How quick I was in obeying may be easily imagined. I went well armed, but in the present danger arms were of no use. I found that Mr. Montenero was summoned before one of the magistrates, on a charge of having fired from his window the preceding night before the Riot Act had been read--of having killed an inoffensive passenger. Now the fact was, that no shot had ever been fired by Mr. Montenero; but such was the rage of the people at the idea that the _Jew_ had killed a Christian, and one of their party, that the voice of truth could not be heard. They followed with execrations as he was carried before the magistrate; and waited with impatience, assembled round the house, in hopes of seeing him committed to prison to take his trial for murder. As I was not ignorant of the substantial nature of the defence which the spirit and the forms of English law provide in all cases for truth and innocence, against false accusation and party prejudice, I was not alarmed at the clamour I heard; I was concerned only for the temporary inconvenience and mortification to Mr. Montenero, and for the alarm to Berenice. The magistrate before whom Mr. Montenero appeared was an impartial and very patient man: I shall not so far try the patience of others as to record all that was positively said, but which could not be sworn to--all that was offered in evidence, but which contradicted itself, or which could not be substantiated by any good witness--at length one creditable-looking man came forward against Mr. Montenero. He said he was an ironmonger--that he had been passing by at the time of the riot, and had been hurried along by the crowd against his will to Mr. Montenero’s house, where he saw a sailor break open the window-shutter of one of the lower rooms--that he saw a shot fired by Mr. Montenero--that the sailor, after a considerable struggle, wrested the gun, with which the shot had been fired, from Mr. Montenero, and retreated with it from the window--that hearing the cry of murder in the crowd, he thought it proper to secure the weapon, that it might be produced in evidence--and that the piece which he now produced was that which had been taken from Mr. Montenero. I perceived great concern in the countenance of the magistrate, who, addressing himself to Mr. Montenero, asked him what he had to say in his defence. “Sir,” said Mr. Montenero, “I acknowledge that to be the gun which was wrested from my hands by the sailor; and I acknowledge that I attempted with that gun to defend my family and my house from immediate violence; I am, however,” continued he, “happy to have escaped having injured any person, even in the most justifiable cause, for the piece did not go off, it only flashed in the pan.” “If that be the case,” said the magistrate, “the piece is still loaded.”