(N.B. There has now been placed before the reader the sum and substance of all the litigation in regard to the estate of James Rogers, upon which Miss Caulkins founded her statement regarding “contention” among his children.)
The very next day,[[120]] March 26 (by Superior Court record), while the court is still in session, John Rogers is taking a convert to the Mill Cove for baptism. In doing so, he passes near the house of the sheriff, where he has so recently been a prisoner. Accompanying him are a number of his Society, among them John Bolles, John Rogers, Jr., and James Smith, son of Bathsheba. Time and again, since that notable day in 1677, has John Rogers baptized persons in this Mill Cove, directly under the windows of Governor Saltonstall, so to speak, whose house stands near by on a hillside rising from the cove. Certain lands bordering this cove remain in Rogerene ownership.
If the sheriff and his chief have judged that the heroic treatment of the past eleven months has cooled the ardor of the dissenters, here is unmistakable proof to the contrary. If the sheriff can nip this bold little act in the bud, formally or informally, he may be sure of the governor’s co-operation and hearty commendation. On plea of wishing to speak with John Rogers, he persuades him to enter his house (which, as before said, contains the prison). He then endeavors to force him to enter a door leading into the prison. The friends of John Rogers, who have followed him into the house, Upon seeing the latter purpose on the part of the sheriff, surround their leader, to prevent hands being laid upon him, and others in the tavern join them in declaring that no arrest can legally be made without a warrant. The sheriff leaves, with the avowed purpose of going to the court-room (meeting-house) for a “mittimus.” Here, within this brief period of time, are two outrages upon the law; first, an attempt to take a prisoner without a warrant; second, to seek warrant for an arrest not authorized by law; the only penalty concerning such baptism being a fine after the occurrence of said baptism; imprisonment following only in event of non-payment of the fine. Well may the victim turn and follow the sheriff to the court-room.
The sheriff, being somewhat ahead, has already made out a case, so far as the judge is concerned; nothing more having been necessary than to state the attempted baptism. Taking into account all that he has suffered of late from unjust and despotic procedures on the part of the courts, John Rogers enters the court-room (meeting-house) fully prepared to denounce this latest outrage.[[121]]
Vain against the power and determination of Governor Saltonstall are the ringing tones in which this departure from the written law of the land is condemned. But well has John Rogers calculated that, in the presence of all these witnesses, the judge will not venture to issue the illegal warrant for his arrest. The judge goes on, however, to sign a warrant (“mittimus”). Although he dare not arrest John Rogers because of the attempted baptism, he has now a better excuse and more personal determination also; since John Rogers has dared to enter the court-room to again publicly denounce official procedures. He signs a warrant for the arrest of John Rogers, on the charge of Madness!
Well might all the proceedings of the past year, capped by this, make mad the sanest man, in both senses of the word. The sheriff claims his prisoner and leads him from the court-room.
A crowd follows sheriff and prisoner to the jail. An uproar ensues when the window of the prison is darkened by a plank, and that same plank is broken down by the mob. The appeal of John Rogers, in the court-room, for the rights of the citizen, has not been made in vain. All praise to that English lieutenant, who goes to the Superior Court, still in session, to ask for an adequate examination of this prisoner, that it may be seen he is under no distraction. The assurance is returned that the prisoner shall be brought before the governor in the evening (when danger from the mob may be avoided) for a private examination regarding his sanity, by the very man who has invented this charge of lunacy! Of the absurdity of the promised examination, the lieutenant probably knows little or nothing; but others understand. This evening interview will make the friends of the governor laugh in their sleeves, while friends of John Rogers discern a new insult and injury, under this so transparent cloak of fairness.
Even after dark, the prisoner’s convoy to the house of the governor is beset with indignant sympathizers, who follow into the very yard of the governor, where, after the prisoner’s entrance to the house, they have to be dispersed.
These two men, under these circumstances, stand face to face, behind closed doors, the one knowing as well as the other that the only fault or distraction of which John Rogers is guilty is the old crime of nonconformity. (Would that this remarkable scene and conversation had been revealed for the benefit of future history.)
After this “examination,” the prisoner is returned to the sheriff, to be taken to his “house.” With such friendly demonstrations among the people, John Rogers cannot be confined as a common malefactor or madman, in the prison at said “house”; he is even allowed the freedom of the yard during the sheriff’s continued attendance upon the court, which is sufficiently significant of the known falsity of the charge of insanity.