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234 of the petitioners, which was many times adjourned in order to give him an opportunity to be present, but which he declined to attend, on the ground that they had no authority to make the investigation, determined that he had been guilty of extortion, and many other fraudulent, wicked, and corrupt practices and asked for his removal from office. Soon afterwards, on the 19th of October, 1757, Moore wrote a paper, printed in Franklin's Gazette and some other newspapers, in which he fiercely reviewed the action of the Assembly, calling it “virulent and scandalous,” and a “continued string of the severest calumny and most rancorous epithets conceived in all the terms of malice and party rage,” and based upon petitions procured by a member and tool of the Assembly at a tavern when the signers were incapable of knowing what they did. Immediately after the meeting of the new Assembly, which was composed mainly of the same persons as the preceding, a warrant was issued to the sergeant at arms for the arrest of Moore. He was seized at his home at Moore Hall by two armed men one Friday evening, early in January, 1758, hurried away to Philadelphia and there confined in jail. A warrant was also issued for the arrest of Dr. William Smith, provost of the University of Pennsylvania who it was believed had been concerned in the preparation of the libelous address. They were both brought before the Assembly where they refused to make a defence, though Moore admitted that he had written the paper and refused to retract its statements. It was ordered that he should be confined until he should make a recantation, and that the address should be burned by the hangman. They were both given into the custody of the sheriff, with directions that they should not be discharged upon any writ of habeas corpus. They were, however, released in this way,