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When I had told Sir Benjamin Titchborn that I came from Justice Fotherly, and requested him to give him a meeting to consider of my business, he readily, without any hesitation, told me he would go with me to Rickmansworth, from which his house was distant about a mile, and calling for his horses, mounted immediately, and to Rickmansworth we rode.

I found this man to be of quite another temper than Justice Fotherly; for he was smooth, soft, and oily, whereas the other was rather rough, severe, and sharp. Yet at the winding-up I found Fotherly my truest friend.

Early therefore in the morning I rode over; but being wholly a stranger to the justices, I went first to Watford, that I might take Ayrs along with me, who supposed himself to have some interest in Justice Titchborn, and when I came there, understanding that another Friend of that town, whose name was John Wells, was well acquainted with the other Justice Fotherly, having imparted to them the occasion of my coming, I took them both with me, and hasted back to Rickmansworth, where having put our horses up at an inn, and leaving William Ayrs, who was a stranger to Fotherly, there, I went with John Wells to Fotherly's house, and being brought into a fair hall, I tarried there while Wells went into the parlour to him, and having acquainted him that I was there and desired to speak with him, brought him to me with severity in his countenance.

He thereupon communicated both the book and his thoughts upon it to a neighbouring justice, living in Rickmansworth, whose name was Thomas Fotherly, who concurring with him in judgment, they concluded that I should be taken up and prosecuted for it as a seditious book; for a libel they could not call it, my name being to it at length.