Dr. Peters replied: “Sir, do you think it my duty to sign the eighteen articles your son David, at the head of a mob, demanded me to sign?”
The Governor answered: “Yes, by all means.”
Dr. Peters: “Do you wish to have me justify the outrageous action of casting into the sea the teas, the property of English merchants?”
The Governor replied: “Yes; and all friends of America will do it.”
Dr. Peters: “Did your Honour mean to have me guilty of perjury and high treason, by signing those eighteen articles, which you wrote and gave to your son David for me to sign?”
The Governor replied: “Why do you say I wrote those eighteen articles?”
Dr. Peters answered: “Because I read them, and well know your handwriting; and your son David, Major Wright, and Mr. Croker, told me so, and that you had sent them to demand my signature to the paper. I told them I dare not and could not sign them without committing perjury and high treason, and violating my own conscience and God’s laws.”
The Governor replied: “There is no treason in saying that George the Third, King of England, is a ‘Roman Catholic,’ a ‘tyrant,’ and an ‘idiot,’ and has forfeited the crown; that no true friend of America ought to obey him, or any of his laws.”
Dr. Peters here arose and took leave of the Governor, with the Hon. William Hillhouse and Capt. David Tarbox, who had been present during the interview, and, when out of the house, declared they were astonished at the words and conduct of the Governor.
Dr. Peters then rode to the Judges of the Supreme Court sitting at Hertford, Col. Eliphalet Dyer being one of the Judges, and desired the Court to protect him from the mob at Windham, who had ill-used him, and threatened to take his life in four days if he did not sign his name to a paper containing eighteen treasonable articles.