When the Justices had delivered us prisoners to the constable, it
being then late in the day, which was the seventh day of the week,
he, not willing to go so far as Aylesbury, nine long miles, with us
that night, nor to put the town to the charge of keeping us there
that night, and the first day and night following, dismissed us upon
our parole to come to him again at a set hour on the second day
morning; whereupon we all went home to our respective habitations,
and coming to him punctually according to promise, were by him,
without guard, conducted to the prison.
The gaoler, whose name was Nathaniel Birch, had not long before
behaved himself very wickedly, with great rudeness and cruelty, to
some of our friends of the lower side of the county, whom he,
combining with the Clerk of the Peace, whose name was Henry Wells,
had contrived to get into his gaol; and after they were legally
discharged in court, detained them in prison, using great violence,
and shutting them up close in the common gaol among the felons,
because they would not give him his unrighteous demand of fees,
which they were the more straitened in from his treacherous dealing
with them.
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