“3. He was struck down, muffled in a cloak, and they stamped upon his breast; and yet he was found with a white hat on his head, no dirt upon it, and his clothes only dirty where he sat; though the land was fouler at that time than ordinary.
“4. Two pricks in his arm, the one so just against the other, that it seemed to be one wound; and yet hard to imagine how it should pass, for the bone.
“5. Upon his crying out, a woman held a candle from a window just over him, and two of the neighbours’ servants went immediately to him; but neither could see nor hear of anybody near him.
“6. If wounded before he cried out, ’tis a wonder that one of these boys should not hear either the blows or the scuffle; especially standing within 6 or 7 yards of him in the street, and having a duskish view of his body so long before he cried out, till upon his knocking at the door of the Sugar-loaf for drink, a servant of the house came downstairs, took his errand, went down for drink and came up again, in the meantime.
“7. Or if before this boy knocked, ’tis a wonder that upon that knocking he did not immediately cry out for succour, hearing people within distance of relieving him.
“8. If he was stunded when they left him, how could he take notice of what they said, and that they went laughing and triumphing away? Beside the danger of being heard into Sir Timothy Baldwin’s house, on the one side, and Mrs. Camden’s on the other, that looked just on to the place.
“9. If he could not be heard to cry out because he was muffled, how should he hear what the ruffians said? For they durst not speak so loud as he might cry; neither with a cloak over him could they well come at his throat.
“10. If they meant to kill him, they might have stabbed the knife into his throat; as well as have cut him; or having him down they might well have thrust him into his belly when they found the sword would not enter his bodice.
“11. There was no blood seen upon the ground neither where he lay, or thereabouts.”
The balance of probability seems to be undoubtedly that no attempt whatever was made on Arnold’s life, and that he deliberately engaged in a worse than dishonest scheme to inflame popular prejudice against the Catholics.