In the afternoon I was brought up again, and put among the thieves some time, where I stood with my hat on till the jailer took it off. Then the jury having found this new indictment against me “for not taking the oath,” I was called to the bar; and the judge asked me, “what I would say for myself:” I bid them read the indictment, for I would not answer to that which I did not hear. The clerk read it, and as he read the judge said, “take heed it be not false again;” but he read it in such a manner that I could hardly understand what he read. When he had done, the judge asked me, “what I said to the indictment?” I told him, “at once hearing so large a writing read, and at such a distance that I could not distinctly hear all the parts of it, I could not well tell what to say to it; but if he would let me have a copy, and give me time to consider it, I would answer it.” This put them to a little stand; but after a while the judge asked me “what time I would have?” I said, “till the next assize.” “But,” said he, “what plea will you now make? are you guilty or not guilty?” I said, “I am not guilty at all of denying swearing obstinately and wilfully; and as for those things mentioned in the oath, as jesuitical plots and foreign powers, I utterly deny them in my heart; and if I could take any oath, I should take that; but I never took any oath in my life.” The judge said, “I said well; but,” said he, “the king is sworn, the parliament is sworn, I am sworn, the justices are sworn, and the law is preserved by oaths.” I told him, “they had had sufficient experience of men’s swearing, and he had seen how the justices and jury had sworn wrongly the other day; and if he had read in the _Book of Martyrs_ how many of the martyrs had refused to swear, both within the time of the ten persecutions and in Bishop Bonner’s days, he might see, that to deny swearing in obedience to Christ’s command was no new thing.” He said, “he wished the laws were otherwise.” I said, “Our Yea is yea, and our Nay is nay; and if we transgress our yea and our nay, let us suffer as they do, or should do, that swear falsely.” This, I told him, we had offered to the king; and the king said, “it was reasonable.” After some further discourse, they committed me to prison again, there to lie till the next assize; and Colonel Kirby gave order to the jailer, “to keep me close, and suffer no flesh alive to come at me, for I was not fit,” he said, “to be discoursed with by men.”