he evidence we have heard, and lay it before his lordship. Jack,
you may go home."

"Pray, sir, let somebody go with me, for I am afraid of Riot, who has
just been threatening me at the door."

"Master Bold will please to go along with the boy."

The minutes of the court were then drawn up, and the President took
them to the Judge's chamber. After the Judge had perused them, he
ordered an indictment to be drawn up against Peter Riot: "For that he
meanly and clandestinely and with malice aforethought had broken three
panes in the window of Widow Careful with a certain instrument called
a top, whereby he had committed an atrocious injury upon an innocent
person, and had brought a disgrace upon the society to which he
belonged."

At the same time he sent an officer to inform Master Riot that his
trial would come on the next morning.

Riot, who was with some of his gay companions, affected to treat the
matter with great indifference, and even to make a jest of it.
However, in the morning he thought it best to endeavor to make it up,
and accordingly, when the court was assembled, he sent one of his
friends with a shilling, saying that he would not trouble them with
further inquiries, but would pay the sum that had been issued out of
the public stock. On the receipt of this message the Judge rose with
much severity in his countenance, and observing that by such
contemptuous behavior towards the court the criminal had greatly added
to his offence, he ordered two officers with their staves immediately
to go and bring in Riot, and to use force if he should resist them.

The culprit, thinking it best to submit, was presently led in between
the two officers, when, being placed at the bar, the Judge then
addressed him: "I am sorry, sir, that any member of this society can
be so little sensible of the nature of a crime and so little
acquainted with the principles of a court of justice as you have shown
yourself to be by the proposal you took the improper liberty of
sending us. If you mean it as a confession of your guilt, you
certainly ought to have waited to receive from us the penalty we
thought proper to inflict, and not to have imagined that an offer of
the mere payment of damages would satisfy the claims of justice
against you. If you had only broken the window by accident, and on
your own accord offered restitution, nothing less than the full
damages could have been accepted; but you now stand charged with
having done