counter-plea

Great Western scheme would bring the agricultural area into close touch with the North Wales coalfields was quickly answered by the counter-plea that the independent company could also build a branch from that spot to

The Story of the Cambrian A Biography of a Railway

The plea that England had no right to detain her, or to judge her, that she had a right to seek her own release by any available means, was perfectly sound; the counter-plea that the safety of the State forbade her release, and her attempts to procure war against it justified her destruction, was equally unanswerable.

England under the Tudors

When the defendant is summoned, whether it be his wish to enter a counter-plea or not, he must appear along with the plaintiff before the judge, and within the time fixed by the latter.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Clandestinity-Diocesan Chancery 1840-1916 1913

Lutherans had been offered a copy only under impossible conditions; that they had nevertheless, on the basis of what was heard during the reading, drawn up a "counter-plea, or reply;" this he was now holding in his hands, and he requested that it be read publicly; from it every one might learn "with what strong, irrefutable reasons of Holy Scripture" the Augustana was fortified.

Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church 1894

Far less could he hope to effect anything by violence, since peasants understand no jesting if their beloved acres are touched, and, at the first sign of any intention on his part to disturb their possessions, would quickly have set fire to his house and, moreover, tattooed on his body, with the tines of a pitchfork, a protest to which a counter-plea would scarcely have been possible.

How Women Love (Soul Analysis) Max Simon Nordau 1886