391

CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS.

the Court would continue to sit, to which this Deponent answered (being willing to prevent anyviolence being offered to any of the Court) that he was sure they would not sit any longer. Andfurther this Deponent saith, that from Chester to Charlestown the said Rioters were Commandedby Joseph Wait and from thence to Windsor by Nathan Stone. And further this Deponent saith not

John Grout.

Sworn before me this ninth day of August 1770.

Danl Housmanden.

AFFIDAVIT OF SAMUEL WELLS.

City of New’ York ss : Samuel Wells of Brattleborough in the County of Cumberland Esquireone of the Judges of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for the said County came this Day beforeme and made oath that some time between the fourteenth and Nineteenth Days of May last thisDeponent on his Return home from a Journey called upon Colonel Nathan Stone in Windsor whomounted his Horse and rode with this Deponent almost through Town, on the Road the said Stoneand this Deponent discoursed concerning the High Sheriff not long before coming into Windsor toserve some Precepts, and his being opposed and threatened, the said Stone told this Deponent thathe was determined that no writs or Precepts that Issued out of the Inferior Court or Courts ofGeneral Sessions of the Peace for the said County should be served in Windsor, or to that purpose ;That the making a County was a sham and not a Reality, that the Patent or Ordinance for erectingthe County was a Libel, as it suggested that its being erected into a County was Petitioned for,which he said was false, that it was never Intended that these Courts should Act in TryingCauses, that, there was no Justice to be obtained in the County by means of the Corruption of theJudges Justices and other Officers, that they were ruled intirely by John Grout Attorney at Law,that he was determined to oppose their Authority, while lie had a Drop of Blood in ids veins ;That friendship to this Deponent Induced him to bear this Deponent Company until he had passedby most of the Settlements in Town, and Intimated that if this Deponent should Ride alone throughTown he would be in danger of being Assaulted by the People and have some violence done to him ;That this Deponent endeavoured by many arguments to Convince the said Stone of the danger ofopposing the Execution of the Laws and exhorted him to alter his resolution and told him that if heand the People would for the future make no opposition to the free execution of the Laws it wouldbe the most likely method he and they could take to induce the Civil authority to pass over theopposition already made in the Tenderest manner ; that if M r Grout or any of the Justices or officerswhom he accused of bad conduct had done anything wrong the Law provided a sufficient Remedyand was the only way by which they could be punished & that this Deponent apprehended he hadnot given himself time to consider as he ought before he had formed his Resolutions. To whichthe said Stone replied that he had formed no Resolution about the matter on a Sudden, that hisResolution to oppose Writts being executed had been fixed at least five or six months before, andthat while he had life he would oppose the Sherif, and that tire people of that Place (meaningWindsor) and some other places would joine and stand by him to the last drop of their blood, Thatsome time after this Deponent arrived at home, he was informed by Daniel Whipple Esquire highSherif of the said County that he with the Assistance of fifteen or Sixteen men had made an attemptto Retake the same Persons in Windsor he had before taken into Custody & who had Escaped fromhim being Rescued by the said Stone and others, and the particulars of that Transaction. That on