State Trials, Political and Social. Volume 1 (of 2)
History
State Trials, Political and Social. Volume 1 (of 2)
Trials -- Great Britain
DYER--I came to a merchant's house in Lisbon, to see a boy that
I had there; there came a gentleman into the house, and
enquiring what countryman I was, I said, an Englishman.
Whereupon he asked me, if the king was crowned? And I answered,
No, but that I hoped he should be shortly. Nay, saith he, he
shall never be crowned; for Don Raleigh and Don Cobham shall cut
his throat ere that day come.
RALEIGH--What infer you upon this?
ATTORNEY--That your treason hath wings.
RALEIGH--If Cobham did practice with Aremberg, how could it not
but be known in Spain? Why did they name the Duke of Buckingham
with Jack Straw's treason, and the Duke of York with Jack Cade,
but that it was to countenance his treason? Consider, you
Gentlemen of the Jury, there is no cause so doubtful which the
king's council cannot make good against the law. Consider my
disability and their ability; they prove nothing against me,
only they bring the accusation of my lord Cobham which he hath
repented and lamented as heartily, as if it had been for an
horrible murder: for he knew that all this sorrow that should
come to me, is by his means. Presumptions must proceed from
precedent or subsequent facts. I have spent 40,000 crowns
against the Spaniards. I had not purchased £40 a year. If I had
died in Guiana, I had not left 300 marks a year to my wife and
son. I that have always condemned Spanish faction, methinks it
is a strange thing that now I should affect it! Remember what
St. Austin says, _Sic judicate tanquam ab alio mox judicandi;
unus judex, unum tribunal_. If you will be contented on
presumptions to be delivered up to be slaughtered, to have your
wives and children turned into the streets to beg their bread;
if you will be contented to be so judged, judge so of me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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