In vain did the magistrates of the town of Dordrecht claim their right of jurisdiction over their fellow-citizen.

Cornelius van Witt was put to the torture to make him confess his crime.

'You will not force me to confess a thing I never even thought of," he said, whilst the pulleys were dislocating his limbs.

His baffled judges heard him repeating Horace's ode: _Just um et tenacem propositi virum_.

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