Being now a close prisoner in the common jail at Lancaster, I desired Thomas Cummins and Thomas Green to go to the jailer, and desire of him a copy of my mittimus, that I might know what I stood committed for. They went and the jailer answered that he could not give a copy of it, for another had been fined for so doing; but he gave them liberty to read it over. To the best of their remembrance the matters therein charged against me were that I was a person generally suspected to be a common disturber of the peace of the nation, an enemy to the King, and a chief upholder of the Quakers' sect; and that, together with others of my fanatic opinion, I had of late endeavoured to raise insurrections in these parts of the country, and to embroil the whole kingdom in blood. Wherefore the jailer was commanded to keep me in safe custody until I should be released by order of the King and Parliament. When I had thus got the heads of the charge contained in the mittimus, I wrote a plain answer in vindication of my innocency in each particular; as follows: "I am a prisoner at Lancaster, committed by Justice Porter. A copy of the mittimus I cannot get, but such expressions I am told are in it as are very untrue; as that I am generally suspected to be a common disturber of the nation's peace, an enemy to the King, and that I, with others, endeavour to raise insurrections to embroil the nation in blood; all of which is utterly false, and I do, in every part thereof, deny it. "For I am not a person generally suspected to be a disturber of the nation's peace, nor have I given any cause for such suspicion; for through the nation I have been tried for these things formerly. In the days of Oliver I was taken up on pretence of raising arms against him, which was also false; for I meddled not with raising arms at all. Yet I was then carried up a prisoner to London, and brought before him; when I cleared myself, and denied the drawing of a carnal weapon against him, or any man upon the earth; for my weapons are spiritual, which take away the occasion of war, and lead into peace. Upon my declaring this to Oliver, I was set at liberty by him. "After this I was taken and sent to prison by Major Ceely in Cornwall, who, when I was brought before the judge, informed against me that I took him aside, and told him that I could raise forty thousand men in an hour's time, to involve the nation in blood, and bring in King Charles. This also was utterly false, and a lie of his own inventing, as was then proved upon him for I never spoke any such word to him.