At September Term, 1800, the difficulties in which Judge Preston had become involved culminated in two indictments against him. The first charged the Quaker judge with an assault and battery on Thomas Shields. He was convicted on this, but at the next term a new trial was ordered. The case was then removed to the Circuit Court, and he was there convicted of an assault, and fined twenty dollars. The second indictment was for libels published in July, 1799, on "Thomas MeKean, Esquire, a good, peaceable and worthy citizen of the commonwealth, then Chief Justice, and now Governor thereof." In politics, Judge Preston was a Federalist and McKean a Republican; and the alleged libels were contained in two letters written while the latter was a candidate for Governor. The first letter charged that McKean "was born in Ireland, and is now between seventy and eighty years of age, infirm, and addicted to liquor to great excess." The second referred to the case of John Roberts (1 Dallas 39), who was tried for treason before Chief Justice McKean in September, 1778, convicted, partly on his own confession, and executed; it declared the admission of the prisoner’s confession contrary to law; and strongly opposed MeKean’s election -- "For, as David said, he has blood in his shoes;" -- "Meaning," averred the indictment, "that the said Thomas had taken the life of a man unjustly." The indictment, in this case, was signed by Joseph B. McKean, attorney-general, instead of by the deputy for the county, as was customary. At December Term, 1800, it was removed to the Circuit Court, and the defendant was held in five hundred dollars bail to appear there -- an unusually heavy recognizance for that day, and probably required because the offense was scandalum magnatum. Nothing more, however, appears to have been done in the case.
[Mathews, Alfred: History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties, 1886, p.139.]
[Mathews, Alfred: History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties, 1886, p.139.]