Penn: I affirm I have broken no law, nor am I guilty of indictmentthat is laid to my charge. And to the end the Bench, the jury, and myself, withthese that hear us, may have a more direct understanding of this procedure, Idesire you would let me know by what law it is you prosecute me, and upon whatlaw you ground my indictment.

Recorder: Upon the common law.

Penn: Where is that common law?

Recorder: You must not think that I am able to run up so many yearsand over so many ajudged cases which we call common law to answer yourcuriosity.

Penn: This answer, I am sure, is very short of my question, for if itbe be common, it should not be hard to produce.

Recorder: Sir, will you plead for you indictment?

Penn: Shall I plead to an indictment that hath no foundation in law?If it contain that law you say I have broken, why should you decline to producethat law, since it will be impossible for the jury to determine or agree tobring in their verdict who have not the law produced by which they shouldmeasure the truth of this indictment, and the guilt or contrary of my fact.

Recorder: You are a saucy fellow. Speak to the indictment.

Penn: I say it is my place to speak to matter of law. I am arraigned aprisoner; my liberty, which is next to life itself, is now concerned; you aremany mouths and ears against me, and if I must not be allowed to make the bestof my case, it is hard. I say again, unless you show me and the people the lawyou ground your indictment upon, I shall take it for granted your proceedingsare merely arbitrary.

Recorder: The question is whether you are guilty of this indictment.

Penn: The question is not whether I am guilty of this indictment, butwhether this indictment be legal. It is too general and imperfect an answer tosay it is the common law, unless we knew both where and what it is. For wherethere is no law there is no transgression, and that law which is not in being isso far from being common that it is no law at all.

Recorder: You are an impertinent fellow. Will you teach the Court whatlaw is? It's lex non scripta, that which many have studies thirty orforty years to know, and would you have me tell you in a moment?

Penn: Certainly if the common law be so hard to be understood, it'sfar from being very common; but if the Lord Coke in his Institutes be ofany consideration, he tells us that common law is common right, and that commonright is the Great Charter privileges...

Recorder: Sir, you are a troublesome fellow , and it is not for thehonor of the Court to suffer you to go on.

Penn: I have asked but one question, and you have not answered me,though the rights and privileges of every Englishman be concerned in it.

Recorder: If I should suffer you to ask questions till tomorrowmorning, you would be never the wiser.

Penn: That is according to what the answers are.

Recorder: Sir, we must not stand to hear you talk all night.

Penn: I design no affront to the Court, but to be heard in my justplea; and I must plainly tell you that if you will deny oyer of that law whichyou suggest I have broken, you do at once deny me an acknowledged right andevidence to the whole world your resolution to sacrifice the privileges ofEnglishmen to your sinister and arbitrary designs.

Recorder: Take him away. My Lord, if you take not some course withthis pestilent fellow to stop his mouth, we shall not be able to do anythingtonight.

Mayor: Take him away, take him away; turn him into the bail-dock.

Penn: These are but so many vain exclamation. Is this justice or truejudgment? Must I therefore be taken away because I plead for the fundamentallaws of England? However, this I leave upon your consciences, who are the juryand my sole judges, that if these ancient fundamental laws, which relate toliberty and property, are not limited to particular persuasions in matters ofreligion, must not indispensably maintained  and observed, who can say hehath the right to the coat upon his back? Certainly our liberties are openly tobe invaded, our wives to be ravished, our children slaved, our families ruined,and our estates led away in triumph by every sturdy beggar and maliciousinformer as their trophies, but our pretended forfeits for conscience' sake. TheLord of heaven and earth will be judge between us in this matter...