This plainly refers to the trial before the County Court in November, 1719, when John Rogers is said (by court records) to have come into court “in a violent manner,” etc., and, when the indictment was read, to have exclaimed that it was “a devilish ly” (see Chapter IX), for which contempt of court he was fined only twenty shillings, which nominal sum was never collected. Taking into consideration the evident sympathy of the jury on this occasion of “violent entrance,” etc., and the great ease with which Peter Pratt is proven capable of misstating and exaggerating facts, the reader will admit the probability that this entrance of John Rogers into the court-room, and his words there spoken, together with those of his followers, were neither more nor less than impassioned expressions of indignation and protest regarding the terrible cruelty to which the wife of John Bolles was then being subjected. She was, as will be remembered, at that moment lying in a critical condition in New London prison, where the death of her child had just occurred. Peter Pratt, then present in that court-room, by his own avowal, knew all of these facts, and knew also that the life of this woman was saved only by such determined efforts at full publicity on the part of the Rogerenes and their sympathizers. Yet he utterly conceals these circumstances from the reader, while he exaggerates the Rogerene protests, and represents them as being simply senseless and grotesque. It is from this description by Peter Pratt that historians have borrowed their statements regarding the loud voice of John Rogers, and that Rogerenes were accustomed to charge dignitaries with lying, etc.[187] Footnote 187: To this statement of Peter Pratt is traceable the following from Miss Caulkins: “Suppose at the present day a man like Rogers should enter, etc., accompanying all this with violent contortions, coarse expletives, and foaming at the mouth, would it not require great forbearance,” etc. Nothing was more foreign to the teachings of John Rogers and his followers, or more abhorred by Rogerenes in general—as will be readily attested by those familiar with their principles—than any vulgarity, or even ordinary coarseness, of speech or manner. Miss Caulkins also states (“History of Norwich”) that John Rogers accosted Dr. Lord (over one hundred years before) in a very loud voice, asking him if they wore wigs in heaven, giving her story from “tradition.” This is evidently a mixture of the Peter Pratt court scene, and the contribution of the wig to Mr. Saltonstall.