Captain James Rogers appears to be as much opposed as his brother John to keeping persons in lifelong bondage.[[111]] James, Jr., will take any legal action yet possible to rescue Joan and her children.
Among other things, outspoken dissent to certain state church doctrines and usages will be far less prominent with John Rogers behind the bars. Popular opinion appears to have proven unfavorable to continued persecution on religious grounds, ever since John, Jr., went “up and down the colony” selling that little book. The case regarding Joan has been a fortunate happening for Governor Saltonstall and his friends.
Although, by the sentence, the trial for contempt was to be before the Superior Court at New Haven in October, we find it taking place at a session of this court in New London, September 25, in the meeting-house.[[112]]
John Rogers asks to be tried by a jury, choosing the one then sitting, but Judge Saltonstall denies him trial by jury,—John Rogers has too many friends in these parts. There must be no means of escape for the opponent he has so often bled before, and would fain bleed to the death. He pronounces judgment in a fine of £20 and costs of prosecution, and a bond of £100 “for good behavior” until the March session of the same court, with imprisonment at prisoner’s expense,—unless he give surety for the bond, which Gurdon Saltonstall well knows he will not do, thereby to acknowledge that he has been “misbehaving” himself. All this is (by the court record) because John Rogers “falsely and slanderously declared in court that the sentence of said court against himself and John Jackson was ‘rebellion against her Majesty.’”
They examine the deeds to find suitable land to take in execution for this fine of £20, and discovering such land, by Upper Alewife Cove, that was sold to “John Rogers,” they proceed to claim it for the Colony of Connecticut. John, Jr., in vain assures them that he himself bought this land, with his own money, and it is also in vain that he presents the original deed, in the copying of which, upon the town records, the clerk omitted the word Jr. Nor will his father’s after affirmation in court that he himself made out this deed, and wrote the Jr. therein, secure its release. Moreover, as John Rogers himself declares ([Part I., Chapter VI.]), they kept the original deed presented in proof, and, after John, Jr., had paid them their price for the redemption of this land, viz., £20—as proven by court record—they took this very land again for another fine of £20.[[113]] Here are indications of the bitterest venom on the part of those in power, at this period, yet no complaint on the records regarding “servile labor, etc.,” or baptisms, or “blasphemy,” or any other nonconformity.
By these signs it may be judged that never was the influence of John Rogers more feared than at this very period, yet never also were the authorities more cautious regarding complaints and actions against him on avowedly ecclesiastical grounds.
CHAPTER VIII.
1711.
We left John Rogers on his way back to prison, there to remain until the March term of the Superior Court, because he would not promise “good behavior” (“as if I had misbehaved myself.” [Part I., Chapter V.]).
Against tyranny in high places, there is ever at hand the one highest appeal, that to the public at large, where is always in reserve a good measure of sympathy and sense of justice. Not only is our hero stirred through and through by this personal and ecclesiastical thrust, under guise of righteous administration of law, on the part of an official who has for so many years occupied the position of a reverend preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ; but he knows well of this last appeal, which has heretofore stood him in good stead against the bitter edicts of these half—if not wholly—ecclesiastical courts. Though as yet there are no newspapers, there are eyes to see, ears to hear, and tongues to carry fast and far.