Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 3]
must be made, for it is not to tell what hunger will cause.
There are matters altogether novel to me, as I have always understood, that the civil law did not admit of corporal punishment being inflicted upon a freeman without he was found guilty upon trial by jury. The same great person having sent for me, and I already in waiting, I begun to think that it was not unlikely in his violent passion, but what he might threaten me in the same manner, as he had several times severely scolded me, and we were not now upon the best of terms. I was not long in fixing upon an expedient, but resolved to protect my liberties; and in case he gave me such language as above, I meant bluntly to have told him, that I would not be flogged while alive, or as long as I had the power to resist. My house not being far distant, I was sensible that had he ordered any body to lay hold of me, I could easily have got home clear: And as I had two loaded guns in the house, I was determined to shoot the first person that attempted to apprehend me, but fortunately matters turned out the contrary.
A singular case has happened within these few days,viz. the 31st of on Sunday last the 31st instant, by seizing the different newspapers of the 12th June last, I was absent when mine