be guilty, then he might by Law recover his whole Money of the Country. This they hoped would be a prevalent reason with him to order the matter so as to let their Companions escape, which they prayed & hoped he would do: but if (as they thought against all reason) he should rigorously prosecute them, he was to remember that four of their Companions were still left at liberty with swords in their hands, and his misfortune might again bring him under their power, when he might not expect so civil proceeding against him as he had the last time, but that they might revenge their Companions, but they concluded they hoped he would not give them that occassion._ And so they concluded. This Letter was carefully conveyed to the Knight, who having read and consider’d the Contents, and finding their reasons to be good, and withal considering that if he should by his Evidence cast these two men for their Lives, he was not sure of his own so long as they had companions, (who though at the first he found civil enough) who had swords in their hands, and might be revengeful and bloody-minded enough on that occasion; neither, as they had urged, would it be for his interest, for he must then lose his Money, or the greatest part. These reasons, I say, made him to manage the matter so as that upon Tryal they should be acquitted, and therefore he sent to the Prison a Confident of his, to tell them that he would do so, charging them to deny the Fact & stand upon their justification; And thus the Assizes coming they were indicted, but the Knight & his Servants (who were directed and instructed by him) were all in one Tale, & said, that indeed he was robb’d of four hundred pounds at such a place & time, by six men, two whereof were in such habits, or like such as the prisoners at the Bar had, but that he could not for all the world swear or say that they were any of the persons. He saying no more than thus, and by his example his Servants saying no more or less, & the Prisoners pleading Justification, they were in the end acquitted, had their Money again deliver’d to them, and the Knight now proceeding in his Suit against the Country, recover’d his whole Moneys of them; and thus our two Prisoners with their two Comrades who had attended the Tryall, came home to our house with great joy. And thus did Thieves escape, and the honest Countrey was punish’d, and this I have known is a trick that hath been used familiarly; so that several Countreys have been almost undone with these kind of Robberies.