One of the most virulent officials in persecuting the Non-Conformists, was Captain Tettersell, who effected the escape of the King. On Sunday, the 29th of May, 1670, while exercising his authority as High Constable of Brighton, he, with the zeal of a bigot, and the malign industry of a ministerial spy, discovered in the town a house in which a few Dissenters had privately met: and the door having been barred against so unfriendly an intruder, he surrounded the premises with his creatures, until a warrant for breaking the door open arrived from Sir Thomas Nutt, of Lewes. When the warrant arrived, the door was opened upon the demand of the Constable; but no minister could be found; nor were the company engaged in any religious ceremony. It was, however, asserted by some of the Constable’s assistants, that they had heard from within a voice in the elevated tone of prayer or instruction, and for this imputed offence, the whole party was summoned before the said Sir Thomas Nutt, and other Justices at Lewes. But there being no proof to justify conviction under the Conventicle Act, the bench insidiously counselled the objects of their persecution to confess the whole, and promised they would permit them to set their own fines. Finding them averse to self-accusation, where they were conscious of no crime, these upright dispensers of justice, even on the vague conjecture of the spies, fined to the full penalty of the Statute, not only such as were found in the house, but also a man who had been seen coming out some time before the said spies approached it. William Beard, the master of the house, having been fined £20, Captain Tettersell broke open his malthouse, and took thereout sixty-five bushel sacks of malt, which he sold to one of his partisans for twelve shillings a quarter. {138} Sir Thomas Nutt was a most malign retailer of penal law, and he prevailed on three other justices to co-operate with him in order to sanction the rancour of persecution. Other Constables besides Tettersell, also, were the too willing harpies of oppression under the mask of law. Fastened in the back cover of Deryk Carver’s bible (the particulars of which are in Chapter XVII.) is a permission signed by Lord Arlington, for holding a Conventicle. The mark where the royal seal had been affixed, yet remains. The following is a correct copy of the license:— (_The Regal Seal_.) CHARLES R.