserve the Equity to himself but in the mean time Read should not be taken in Execution with which orders Dawson being much agrieved Petitioned the then Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal as they were called complaining of the great injustice he suffred thereby in answer to which Petition they granted him a rehearing before them upon which Counsel having spoken on both sides they dismist Reads Bill and discharged the several orders made by the Master of the Rolls with costs to be taxt by a Master of Chancery which were accordingly taxed at an hundred marks Whereupon Sir John Lenthall one of the Rebel Olivers mock Knights Son to the Master of the Rolls being at that time a Member of that thing then called a Parliament seeing Read thus left to the Law notwithstanding his honest Fathers devices to obstruct the same gives him his protection during the sitting of that Convention Read finding himself thus countenanced by the Master of the Rolls and his Son for which as himself confesseth it cost him three hundred pounds thinks he is now armed Capape for any villany and having a prodigiously villanous wit goes thorow stitch to the purpose and thus performs it First he perswades and prevails with one Robert Dun that he might make use of his name at his own charge and costs to confesse and enter a Judgement against Dawson for the Sum of 350l upon which grant Read as representing the person and taking upon him the name of Richard Dawson forged the foresaid Warrant of Attorney Subscribes and Seals it as if himself had been the person of Dawson and

before Honourable Persons as was before touched in each of them the name of the Right Honourable the Judge before whom taken being particulary remembred in giving their testimonies in brief for the Readers fuller satisfaction and further confirmation To which I might adde many more of the like Kind thirty several at least but that I here account needlesse since in the mouth of two or three witnesses each thing in controversy is and ought to be confirmed and here we have not only witnesses but ipsos fatentes reos the persons concerned in the forgery either ignorantly or knowingly drawn in thereto upon Oath confessing against both themselves and one another which is a testimony as firm as can be desired or expected I shall now speak a little more particularly to the Statute of Bankruptship sued forth by Read in the name of Dun against Dawson and firmed by Commissioners pickt and packt for the same purpose only to discharge Read from paying any monies to Dawson whose just debt upon a legal recovery was upward of 800l For taking forth and granting or affirming the same Dawson brought his action against Read and those Commissioners his Confederates and upon Tryal in Jan. 1660. recovered against them 500l notwithstanding which upon an Affidavit of Reads read openly in the Court at the Kings Bench Bar a motion was made to have a second hearing which was had by the consent of both Plantiff and Defendants the Hillary Term following where Read according to his old wont procured in readinesse four several witnesses to swear Dawson a real Bankrupt viz. Thomas Wigge one of Honest Sir John Lenthalls Engineers a villain so notorious in that kind that if in any Case where he is well paid his Evidence come short that is be not sworn home enough blame the Lawyer that gave him not better and larger instructions and not him who wants only to be informed what manner of Oath will serve turn then as for performance let him alone for one The second Jacob Wragge servant to Read one who had learned so much of his Masters qualities that no wise man can trust his Word or believe his Oath the third Robert Coghill a neighbour to Read who by this hopeful beginning gives great assurance what a compleat Knight of the Post he may prove in time if he continue the acquaintance and follow the direction of Read the last Thomas Adamson formerly a Clerk to Read who it seems still wants his help at a dead lift knowing his abilities though at present he hath left his Service These four being pre-instructed could if occasion had required have sworn any man of dealing in England a Bankrupt for to give them their due in their depositions there wanted nothing but Truth Malice enough and Formality sufficient with a home shot to reach the mark aimed at by Read their Tutor who put cruel words of falsehood into their mouths and told them what manner of Oaths would serve his turn and they accordingly swore as dangerously desperately and resolutely against the Credit and Reputation of their innocent Neighbour whom some of them knew not others very little all of them knew certainly that what they swore against him was absolutely false and so God by his providence hath plainly since discover'd it to be to the great shame of those poor perjured wretches but most especially of that Monster who suborned them to doe it as he had done others often before For which wilful perjury palpably now detected these four abovenamed stand indicted at the Old Bayly in London by Dawson who doubts not but to have them brought to Condigne and Exemplary punishment Thus have I in brief decyphred out to you a great Monster in villany as in a Landskip given you a large volume of Roguery contracted into an Epitome a short narrative of what to his cost and trouble Dawson who hath still been the sufferer hitherto hath felt for these many years to the ruine almost of his Wife Children and Family and whose Case or Lot may it not be next nay who can escape for future if such Villanies be countenanced as they will be if not prohibited and severely punished to the terror of others It is reported of a Bravoe that he would vauntingly boast how he had at his beck ready an hundred to swear for him an hundred to fight for him and an hundred more to supply him with money The thing though I cannot affirm the number is most true of this Read who as for swearers hath made his boasts that he is so provided with a stock of them as never to fail in any Case and that his manner of dealing with such Knights of the Post is suitable to that of the Dutch before a Sea-fight with their Marriners viz. to give them 20 or 30 glasses of Sack just before they come upon their Oaths then quoth he they are fit to serve my turn and swear resolutely bravely and boldly without making the least scruple of any thing that is told them makes absolutely for the good of the Cause depending to have it sworn either thus or otherwise And for fighting or rather maintaining his quarrel 't would make a man blesse himself to see prodigious Villains so favoured before one that mannageth a Cause as just as Justice it self having been so often determined just by the reiterated Sentences of common-Common-Law Commissioners for Equity c. How did the honest Master of the Rolls Speaker to the reforming Rump endeavour to entrap Dawson in favour of Read How was Read with great charge brought into a Prison where he deserved to lye till death yet Presto be gone Sir discharged forthwith and Dawson brought in upon a large Scroll of Fob'd Actions to keep the other and such as he procured to commit Perjury wilfully and maliciously from Condigne punishment How ready was the Sheriff of Norfolk to Execute a Writ upon a forged Warrant for Judgement against Dawson and yet knew it to be so using this expression He would Execute 1000 the like if they were brought to him and Goods of Dawsons to be found in his Balywick yet how loth nay absolutely unwilling to Execute a true Writ upon a Judgement justly recovered in Court after the discovery of a pack of Roguery against Read though oft in his Company nor would be perswaded to make return of the same till Reads Cockatrise Eggs of Villany were hatched How have the Gaolers and their fetting dogs complyed with this perjured Monster and his Confederates to ruine one in defence of the other Portington a Condemned Debtor to Dawson and Prisoner to Sir John Lenthall in Execution having liberty to choose whether he would live in restraint or no and Read cast into Prison for Perjury and Subornation thereto Forgery personating other men and taking upon him their names not without great cost and charge to the Plaintiff yet he in short time let out upon inconsiderable Bayl though Dawson wrongfully imprisoned upon feigned