e said, might be shaken out of the breeches pocket
of the bailiff when he was ditched, but that whether it was or was not
so, he was no judge, for he never saw any of it. That as to any design
of breaking open Sir Isaac Tilliard's house, he was innocent of that
also. In fine, he owned that the judgment of God was exceeding just for
the many offences he committed, but that the sentence of the Law was too
severe, because, as he understood it, he had done nothing culpable
within the intent of the Statute on which he died. After this, he
inveighed for some time against bailiffs, and then crying with vehemency
to God to receive his spirit, he gave up the ghost on the 4th of
January, 1724-5.

However the death of Towers might prevent people committing such acts as
breaking open the houses of bailiffs, and setting prisoners at liberty,
yet it did not quite stifle or destroy those attempts which necessitous
people made for screening themselves from public justice, insomuch that
the Government were obliged at last to cause a Bill to be brought into
Parliament for the preventing such attempts for the future, whereupon in
the 11th year of the late King, it passed into a law to this effect:

That if any number of persons not less than three, associate themselves
together in the hamlet of Wapping, Stepney, or in any other place within
the bills of mortality, in order to shelter themselves from their debts,
after complaint made thereof by presentment of a grand jury, and should
obstruct any officer legally empowered and authorised in the execution
of any writ or warrant against any person whatsoever, and in such
obstructing or hindering should hurt, wound or injure any person; then
any offender convicted of such offence, should suffer as a felon and be
transported for seven years in like manner as other persons are so
convicted. And it is further enacted by the same law that upon
application made to the judge of any Court, out of which the writs
therein mentioned are issued, the aforesaid judge, if he see proper, may
grant a warrant directly to the sheriff, or other person proper to raise
the _posse comitatus_, where there is any probability of resistance. And
if in the execution of such warrant any disturbance should happen, and a
rescue be made, then the persons assisting in such rescue, or who
harbour or conceal the persons so rescued, shall be transported for
seven years in like manner as if convicted of felony, but all
indictme