Wesley Corpus

While you and I went out at one door, Mr. Grimshaw and Mr. Colbeck went out at the other. The mob immediately closed them in, and tossed them to and fro with the utmost violence, threw Mr. Grimshaw down, and loaded them both with dirt and mire; not one of your friends offering to assist them or call off the blood-hounds from the pursuit. The other quiet, harmless people which followed me at a distance to see what the end would be they treated still worse, not only by your connivance, but by the express order of your deputy. They made them flee for their lives amidst showers of dirt and stones, without any regard to age or sex. Some of them they trampled in the mire, and dragged by the hair, particularly a young man who came with me from Newcastle.[This was William Mackford, a highly respected trustee of the Orphan House at Newcastle. He had come with Wesley from Newcastle, and under his preaching was 'set at liberty' the day this letter was written. See Journal, iii. 372; Stamp's Orphan House, p. 115.] Many they beat with their clubs without mercy. One they forced to leap down (or they would have cast him headlong) from a rock ten or twelve foot high into the river; and even when he crawled out, wet and bruised, they swore they would throw him in again, and he hardly escaped out of their hands. At this time you sat well pleased close to the scene of action, not attempting in the least to hinder them; and all this time you was talking of justice and law. Alas! Suppose we were Dissenters (which I utterly deny, consequently laws against Dissenting conventicles are nothing at all to us); suppose we were Turks or Jews;--still, are we not to have the benefit of the law of our country Proceed against us by law, if you can or dare; but not by lawless violence--not by making a drunken, cursing, swearing, riotous mob both judge, jury, and executioner. This is flat rebellion both against God and the King, as you may possibly find to your cost.