“The vice,” he said, “of backbiting godly ministers, and maligning magistrates, had risen, in consequence of the mistaken leniency of the Court, to an alarming height, so as to threaten the very foundations of their government.  There was not a Satan-instigated railing Rabsheka, who did not now have his daily fling at the servants of the Lord, engaged in much tribulation in planting his vineyard, and there were many saints who were already calling out, O Lord, how long!  They had themselves just been witnesses of the audacity, wherewith, in the very presence of the right worshipful Governor, and the worshipful Assistants, the prisoner had assumed to sit in judgment upon a member of the congregation, and to foul him with abuse.  Never had he dared to exhibit such topping insolence, had he not supposed himself supported by a mutinous spirit from without.  It was a dangerous spirit which, if inflamed by indulgence, would become a deadly boil to poison the whole body politic.  Prick therefore the imposthume at once, and, like wise surgeons, let out the offensive matter.  He was not surprised at the indignation of the worthy Deputy.  It was a zeal unto godliness, and devoutly did he wish, that himself, and all, were more inspired with it.  When he had asked that the prisoner might be permitted to speak freely, it was that every Assistant might be convinced by his own ears of the boldness wherewith rebellion to constituted authority, impudently bursting from the bottomless pit, ventured to obtrude into a court of justice, and to boast of its misdeeds.  Was a child of the covenant of grace, and our brother in Christ, to be reproached with the sins which he had committed when in the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity, and which had been washed out by the blood of the New-Testament?  Nay, then, give a universal license to every lewd fellow, to rake up the sins of your youth, and let him send to England—­that England which spewed us out of her mouth, as if we were not the children of her bowels—­to obtain the proofs.  Had there been no word of evidence, the bare conduct of the prisoner before them was enough to satisfy them of his dangerous character, and he should feel his conscience accusing him of failure in his obligations to the Church and the Colony, were he not to advise exemplary punishment, whereof banishment would be a necessary but the slightest part.”

The speech of Spikeman was evidently acceptable to a majority of the Assistants.  It appealed to the fanaticism of some, and to the fears of others; but there were some on whom it produced no such effect.  Captain Endicott, fierce zealot as he was, found in it something disagreeable.  As his manner was, he stroked with his hand the long tuft on his chin, before he commenced speaking: