gether in the dock, like cattle in a
pen, they caught stray sentences from the lips of the perjured rascals
who had seized them in the public ways; and whilst they thus in a frenzy
of surprise and fear listened to the statements of counsel for the
prosecution, and to the fabrications of lying witnesses, agents of the
court whispered to them that if they wished to save their lives they
must instantly confess their guilt, and implore the justices to
transport them to the plantations. Ignorant, alarmed, and powerless, the
miserable victims invariably acted on this perfidious counsel; and
forthwith the magistrates ordered their shipment to the West Indies,
where they were sold as slaves--the money paid for them by West India
planters in due course finding its way into the pockets of the Bristol
justices. It is asserted that the wealthier aldermen, through caution,
or those few grains of conscience which are often found in the breasts
of consummate rogues, forbore to share in the gains of this abominable
traffic; but it cannot be gainsaid that the least guilty magistrates
winked at the atrocious conduct of their brother-justices.

Vowing vengeance on the Bristol kidnappers Jeffreys entered their
court-house, and opened proceedings by crying aloud that "he had brought
a broom to sweep them with." The Mayor of Bristol was in those days no
common mayor; in Assize Commissions his name was placed before the
names of Judges of Assize; and even beyond the limits of his
jurisdiction he was a man of mark and influence. Great therefore was
this dignitary's astonishment when Jeffreys ordered him--clothed as he
was in official scarlet and furs--to stand in the dock. For a few
seconds the local potentate demurred; but when the Chief Justice poured
upon him a cataract of blasphemy, and vowed to hang him instantly over
the entrance to the tolsey unless he complied immediately, the
humiliated chief magistrate of the ancient borough took his place at the
felon's bar, and received such a rating as no thief, murderer or rebel
had ever heard from George Jeffrey's abusive mouth. Unfortunately the
affair ended with the storm. Until the arrival of William of Orange the
guilty magistrates were kept in fear of criminal prosecution; but the
matter was hushed up and covered with amnesty by the new government; so
that "the fright only, which was no small one, was all the punishment
which these judicial kidnappers underwent; and the gains," says Roger
N