It is urged that they ought to have proceeded by the legal method of calling witnesses; and that the sentence was not only out of all proportion to the offence, but that it ought not to have been executed till persuasion had been tried.

With regard to the former indictment, I do not think that a young man still in statu pupillari, who refused to purge himself of what he must have known to be a serious charge, had any reason to expect from his tutors the formalities of an English court of law.

There is no doubt that the Fellows were satisfied of his being the real author; else they could not have ventured on so summary a measure as expulsion.

Their question was probably intended to give the culprit an occasion for apology, of which they foresaw he would not avail himself.
With regard to the second, it is true that Shelley was amenable to kindness, and that gentle and wise treatment from men whom he respected might possibly have brought him to retract his syllabus.

But it must be remembered that he despised the Oxford dons with all his heart; and they were probably aware of this.