you up on the grace of love, to the realms above, where faith and hope are known no more, and there with saints for ever love.

I am informed that you gained the prejudice of the Rev. Dr. Beach, in the city of New York, and other clergymen, by out living and out preaching them, which first begun your persecution. This character you might easily have gained by your talents, learning, piety, charity, oratory. and polite manners; perhaps the same clerical virtues have reached Connecticut, and caused the dragon to cast water out of his mouth as a flood after the woman in the wilderness.

My son, my only son, [Mr. Birdseye Peters,] is deadat Mobile June 4, 1822 he was born at Hebron June 4, 1774, (48 years old ;)--let those mourn who part to meet no more! Sapientissimus Frater, Patres et filii mortui sunt, ut veruntamen est resurrectionem-[i. e. my wisest brother, our fathers and our children are dead, but there will soon be a resurrection.] I shall be glad to hear from you and to see you. I shall soon go out of darkness to live in light, in life, and in love-veni vide totam meam gloriam in resurrectionem,-[i. e. come and behold all my glory in the resurrection. I am yours,

SAMUEL PETERS. Maria A. Smith, and all the family, first declared to James Cook. Esq. to Messrs. Rose, Baker, Fry, and others, that I never had courted or kept private company with the said Asenath, and that the charges against me were false, (see page 96) she then cleared me of every impropriety of conduct at their house, or within her knowledge or belief, by a certificate in her own hand writing, (see page 87 )-She then went before Farwel Coit, Esq. and made oath that I had courted the said Asenath; that she had seen us in bed together; that I was shut up alone with her in their chamber, with fastened doors, and no one admitted, from Tuesday to Saturday, &c. She then confessed to me, in presence of Lester Clark, that she knew, and I knew, and God knew. that it was all a lie which she had testified; she made the same confession to Mr. Enoch Baker, (see page 130)—she then wrote to Lanman, and contradicted the false testimony which she

said he had induced her to give before Esq. Coit. She then went before Denison Palmer, Esq. and made solemn oath that she could not in conscience say it again, and that she had no reason to think that the charges were true, (see page 1 09.) She then confessed to Miss Willoughty, that she had taken a false oath against me before Esq. Coit, and that old Halsey, Doct. Downer, and James Lanman, had overpersuaded and hired her to do it, &c. (see page 133.) She then offered Mr. Willoughby, to come before the superior court, in person, and testify to it, (see page 132.) She then declared to Mr. Haughton, that I never had courted her sister, that she never had seen us in bed together, (see page 134.)-She then went before William Foster, Esq. and made solemn oath, that she could not in conscience testify again as she had done before Esq. Coit; that she had no reason to believe that the charges against me were true, &c. (see page 111.)

Mr. Lewis Collins, who keeps a very respectable tavern in Chester village, Mass. inade solemn oath before William Wade, Esq. a justice of the peace, December 4th, 1822, that he heard Maria A. Smith, on being reproached by me for lying and false swearing, say, Well, I don't care, I know I have lied, and lied under oath, and my oath is good for nothing, and I am glad of it, &c.

Mr. Samuel Thayer made oath, before the same justice, and on the same day, that he heard said Maria say to me, in presence of Mr. Gilman, at the house of a Mr. Williams, Well, I have lied, and I will lie, and I have lied under oath before the court, and I will again if I have a mind to, and you cannot help yourself. At this time Mr. Lanman had given her great promises and assurances that if she would return and swear again before the court as she did before Coit, when I was bound over, she should be protected, and it never should hurt her, &c. She did return, and though a perjured person, though she then testified before the court, that she had told so many different stories, and had contradicted herself so often on the subject, that she did not think that her testimony would be received that she had confessed that she had taken a false outh against me yet the judge admitted her testimony; on it I was declared guilty, of what God knows never came into

my mind, and on it I have suffered the losss of character, liberty, honor, friends, property, of all worldly comforts. Is it not a hard case? Who would not complain? Would the judge have admitted her testimony if he had not been my enemy; if he had not been prejudiced; if I had not been condemned in his mind before I was heard? Since the trial the said Maria has, in words and in writing, contradicted the testimony which she then gave, and on which I was most cruelly and unjustly declared guilty. O Connecticticut! what hast thou not done! Publish it not in Gath; tell it not in the streets of Askelon! On the 8th day of October, 1822, I was released from jail in due course of law, after a note of more than $630 was extorted from me on peril of life and liberty; a great part of this money had been taken from the public treasury by Lanman. and Halsey, under the false and feigned pretence of paying witnesses in this prosecution, and a great part of which money they have embezzled and squandered without ever paying it over to the witnesses. I speak and write without fear of contradiction. I do assert that James Lanman, Esq. as attorney for the state of Connecticut, in the county of New-Londoa, has from time to time, and at different times, taken large sums of money from the public treasury to pay witnesses in public prosecutions, and has not paid it to them. In this prosecution against me, among many others, I mention Mrs. Eunice Howard, Samuel Dorrence, Socrates Balcomb, Capt. Ephraim Williams, Lydia Williams, &c.-and in other cases, Joel Loomis, Esq. $15, Capt. Clark, $10, &c. &c. There are witnesses now residing in the county of Saratoga, who knew nothing of the case, who were dragged from home, at great trouble and expence in going to court, staying and returning-money was taken from the treasury to pay them, but they have never been able to obtain it. Is this fair? is this honorable? is it just? Would the attorney general of the state of New-York conduct in this manner? Indeed, the whole prosecution, and its consequences have been unjust, cruel, tyrannical, and abusive in the highest degree. In civil society we relinquish our natural rights to have our civil and moral rights secured. How far my civil and moral rights have been secured in the state of Connecticut, those who have or

will read the foregoing trial, (if it can be called a trial, for there was no attempt made to prove the crimes as charged in the information,) must and will judge.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT,

Convened in Hartford in May 1823, on the Memorial of Ammi Rogers appointed a joint committee of both Houses to take his case into eonsideration, to grant him a hearing and to report thereon. The said committee assigned the 27th and 28th days of May 1823, for the aforesaid consideration hearing and investigation in the Senate Chamber, and notice was given accordingly.

Hartford, Senate Chamber, May 27th, 1823. Present, THE HON. DAVID HILL, of the Senate, Chairman, ABNER REED, Esq. JOHN STANTON, Esq.

Committee.

I, Ammi Rogers appeared and said, Gentlemen, I do not come before you in the strength and power of Goliah of Gath, defying the armies of the living God? but I come before you as a meek, humble and persecuted christian, and minister of our common Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I have been falsely accused, partially and unfairly tried, and unjustly condemned and imprisoned for crimes committed with Asenath C. Smith, in Griswold, in the county of NewLondon. Of these crimes I am absolutely as innocent as either of you gentlemen of the committee, as any member of the General Assembly, or as as any minister of the Heavenly Sanctuary. May I beseech you to grant me a patient and candid hearing, and to make that report which you can justify before God, the bar of your own consciences, and the bar of all intelligent creation. I beg permission to read in the first place my petition on which you have been appointed by both Houses of the Honorable General Assembly to act, which is in the following words and figures, viz.

To the Hon. General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, convened in the city of Hartford, on the first Wednesday of May, 1823.

Ammi Rogers of Hebron, in the county of Tolland, comes, complaint makes, and says, that in Norwich, in the county of New-London, on the 29th day of April, 1819, he was, by Farwel Coit, Esq. justice of the peace, in and for said county, bound over to the honorable Superior Court for trial, on the false and feigned charges, brought by James Lanman, Esq. attorney for the said county, that he, your complainant, bad, in the town of Griswold, in said county, on the first day of July, 1817, &c. and that he had,&c. in said Griswold, on or about the first day of Nov. in that same year. The complainant says,that in open court of inquiry before said Coit, on the aforesaid 29th day of April, he delivered to the said Coit and Lanman, as evidence in the case, many important documents and papers, among which was the deposition of Curtis Hickox, Esq. in which he made solemn oath that your complainant was at his house in Washington, in Litchfield county, about 100 miles from Griswold, and from the said Asenath, on that very first day of July, 1817, and that he the said Hickox did then and there pay him forty dollars in money, and took his receipt in full, dated at that time and place, which receipt he inclosed to the said court in his said deposition. Also the complainant says, that he delivered as evidence in the case, on the aforesaid 29th day of April, to the said Coit and Lanman, the depositions of Doct. Wells Beardslee and Homer Swift, Esq. in which they made solemn oath, that your complainant was with them in Kent, not far from the aforesaid Washington, on and long before the said first day of July, 1817, and not in Griwold, as was falsely charged by the said Lanman. And your complainant says, that in the year 1817, he did not see the said Asenath, from about the 10th of May until about the 15th of September, and that he never did, at any time of his life, have any criminal connexion with her; and that he was not informed and did not know that the said Asenath was or had been like to have a child until many months after she was delivered. And your complainant says that it was not till 1819, and that by the vilest ars and most M