case

vented,* so it grinds the faces of the poor, who, in these latter years, by reason mainly of this monoas the cas now, polizing of them, have found it as hard a matter to stands, the fortify themselves against cold, as against hunger, inionated (p. 165) whereas if the owners of every collery slates, as well had free liberty to sell (p. 180) his coals to ships as coals (p 85) immediately, Tinmouth haven would afford two

city is cheated

hundred thousand chalders of coals in the year more than now are vented, which would reduce the late exorbitant excessive rates of coals in the city of London (p. 108, 109, 128) to under twenty shillings a chalder all the year, winter as well as summer, and bring into the common treasury above forty thousand pound per annum. (p. 98, 151, 152, 154). Some owners of coal-pits will rather let their pits be fired, like those at Benwell, and consume, than let their coals to the magistrates of Newcastle. If the coalowners in each county, from whence all coals come, should be as refractory to the magistrates, in denying their coals, as the magistrates are to the masters, (pag. 154, 148, 151, 147) few or none would be brought to London, or any revenue raised.

Eighthly, Forcing all ships up the river six miles, amongst dangerous sands, shelves, and the bulks of sunk ships, (p. 120 to 124, 131, 148, 151) that so they may cast out their ballast upon their shoars, and all for the greediness of receiving eight-pence for every ton of ballast, which hath occasioned the spoyl and loss of many ships, to the utter undoing of the masters and owners of the ships, and the destruction of the lives of many poor sea-men and marriners, whose blood will be required at their hands who put them on those dangers, in which they perished; besides their choaking up the most part of that river, by forcing the ballast up their sandy hills near the said town of Newcastle, many thousand tons whereof is blown and washed down into that river (p. 130, 131). They will neither preserve the river, nor let doctor Swinbourn, vice-admiral for the county of Durham do it, who hath fined some of the magistrates hundreds of pounds for damages, &c.

Lastly, Countenancing their officers in their oppressions, nay, in their very murthers, as in the case of Thomas Rutter, with others, who having forfeited their lives to justice, for killing Ann, the wife of Thomas Cliff, of North Shields, was, by their power and favor, rescued from that death which they justly deserved, (p. 133). God would not suffer his altar to be a sanctuary to a wilful murtherer, neither would king John, their patron, (p. 69). If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor to slay him, thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die. Exo. xxi. 14. The law of England defines what murther is, (p. 207). Blood defileth the band, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Numb. XXXV. 33. When therefore God shall make inquisition, they that staid him, that offered violence to the blood of his neighbor, and should have gone to the pit, Prov. xx. 17, will be found to communicate in this murther, and involved in the same guilt, with him that committed it, but the good God be merciful to them, that have not approved, or consented to this wickedness; For though our eyes did see this blood, yet our hands did not shed it; and therefore let every one that would wash his hands clean from that blood, pray, as God prescribed, Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people of Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people Israel's charge, Deut. xxi. 7, 8.

Thus have I given you a short view of the tyrannical oppressive practices of the magistrates of Newcastle, whose sin receives no small aggravation from their office and calling, in that they are magistrates, whom God hath furnished with authority to that end that they might prevent and redress injuries done by others, and execute wrath upon evill doers, Rom. xiii. 4. So that in their oppressions they sin against the very end of their calling: they transform the very image of God's power and justice, which they sustain, into the image of God's enemy, Satan, whom herein they resemble, and become, after a sort, wick

ednesses in high places, as the devils are; for amongst as much as any where, is that of Solomon verified, I saw under the sun, the place of judgement, that wickedness was there, and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there, Ecc. iii. 16. And although attempts hitherto, and all indeavors for redress of these oppressive courses, have proved abortive and fruitless, no man compassionating the people with Saul, so much as to aske, What ayleth this people that they weep? 1 Sam. xi. 5. No, after many addresses, petitions, remonstrances, and sutes at law, being stifled by the instigation of corrupt persons, then in power, and obstructed by the mutability and changes, we have too much reason to complain with Solomon, Behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforters, and on the sides of their oppressors there was power, but they, the oppressed, had no comforter, Eccles. iv. 1. Yet at this time we are not without good hopes but that the cries of the poor and the oppressed, will enter into the ears and hearts of this present power, that they will be as a hiding place from the winde, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, Isa. xxxii. 3.

But if our hopes now fail us, we must sit down, and sigh out that of Solomon, If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvail not at the matter, for He that is higher than the highest regardeth, and there be higher than they, Eccles. v. 8.