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A53097
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Captain Charles Newy's case impartially laid open, or, A true and full narrative of the clandestine proceedings aginst [sic] him as it was hatched, contrived, and maliciously carried on by Mrs. Margaret Newey, widdow.
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Newey, Charles.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing N917; ESTC R42213
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29,009
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19
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my Brother The whole Court hist'd at the sight of him He was Sworn and asked by the Court whether he knew the Prisoner at the Bar he answered yes very well They asked him how long he had known me he said 20 Years And being asked by my Council how Old he was he said 18 or 19 at which the Court Hissing he fell a Crying and said they had made him Forswear himself and so went out of Court If he had been my Brother had I been the more Guilty of what they charg'd me with or could I help my being Born a Beggar ought I not to a been the more esteem'd for raising my self to a Captain Lievtenant Is every one capable of it was there not some in Court worss Born than my self It 's my power to aspire with art tho' not to choose my part Let any one think if I am worth a thought if I can be Guilty and they but Examine my Sister's Tricks and Perjuries and her Ingratitude by the pains she took and takes to expose her Dead Husband who had left her all to the prejudice of his two Brothers to one of which he owed the summ in dispute with other obligations which ought never to have been forgotten to the other Three-score Pounds his Wife having as can be prov'd got the Bond for the said summ by a Trick into her Hands and tho' her said Husband was Friends with his Brother when he Died yet did he leave him but Five Shillings tho' he knew he owed him the aforementioned Summ. Let any one believe if he can that he was in his Senses when he made this Will or that he was not bewitched by his Wives Tears she that was but a Servant to him The violence and malice which appeared and appears in my Prosecutors is in it self a certain instance of my being wrong'd Poverty is a sign of honesty tho' it sometimes occasions Roguery my want of Birth Power Preferment and Places is thought by the Judicious to be no more a Disgrace than that I was not made a Prince or Invited out of Newgate to my Lord Mayor's Feast But he that once falls into his Enemies Power becomes a Slave tho' he was free before Can any Man be so easily Imposed upon as to Imagin that one who will Forswear himself at one time will not be brought to do it at another or when ever he finds it his Interest so to do or ought to be believed when he speaks Truth unless in ones own defence No Rogues setts up marks that he may miss the World knows and sees that my case is singular not having above one Witness to any one matter of fact And those prov'd Perjur'd by their own Confessions so that I may be Innocent and no affront to those that believ'd me Guilty At worst the same Persons that do great knows best how to Cure them Vipers and Toads have their extracted Vertues Balms and Medicines are drawn from Druggs and Poisons tho' God forbid I should acquiese with you in my being Guilty Dead Men can't Bite neither have they any Friend Sure any thing that has a Soul had rather excel others in the knowledge and practice of what is excellent in its kind than in the extent of power or wickedness all that has been done against me seems to be a Dream For could so Inconsiderable a Villain as Jones tho' good at Swearing undertake such an Enterprize he could but be Sub-Servient to the designe but an Instrument moved by some greater spring Sure those that believe or speak tenderly of Perjury by saying that its necessary do it only to excuse themselves I beseech all those that have either known or heard of me to rest assured notwithstanding the suggestions which have been made by my Sister and her adherents who for their own wicked purposes contriv'd sometimes with Tears to create a belief in you that I am the very worst of Creatures that nothing is more in my desires or shall be more my endeavours than retrieving a lost or blemisht Reputation and that you 'll reflect upon what sort of Security any one of you has for your Life if every Man's Breath lies at the Mercy of a couple of own'd perjur'd Varlets where is the free born Subjects liberty when any Creature is made an Evidence for the King or shall be Encouraged in whatever he shall say and tho' it be never so false yet sometimes shall he not be pryed into by the C or J tho' they are Damn'd for believing what he Swears By this that they do it cast a Covert on one of the Lewdest Impieties known by Man Can Truth arraign the Justice of our Nation whose chiefest blessing is Liberty or can Perjury be a thing to bless God for or a subject to beg a Petition upon of any real service to a society of Men To believe perjur'd Wretches is confounding of Right and Wrong Good and Evil and Inverting the very order of Equity of reward and punishment How many Innocent Men do our Judges implore Mercy for from the King whom they find have been Sworn falsly against But how many do they or may they find not wrong'd Those that are taken in Robbing upon the High-way have no other way to come off but turning Evidence by which they 'll save their Lives and get Mony to boot What Innocent Person will they not accuse to make up the number to clear themselves This Sessions we have one Example how many Innocent Souls have been clap'd up and kept upon unconscionable Expence till all they had left in the World was little enough to pay the Charges of the Prison If this be suffered Villany will be Sacred and to be honest or desirous to raise ones self Hazardous If I am for want of Judgment thought or foresight mislead or mistaken I hope I may be Pardon'd my not being Infallible I might I am afraid with more ease make you believe that the fallen Angels have recovered their primitive Station and that the glorious Spirits who have stood firm ever since their Creation have now joyn'd in a Rebellion against their Maker than to pretend to appear Innocent to all without an Estate or Power in my Whimsical Circumstances Neither can I Think Thought Word or Deed Project Contrivance or Execution which commonly pass for the proof of things will do it so I appeal to the great God of Heaven and Earth the Sole Judge of all and once more in his presence I vow that I never had a Thought tho' said in passion of taking away my Brother or Sisters Life which if I had let God of his Mercy now strike me Dead and never have Pitty of me in this World or the World to come That if ever I did Engage set on or promise to give 10 Guineas to Edward Jones alias Ambrell alias Clement to Swear against my Sister Newey may I be Eternally Damn'd And if I did not lend my Brother Deceas'd the 105 Guineas in
nor would the Grand Jury find the Bill For the People that Live and has done at Tyburn House for Tenn Year past has been often Examined about it Nay before the King and Councel the Gallows has been searched if any Nay les were driven in or any of the Mourning appeared there or there abouts nothing was ever found or seen The report is supposed to be occasioned by the Woman's Father's Death who now Lives in it and for whom they were at that time in Mourning That there was never any thing like it ever seen by any of that Family or any other Creature tho' several has been charged with it as the Lord Mohun c. a thing of that nature could not be without their hearing seeing or knowing of it their House being so nigh it and Windows looking towards it And that it was only a report is what they are ready to make Oath of before any Judge I had 3 or 4 to Swear this in Court least they should find the Bill and Try me upon it Immediately as they did upon others but the Court would not hear them I discharg'd 5 Recognizances before I was Committed of my Sisters creating who made her Sister her Sisters Husband her Maid and others as she her self did Swear the Peace against me which with her plausible Railing incensed the Justices Constables and those that heard her with Tears relate my supposed Crimes which Increased with her Invention So that I was look'd upon like a Mad Dog that every one ought to have a throw at which I am willing to believe occasion'd Mr. Turner's coming under pretence to assist the Constables and to a Assault me and then Indite me for Assaulting of him when they told me that the Constables were at the Tavern staying for me I sent to tell them that a Constable with another might come to me if they pleas'd for I 'd suppressed what Warrants my Sister's Malice had procured They ventured to come to me at last The Constable could not Read but the Beadle did and seem'd satisfied with it that I Resisted is certain tho in my Morning Gown and to no purpose they being about 40 in Number but that they Assaulted me having no Warrant to break open a Door is as certain And now I hope my Reader must loudly confess that all circumstances onely considered it will appear to every charitable Judgment that if I had in the least been conscientious to my self of having two or more Wives of Hanging the Gallows in Mourning of suborning a Villain that no Creature could depend upon unless his Swearing was to bring him out of Prison Must I not have been Esteemed to have totally lost my Understanding nay to a been a perfect Lunatick or lull'd into a Lethargie in not flying from Justice but it behoves us who are Mortals born to bear with all Afflictions and to try our Fortunes as often as we are Miserable for it is as possible to retrieve our former happiness as to fall from it The Witnesses against me are so many Pick-pockets Cheats and Villains raked together Hollingworth is known to have been Burnt with the Flower de luce upon his Back and to have been in New-Prison for making of Farthings one that sometimes passes for a Priest and at others for a Minister I saw him abjure the Protestant Religion in Paris and take up Popish Priests Orders upon him but now he pretends himself a Protestant again If such Wretches be believed there is nothing either in Heaven or upon Earth that can be secure from them They are Rogues that will Swear any thing Fellows known to be Thieves Cheats and in fine a Scandal to the very Alms Basket The Devil 's in my Enemies if they do not Win all they play for when they have the shuffling and packing of their Cards and keeping in or puting out as they themselves please The Town will not doubt of my having been pursued with the utmost Industry and Bitterness Imaginable and that I have had but little Favour shewn me which has left me but one Fireing Gun to call for help upon the springing of a Lake So Mortal a Sin is it to aspire or ask for ones own and so venial a slip to endeavour to take a way any ones Life with a non obstante of never so many Laws to the contrary My Sister who will out Swear or out Weep a Harlot when she vows Fidelity to her old Cully she is a true expectant Widdow at her old departing Usures Death Bed-side just sealing her sole Executrix She 's particularly marked by continual crying and insatiable Malice for no relenting thought or pittying Tear no Love of a Dead and too kind Husband can be capable to stop the Carreer of her unparrallel'd Ingratitude There never was perhaps since the creation so much noise made not only in this vast Citty but in all parts of Europe about a poor young Fellow whose highest Crime was living like a Gentleman unless you 'l believe perjured Villains or those that repeat what the others Swear or them he disoblig'd It 's a Sister in Law whole Interest it is to Lash me till I fly for Succour to the Grave that the World sees I am prosecuted by and by her mean Scandalous and Ridiculous Instruments Lousie Greasie Rogues Starving Indigent Varlets that have not Credit in the World for a Brumigham Groat had they been Men of Substance or Reputation or without Prejudice by whose Testimony I had been found Guilty I had then been silenced for ever in some lone Cave dark as despair if I had realy lost what 's dearer then Life the dreads of which makes me feel no less than all the Pangs of bleeding Death Racks and Tortures In which let me Die if I am Guilty My cruel Enemies I know will not deny me Dying But the Witnesses upon whose Oathes I am found Guilty are now known as well as the Whiping-post for Swearing Lying Cheating and for abandoned sort of mercenary Villains who were by my Sister pitched upon as the rarest Tooles that ever Ingeneer invented to mannage such a Machine That Man knows little of my Misfortunes that knows not what Tricks they play'd to Ruin me The Council for the King made a motion that they might have leave to lay me open as they call'd it which was granted And who was to lay me open but my Sister her Sister her Sister's Husband and her Maid For there was not a Creature that said the least thing against my Reputation but her party Never was there such a motion made by Council or granted by a C it signifying nothing to the matter of fact for which I was Indicted The question being not what I was Born or what Follies I had been Guilty of but what Laws I had broke To prove me no Gentleman Born my Sister being upon her Oath calls for a Creature that to describe I can only say was a Scare crow whom she declar'd to the Court was