Court. You see the man is a right Diabolonian, and has convicted himself. Set him by, gaoler, and set Mr. False-Peace to the bar.
False-Peace set to the bar.
‘Mr. False-Peace, thou art here indicted by the name of False-Peace, (an intruder upon the town of Mansoul,) for that thou didst most wickedly and satanically bring, hold, and keep the town of Mansoul, both in her apostacy and in her hellish rebellion, in a false, groundless, and dangerous peace, and damnable security, to the dishonour of the King, the transgression of his law, and the great damage of the town of Mansoul. What sayest thou? Art thou guilty of this indictment, or not?
Then said Mr. False-Peace: ‘Gentlemen, and you now appointed to be my judges, I acknowledge that my name is Mr. Peace; but that my name is False-Peace I utterly deny. If your honours shall please to send for any that do intimately know me, or for the midwife that laid my mother of me, or for the gossips that were at my christening, they will, any or all of them, prove that my name is not False-Peace, but Peace. Wherefore I cannot plead to this indictment, forasmuch as my name is not inserted therein; and as is my true name, so are also my conditions. I was always a man that loved to live at quiet, and what I loved myself, that I thought others might love also. Wherefore, when I saw any of my neighbours to labour under a disquieted mind, I endeavoured to help them what I could; and instances of this good temper of mine many I could give; as,
‘1. When, at the beginning, our town of Mansoul did decline the ways of Shaddai, they, some of them, afterwards began to have disquieting reflections upon themselves for what they had done; but I, as one troubled to see them disquieted, presently sought out means to get them quiet again.
‘2. When the ways of the old world, and of Sodom, were in fashion, if anything happened to molest those that were for the customs of the present times, I laboured to make them quiet again, and to cause them to act without molestation.
‘3. To come nearer home: when the wars fell out between Shaddai and Diabolus, if at any time I saw any of the town of Mansoul afraid of destruction, I often used, by some way, device, invention, or other, to labour to bring them to peace again. Wherefore, since I have been always a man of so virtuous a temper as some say a peace-maker is, and if a peace-maker be so deserving a man as some have been bold to attest he is, then let me, gentlemen, be accounted by you, who have a great name for justice and equity in Mansoul, for a man that deserveth not this inhuman way of treatment, but liberty, and also a license to seek damage of those that have been my accusers.’
Then said the clerk, ‘Crier, make a proclamation.’
Crier. Oyes! Forasmuch as the prisoner at the bar hath denied his name to be that which is mentioned in the indictment, the Court requireth that if there be any in this place that can give information to the Court of the original and right name of the prisoner, they would come forth and give in their evidence; for the prisoner stands upon his own innocency.
Then came two into the court, and desired that they might have leave to speak what they knew concerning the prisoner at the bar: the name of the one was Search-Truth, and the name of the other Vouch-Truth. So the Court demanded of these men if they knew the prisoner, and what they could say concerning him, ‘for he stands,’ said they, ‘upon his own vindication.’