Here also, as with the Zurichers, the reception took place amid warlike display and the thunder of cannon. The leaders affirmed that more than 12,000 men were under arms. They stood well drawn up; defiance in every face. The Unterwaldners were particularly well armed, partly with bows and partly in heavy coats of mail. Hans Escher opened the discussion, glad of the opportunity to represent in its true light the misapprehended cause of Zurich before so large an assembly of Confederates. First, he read aloud a detailed list of grievances, published by the government itself. "All this," he then continued, "we would have borne for the sake of the common peace, but when your rulers concluded an alliance with yon power, which your own forefathers have always considered their most dangerous enemy, and which is now, perhaps more than ever, ours, how could we keep quiet any longer? Still, we were not the first to march out. The Unterwaldners took up arms before, to place their _vogt_ in Baden. Our troops, when they came to Muri, found a meal prepared for them. Yet we do not wish to deal in mutual crimination to our own injury, but rather to favor the liberty, which we have inherited from our fathers, or what is the welfare of all, according to the Gospel to which we adhere, the restoration of the old Confederate pledges, which, as we ask them from you, we are also willing and ready to give to our Confederates." The country-people supported the speech of the citizen. Upon many of the hearers the impression was evidently good, for a general belief prevailed among the Catholics, that the country-people of Zurich had only submitted to the Reformation with reluctance. Others, on the contrary, thought the grievances in the paper of the Zurich Council exaggerated. "When have we refused you justice?" said they. "How often have you appealed to us in vain?"--"Yes," rejoined the treasurer Funk, an active young man, and one of Zwingli's warmest adherents--"we know your ways of doing justice. That unhappy pastor made an appeal and you referred him to the executioner." The rash word was spoken. "Funk! you had better been silent," one of his companions called out to him. A fearful tumult arose; the troops put themselves in motion. The more considerate warned the Zurichers to retire without delay, and secured them by a detailed escort.