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Essays and addresses

As accessory, he says that the sentence against him, "if put into execution would tend to the utter ruin of the petitioner, his wife and two small children" ; and he humbly prays "that the President and Council would be pleased to grant him a Pardon.

" He was pardoned his crime and re- lieved of "the burning in the hand which by reason thereof he ought to suffer.

" But it seems very clear that so far from being the deluded, misled and innocent victim of some designing brother in the Lodge, Remington was an active mover in the revels The Record proceeds, "But it being observed that in the course of the trial a certain wicked and irreligious paper had been produced and read, which appeared to be composed by the said Remington, who had made the said Daniel Rees repeat the same as part of the form to be gone through on initiating him as a free Mason: the Board therefore agreed that the Pardon should be so restricted as that it might not be pleaded in Bar of any Prosecution that should hereafter be commenced against the said Reming- ton on account of the said scandalous paper.

" This probably was held in terrorem over and would hold for a while, the said John Remington; but the very fact of such a privately-written paper forming part of the ceremony of In- itiation proves that the Lodge was discrete, independent and sole judge of its own ceremonies What became of the unfortunate Dr Jones does not appear ; he appar- ently "took his medicine," too strong for the lawyer.

It may be interesting to some to know that, according to a letter from Vice-President George Bryan to the President of Congress, dated Septem- ber 2nd, 1777, the Quakers who would not promise to support the Revolu- tion, were "mostly in confinement in the Masonic Lodge the whole now arresting will not exceed forty.