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The answer and defence of Timothy Dobson... He was duly elected by the major part of the feoffees appointed for that purpose and allowed of by the major part of the persons concerned therein according to the time intent of the founder... He hath been continually diligent in his place as may appear both by the testimony of most of the inhabitants and by the number of scholars he now hath more than the pretended Schoolmaster brought in by the objectors notwithstanding their threats... to several of the parishioners that they should not send their children to him but to the other, and as to his coming at 9 o clock in a morning he saith that such an objection being made to him he gave some reasons why he had come something late in the morning for some final time before Christmas as his sickness and the ill season of the weather and the condition of his scholars, but then he told them that he taught at home later every day besides Thursday afternoons in compensation thereof... He never gave to any scholar hit with a birch rod. By reason of the ill habit he found the school in he was forced at his first coming to be something more severe than his predecessor had been or than he hath had occasion to be since... At his first coming he tabled at a private house, till his Landlord by reason of some trouble was disabled and since then he hath been forced to table in an alehouse there being no other place in town that is capable that [now] doth table any person whatsoever refusing gentlemen's sons... To the pretended article concerning Rishton's child, he absolutely denies that ever he gave so much ale to the said child as to make him drunk with any design or purpose but saith that about a month before Christmas he being in an alehouse the boy came in and desiring a glass of ale Timothy gave him one and afterwards another and after the boy had been playing about in the streets for the space of an hour or thereabouts, he came into the same house again and finding some ale in a glass standing upon the table he drank it up, but saith this was not nor could be any prejudice to the boy by reason the boy was for many months afterward in perfect health and died the twelfth of August following.
One day about a fortnight or 3 weeks before Christmas last was twelvemonth, Richard Rishton (this deponent's kinsman) came into a room in Ann Brooke's house being an alehouse in Bury where Mr Dobson was tabled at that time, where this deponent and Dobson were, and took a glass of ale which stood upon the table, and drunk it off, and immediately after he asked for another glass, and Mr Dobson gave it him. Then Richard went from them to play him and came in again into their company and upon his asking of it, Mr Dobson gave him two glasses more, and all this was done in about half an hour's time. After Richard had drunk the first two glasses, this deponent desired Mr Dobson to give him no more for that his father and mother would be angry, to which he answered that he did not care for the pleasing of them or to that purpose. Whilst he was there they did not perceive anything of illness to him but in the way as he went home which was presently after, they found him to stagger, and when he was at home he fell very sick and vomited and seemed to be ill drunk.
After he began to teach school after Christmas last, this deponent did not see Mr Dobson of a month together, at the Church in the forenoon, although he did come in the afternoon, and since that time he hath frequently been absent from Church in the forenoon... He hath heard Mr Dobson several times swear and take God's name in vain... He hath several times seen and observed Mr Dobson, when this deponent hath been preaching, to whisper and laugh, and use irreverent gestures in the church, in so much that this deponent some times did think to give over preaching and come out of the pulpit, and this deponent hath observed the like behaviour in him in the time of divine service also... He saith that being out of the house one day about Michaelmas was a twelvemonth, this deponent's only son, Richard Rishton, being at that time betwixt six and seven years of age, came home out of the town and was ill drunk, so that they got him to bed, where he vomited very much, and after he was something recovered they asked him who had given him that drink, and he answered that Mr Dobson gave it him, and upon the 12th of August following he died, and the physician told this deponent that he died of a surfeit.