to explain to the prisoners at their bar the law they had violated, and upon which they were being tried; and he told them plainly that, unless they did so, they were violating the chartered rights of Englishmen, and acting upon an arbitrary determination to sacrifice those rights to their own illegal designs. Whereupon the Mayor and Recorder ordered him to be turned into the bail-dock. William Penn,--"These are but so many vain exclamations; is this justice or true judgment? Must I, therefore, be taken away because I plead for the fundamental laws of England?" Then, addressing himself to the jury, he said: "However, this I leave upon your consciences who are of the jury, and my sole judges, that if these ancient fundamental laws which relate to liberty and property, and are not limited to particular persuasions in matters of religion, must not be indispensably maintained and observed, who can say he hath a right to the coat upon his back. Certainly our liberties are openly to be invaded, our children enslaved, our families ruined, and our estates led away in triumph, by every sturdy beggar and malicious informer, as their trophies, but our pretended forfeits for conscience' sake. The Lord of heaven and earth will be judge between us in this matter." The hearing of this emphatic speech was so troublesome to the Recorder, that he cried, "Be silent there!" At which William Penn returned, "I am not to be silent in a cause wherein I am so much concerned, and not only myself, but many ten thousand families besides."