Note 95 — BOOK XII.

The question then much agitated—“The extraordinary execution of judgement by private men”—was supported by an apophthegm borrowed from Tertullian—“Every man is a soldier enrolled to bear arms against all traitors and public enemies;” and by the authority of Dr Ames, who, in his treatise on Conscience, published 1674, says—“Sometimes it is lawful to kill, no public precognition proceeding, when the cause evidently requires it should be done, and public authority cannot be got: For in that case a private man is publickly constitute the minister of justice, as well by the permission of God as the consent of all men.” Mitchell, when questioned by the Chancellor, thus defended his attack upon Sharpe—and it is easy to conceive that such reasoning would appear irrefragable to a mind excited as his was—“I looked upon him to be the main instigator of all the oppression and bloodshed thereupon, and the continual pursuing after my own; and, my lord, it was creditably reported to us (the truth of which your lordship knows better than we) that he kept up his majesty’s letter inhibiting any more blood upon that account, until the last six were executed; and I being a soldier, not having laid down my arms, but being upon my own defence; and in prosecution of the ends of the same covenant [which he also had sworn] which was the overthrow of prelates and prelacy; and I being a declared enemy to him on that account, and he to me in like manner: as he was always to take his advantage of me, as it appeareth, so I of him, to take any opportunity offered. Moreover, we being in no terms of capitulation, but on the contrary, I, by his instigation being excluded from all grace and favour, thought it my duty to pursue him at all events.”