‘What am I better than my fathers? To die is natural and necessary. Perfectly sensible of this, I fear no more to die than I did to be born. But the manner of it is something which should, in my opinion, be decent and manly. I think I have regarded both these points. Certainly nobody has a better right to dispose of man’s life than himself; and he, not others, should determine how. As for any indignities offered to anybody, or silly reflections on my faith and morals, they are (as they were) things indifferent to me. I think, though, contrary to the common way of thinking; I wrong no man by this, and I hope it is not offensive to that eternal being who formed me and the world; and as by this I injure no man, no man can be reasonably offended. I solicitously recommend myself to the eternal and almighty Being, the God of Nature, if I have done amiss. But perhaps I have not, and I hope this thing will never be imputed to me. Though I am now stained by malevolence, and suffer by prejudice, I hope to rise fair and unblemished. My life was not polluted, my morals irreproachable, and my opinions orthodox. ‘I slept soundly till three o’clock, awak’d, and then writ these lines. ‘“Come, pleasing Rest, eternal Slumber fall; Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all; Calm and compos’d my soul her journey takes, No guilt that troubles, and no heart that aches. Adieu! thou sun, all bright like her arise; Adieu! fair friends, and all that’s good and wise.”’ Aram never made any regular confession of his guilt--but in a letter he wrote to the vicar of Knaresborough, in which he gives his autobiography, he says, ‘Something is expected as to the affair upon which I was committed, to which I say, as I mentioned in my examination, that all the plate of Knaresborough, except the watches and rings, were in Houseman’s possession; as for me, I had nothing at all. My wife knows that Terry had the large plate, and that Houseman himself took both that and the watches, at my house, from Clark’s own hands; and, if she will not give this in evidence for the town, she wrongs both that and her own conscience; and, if it is not done soon, Houseman will prevent her. She likewise knows that Terry’s wife had some velvet, and, if she will, can testify it. She deserves not the regard of the town, if she will not. That part of Houseman’s evidence, wherein he said I threatened him, was absolutely false; for what hindered him, when I was so long absent and far distant? I must need observe another thing to be perjury in Houseman’s evidence, in which he said he went home from Clark; whereas he went straight to my house, as my wife can also testify, if I be not believed.’ The contemporary accounts of his trial, whether published in York or London, have the following: