Then, turning my speech to Major Ceely, I said:
"When or where did I take thee aside? Was not thy house full of rude
people, and thou as rude as any of them, at our examination; so that
I asked for a constable or some other officer to keep the people
civil? But if thou art my accuser, why sittest thou on the bench? It
is not the place of accusers to sit with the judge. Thou oughtest to
come down and stand by me, and look me in the face.
"Besides, I would ask the Judge and justices whether Major Ceely
is not guilty of this treason, which he charges against me, in
concealing it so long as he hath done? Does he understand his place,
either as a soldier or a justice of the peace? For he tells you here
that I went aside with him, and told him what a design I had in hand,
and how serviceable he might be for my design: that I could raise
forty thousand men in an hour's time, bring in King Charles, and
involve the nation in blood. He saith, moreover, that he would have
aided me out of the country, but I would not go; and therefore he
committed me to prison for want of sureties for the good behaviour,
as the mittimus declares.
"Now, do you not see plainly that Major Ceely is guilty of this plot
and treason he talks of, and hath made himself a party to it by
desiring me to go out of the country, demanding bail of me, and not
charging me with this pretended treason till now, nor discovering
it? But I deny and abhor his words, and am innocent of his devilish
design."
So that business was let fall; for the Judge saw clearly enough that
instead of ensnaring me, Major Ceely had ensnared himself.
Major Ceely got up again, and said, "If it please you, my lord, to
hear me: this man struck me, and gave me such a blow as I never had
in my life." At this I smiled in my heart, and said, "Major Ceely,
art thou a justice of the peace, and a major of a troop of horse, and
tellest the Judge, in the face of the court and country, that I, a
prisoner, struck thee and gave thee such a blow as thou never hadst
the like in thy life? What! art thou not ashamed? Prithee, Major
Ceely," said I, "where did I strike thee? and who is thy witness for
that? who was by?"
He said it was in the Castle-Green, and Captain Bradden was standing
by when I struck him. I desired the Judge to let him produce his
witness for that; and called again upon Major Ceely to come down
from the bench, telling him that it was not fit that the accuser
should sit as judge over the accused. When I called again for his
witness he said that Captain Bradden was his witness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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