Chapter XVI: Front Matter (16)

‘And though these innocent lambs of Christ suffer thus under
this present power, yet are they not enemies to you, but are
friends to your persons and families, and pity you, and love you,
and desire well for you in the Lord; that you may repent and
be healed, and even that your hearts may be opened to receive
refreshments to your souls; and that you may be established in
righteousness and truth over all your enemies, and may not be
confounded, nor your posterity brought into reproach, which is
hastening unto you: and though our love be despised, and we
accounted hateful in your sight, and looked upon with derision,
yet we bear all things in patience, truly desiring your returning
and repentance, and not your destruction. But if these doleful
sufferings of the Lord’s poor lambs be continued by this present
power, it will destroy you, and undo you, and break you, and
confound you; and the Lord will not cease to smite you with his
rod of sharp rebukes; and he will make you know his people’s
cause shall not be unpunished. Oh, did you but know how hundreds
have and do suffer! How the bodies of some have been tortured by
stocks and cruel whippings! And how some lie sick in stinking
holes and dungeons, on the ground, or a little straw at best;
ten, or often more, in a prison together, and sometimes their
own friends not suffered to come to visit them with necessaries!
Oh, did but your eyes behold, or your hearts perceive, the
greatness of the cruelty which some of the Lord’s dear servants,
and your faithful friends, undergo, it would make your hearts
ache, and your spirits to tremble! And all this is done in
the name and under the authority of--Protector; therefore how
should the Lord but lay it to your charge, and afflict him and
his family? He will make you know there is a God that can do
whatsoever he will, and that life and death are in his hands,
and all creatures are as clay in the hand of the potter; and he
rules in the kingdoms of men, and putteth down one, and setteth
up another, according to his pleasure: but if the love of God be
withholden from you, it is because of disobedience to him, and
your transgression. Wherefore be obedient to him, and love his
ways and judgments, that he may make you more happy with a crown
immortal, that never fades away. And remember once more the Lord
hath warned you, by a friend unto you in the Lord.

E. BURROUGH.’

Written the 1st day of September,
1658.

Cromwell was snatched away by death at unawares; however the day before his decease this letter was delivered to his relations. It was not but in the last period of his life that he named his son Richard to be his successor. And when death looked in his face, remorse did not stay behind; for, according to what Ludlow relates, he seemed above all concerned for the reproaches, (he said,) men would cast upon his name, in trampling on his ashes when dead. In this temper of mind he departed this life about two in the afternoon, on the 3d of September, at the age of about fifty-five years. The news of his death being brought to those who were met together to pray for him, one Sterry stood up, and said, ‘This is good news; because if he was of great use to the people of God when he was amongst us, now he will be much more so, being ascended to heaven, there to intercede for us.’ O horrid flattery! Thus I call it, if he had been the greatest saint on earth; which he came much short of, though he was once endued with some eminent virtues. His dying day was remarkable by a most grievous tempest, not only in England, but also in the Low countries, where trees were torn out of the ground by the violence of the wind, and many ships foundered. ‘He was,’ saith Edward, Earl of Clarendon, ‘one of those persons whom even his enemies could not vilify without praising him.’ And I have heard impartial men say, that in the beginning of his achievements, he was indeed an excellent man; but being come to a high station, he soon lost that zeal for the public welfare, by which at first he seemed to be animated.

The body of the deceased was laid in Somerset House, in an apartment enlightened only with wax tapers, the corpse being richly adorned.

After his death, Richard, eldest son to Oliver, was proclaimed Protector of the Commonwealth; to whom E. Burrough wrote a letter, superscribed to Richard Cromwell, chosen to be protector and chief magistrate, &c. wherein he gave him some account of the most cruel sufferings of his friends; and speaking of the rulers, he saith thus:

‘As for magistracy, it was ordained of God to be a dread and
terror, and limit to evil-doers, and to be a defence and praise
to all that do well; to condemn the guilty, and to justify the
guiltless; but the exercise thereof at this day in these nations
is degenerated, and some that are in authority are greatly
corrupted, and regard not the just and pure law of God, to judge
only thereby; but oppress the poor by injustice, and subvert
the good laws of God and men to a wrong end and use, abusing
authority, and turning the sword against the just, whereby true
judgment is turned backward, and the innocent made unjustly
to suffer for righteousness sake, through the corruption of
men in authority; and didst thou but know what we know in this
particular, it would pierce thy heart. Why? It is frequent
among some of the judges and magistrates, to commit a man to
prison, and impose some great fine upon him, and to cast him
into a dungeon, or hole, among thieves and murderers, for a long
season; for no other offence, or breach of any law, but because
he cannot put off his hat to them, and respect their persons, by
the hat or bowing the knee: and many others that fear God, and
for conscience sake cannot swear upon a book, by kissing it, and
laying hands upon it, because Christ saith, “Swear not at all;”
though they deny not to speak and do the truth in all things,
as in the presence of God and all men: and many others, that
because they are moved to cry against sin, and declare against
the iniquities of the times, in teachers, rulers, and people,
that highly abound; perhaps in a market or steeple-house, or
highway, or other places, as they are moved of God: and many
others, because for conscience sake they cannot pay tithes, nor
give money and wages to maintain a priest, or false teacher, that
they receive no profit by; or to maintain a steeple-house, where
the world worships in vain traditions, and not in the spirit and
power of God: and many have been taken out of peaceable meetings,
where they were waiting upon the Lord; and some out of their
inns and friends’ houses; and many have been taken on the way,
travelling about their lawful occasions; and some from their
callings and labours; and for these causes, through the envy of
wicked men, and without any just conviction of the breach of any
law, or any lawful trial or examination, have hundreds of just
men, being wholly innocent, been sent to prison, and lain many
months, and some for years; or whipped, or put in the stocks,
and grievously abused by cruel executioners of wicked men’s envy
and injustice. And upon such grounds only, and for such causes
mentioned, and without the transgression of any just law, have
and do at this day many hundreds of faithful subjects suffer hard
and cruel things, long and sore imprisonment, and cruel and sharp
whipping, and stocking, and unjust banishment out of towns and
cities; yea, friend, it is hard to be expressed, and large to be
declared, how many of the Lord’s servants do, and have suffered
great injustice in these nations, through the abuse of good
government, and degeneration of magistracy from its perfect state
and place, whereunto it was ordained of God in the beginning,’ &c.

This remonstrance, how powerful and large soever, had not its due effect; but persecution continued, without being stopped by him: for the churchmen fawned upon him, calling him not only their Joshua, but the preachers of Suffolk said in their address to him, ‘Though our sun is gone down, yet no night ensued.’ _Sol occubuit, nox nulla secuta est._

About this time was given forth a paper, called, The Church Faith; and G. Fox having got a copy of it before it was published, wrote an answer to it; and when the book of the church faith appeared, his answer was also in print. This so incensed some of the parliament men, that one of them told G. Fox, they must have him to Smithfield. To which he answered, that he was over their fires, and feared them not: and further asked, whether all the people had been without a faith these sixteen hundred years, that now the priests must make them one? And since Christ Jesus was the author of the apostles’ faith, and of the church’s faith in the primitive times, and of the martyrs’ faith; should not all people look unto him to be the author and finisher of their faith, and not unto the priests? Nothing material was answered to this; but the priests called G. Fox’s friends, house-creepers, because they met together in houses, and would not maintain the priests’ temples. One major Wiggan, that was present when G. Fox discoursed with the parliament men, said, Christ had taken away the guilt of sin, but had left the power of sin remaining in us. G. Fox told him this was strange doctrine; for Christ came to destroy the devil and his works, and the power of sin, and so to cleanse men from sin.

Now there was great persecution, both by imprisonment and breaking up of meetings; and many died in prisons; for the priests speaking evil of the Quakers, it did kindle the insolence of the rabble not a little, so that they did not stick to throw squibs into the meetings, to cast rotten eggs on those that were met, to beat on drums and kettles, and so to make hideous noise, and to abuse people most grievously with blows and violent pushes.

One day there being a meeting appointed near London, they beat and abused about eighty persons that came out of the city to meet there, tearing their coats and cloaks from off their backs, and throwing them into ditches and ponds. The next First-day of the week after this, G. Fox, though at that time very weak, went thither, and preaching with the bible in his hand, he showed the rude people, their, and their teachers’ fruits, and how disagreeable these mad actions were to the doctrine contained in the Holy Scriptures. Many of his imprisoned friends were now brought up to London to be tried by the committee; where sir Henry Vane, being chairman, would not suffer them to come in, except they would put off their hats. But since many of them had been imprisoned upon contempts, (as the not putting off hats before magistrates was called,) others signified that it must not be expected that now they should comply; and so through the mediation of some that persuaded Vane, they were at length admitted; where they so well defended their cause, that several were set at liberty.

Sufferings now growing very sharp, G. Fox, to encourage his friends, wrote the following lines to them:

‘My dear friends, every where scattered abroad, in prison, or out
of prison, fear not, because of the reports of sufferings; let
not the evil spies of the good land make you afraid, if they tell
you the walls are high, and that there be Anakims in the land;
for at the blowing of the ram’s horns did the walls of Jericho
fall down; and they that brought the evil report, perished in
the wilderness. But dwell ye in the faith, patience, and hope,
having the word of life to keep you, which is beyond the law;
and having the oath of God, his covenant, Christ Jesus, which
divides the waters asunder; and makes them to run all on heaps;
in that stand, and ye shall see all things work together for
good, to them that love God; and in that triumph when sufferings
come, whatever they be: your faith, your shield, your helmet,
your armour you have on; ye are ready to skip over a mountain, or
a wall, or an hill, and to walk through the deep waters, though
they be heaps upon heaps: for the evil spies of the good land
may preach up hardness, but Caleb, which signifies an heart, and
Joshua, a saviour, triumph over all.

G. F.’

There was at that time great discord among those that were at the helm of government; and G. Fox relates, that he did then foresee the king’s coming in again; and that therefore when some forward spirits, who frequented the meetings of his friends, would have bought Somerset House to keep meetings in, he dissuaded them from it. There came also a woman to him, who having, (as she said,) had a revelation concerning the restoring of king Charles, three years before he came in, said, she must go to him to declare it: but G. Fox advised her to keep this revelation to herself, since if she went on such a message, it would have been counted treason.

How the corpse of Oliver Cromwell was laid in Somerset House to be seen, hath been said already; but afterwards an image of him lying there in state, was accompanied with trumpeters, who sounded over the said image. This vanity so grieved G. Fox, that he wrote the following lines to the authors thereof:

‘Oh friends, what are ye doing! And what mean ye to sound before
an image! Will not all sober people think ye are like mad people?
Oh, how am I grieved with your abomination! Oh, how am I wearied!
‘My soul is wearied with you,’ saith the Lord, ‘will I not be
avenged of you, think ye, for your abominations? Oh, how have ye
plucked down, and set up! Oh, how are your hearts made whole, and
not rent; and how are ye turned to fooleries! Which things in
times past ye stood over: therefore how have ye left my dread,’
saith the Lord. O, therefore, fear, and repent, lest the snare
and the pit take you all. The great day of the Lord is come upon
all your abominations, and the swift hand of the Lord is turned
against them all. The sober people in the nation stand amazed at
your doings, and are ashamed, as if you would bring in popery.

G. F.’

Sometime after this, the funeral of O. Cromwell was solemnized with very great pomp, not at all agreeable to that condition he was once in; for the time was when he would have abhorred such an idolatrous honour as was now paid to his image. On the day of this pompous funeral, which was the 23d of November, it happened that Edward Burrough came riding from Kingston into London, not knowing any thing of what was done there. As he entered at Charing-cross, he beheld a great multitude of people thronging exceedingly, the streets being filled as far as he could see, and abundance gazing at the windows, and upon the balconies, and house tops. There were also guards of horse and foot that stopped his horse, and it was told him, that he might not pass that way. Yet he did not know what was the matter; but at length he perceived that Cromwell’s image, richly adorned, was to be carried that way towards Westminster. The consideration of this, was like an arrow which pierced his breast: and because of this idolatry, he felt such a fire kindled in him, that he was, as it were, filled with the indignation of the Lord, whose fury ran through him, to cry, Plagues, plagues, and vengeance against the authors of this abomination. Nay, so ardent was his zeal, that if he had been moved to it, and it had been possible to have done it, he could, (not at all minding his own life,) have ridden through the guards and multitude, to have sounded the judgments of God against the idolaters. And considering that all this sinful idolatry, was about the funeral of Oliver Cromwell: ‘Alas, for him,’ said Burrough with himself, ‘who was once a great instrument in the hand of the Lord, to break down many idolatrous images! Did not the Lord once stir up his heart against all such things? And did not once his children, officers, soldiers and army, pull down all the images and crosses, and all such like popish stuff, wherever they met with it? What grievous and abominable work is this? Have they now made a costly image of him? And are such as were once his soldiers now guarding it, and watching over it, and his children and officers following it, and multitude of the inhabitants of London wondering and gazing after an image of him? This is sad, and great pity: what a change is this in so short a time?’

This zealous testimony E. Burrough caused to be printed, whereby he raised to himself a more lasting monument, than by the erecting of a statue was made to his quondam friend O. Cromwell. Now since the persecution of E. Burrough’s friends, notwithstanding that he had written to Richard Cromwell, did not cease, and that all exhortations and warnings were rejected, E. Burrough in the month December, wrote the following lines to Richard and his council:

_‘To the Protector and his Council._

‘The Lord God will shortly make you know that we are his people;
though we be accounted as sheep for the slaughter, yet our king
of righteousness will break you to pieces, if you harden your
hearts, and repent not. And though that love will not draw thee,
neither the gentle leadings of our God have any place in you, yet
judgments shall awaken you, and his heavy hand of indignation
shall lie upon your consciences, and you will be scattered and
distracted to pieces.

E. BURROUGH.’

How soon this prediction was fulfilled, we shall see in the next year; for it was but a few months after the delivering of this letter, when Richard laid down the government.

In the meanwhile we will take again a view of the persecution in New England. There was, as hath been said already, a fine settled of five shillings a week to be paid for not coming to church, as it was called. And thus from time to time occasion was found to use cruelty against the inhabitants, though none of those called Quakers came from abroad. William Shattock, a shoemaker at Boston, being on a First-day of the week, found in his house, instead of coming to the public worship, was hauled to the house of correction; where, at his first entrance, he was cruelly whipped, and then kept to work, whilst his wife and innocent children were in want because of his absence. In the meantime the deputy-governor, Richard Bellingham, did not stick to say to William’s wife, that since he was poor, and could not pay five shillings a week for not coming to church, they would continue him in prison. Thus was verified that saying of Solomon, “cruel are the mercies of the wicked.” Bellingham also endeavoured to persuade this woman, that what her husband had done, was to be rid of her, and therefore advised her to disown him. Now these persecutors began to have abundance of business; and taking away of goods, and cruel whippings became almost daily work, which was performed without regard of age or sex; all which to relate would exceed my limits.

Two women, named Sarah Gibbons, and Dorothy Waugh, being come to Boston, and having in the public meeting-place, after the lecture was ended, spoken a few words, were brought to the house of correction, and three days before their being whipped, and three days after, were kept from victuals, though they had offered to pay for them. And when Sarah afterward asked the governor, John Endicot, whether this was justice or equity: adding, that by this all might see that God was with them, that they were thus preserved without food; and if they perished, their blood would fall heavy on those that were the occasion thereof; he answered, that he mattered it not.

Not long after, Hored Gardner, an inhabitant of Newport, in Rhode Island, came with her sucking babe, and a girl to carry it, to Weymouth: from whence, for being a Quaker, she was hurried to Boston, where both she and the girl were whipped with a three-fold knotted whip. After whipping, the woman kneeled down, and prayed the Lord to forgive those persecutors: which so reached a woman that stood by, that she said, surely she could not have done this, if it had not been by the Spirit of the Lord.

But when should I have done, if I would describe all the whippings inflicted on the Quakers, so called, in those parts! For now a law was made, which furnished continual work to the persecutors there. The contents thereof were, that whosoever of the inhabitants should directly or indirectly cause any of the Quakers to come into that jurisdiction, he should forfeit an hundred pounds to the country, and be committed to prison, there to remain till the penalty should be satisfied. And whosoever should entertain them, knowing them to be so, should forfeit forty shillings to the country for every hour’s entertaining or concealment; and be committed to prison till the forfeiture should be fully paid and satisfied. And further, that all and every of those people that should arise among them there, should be dealt withal, and suffer the like punishment as the laws provided for those that came in, viz. That for the first offence, if a male, one of his ears should be cut off, and be kept at work in the house of correction, till he should be sent away on his own charge. For the second, the other ear, and be kept in the house of correction as aforesaid. If a woman, then to be severely whipped, and kept as aforesaid, as the male, for the first; and for the second offence to be dealt withal as the first. And for the third, he or she should have their tongues bored through with an hot iron, and be kept in the house of correction, close at work, till they be sent away on their own charge.

In the latter part of the Fifth month, it came to pass, that William Brend and William Leddra, having been at Salem, came to Newbury; where, at the house of one Robert Adams, they had a conference with the priest, in the presence of captain Gerish, who had promised that they should not suffer; but after the conference was ended, the captain would not let them go, but on promise presently to depart the town; which, being loth to comply with, as they were on their way, they were sent for back, and captain Gerish riding after them, commanded them to return: which they refusing, he compelled them thereunto, and sent them with a constable to Salem; where, being brought before the magistrates, they were asked whether they were Quakers; to which they answered, that they were such that were in scorn called so. Next it was objected to them, that they maintained dangerous errors. They asking what these were, it was told them, that they not only denied that Christ at Jerusalem had suffered on the cross, but also that they denied the Holy Scriptures. They boldly contradicted this, and said they owned no other Jesus but he that had suffered death at Jerusalem, and that they also owned the Scriptures.

Now, although nothing could be objected against this, yet they were carried to the house of correction, as such who, according to the law made at Boston, might not come into those parts. Some days after they were carried to Boston, where in the next month they were brought into the house of correction, to work there. But they unwilling to submit thereto, the jailer, who sought his profit from the work of his prisoners, would not give them victuals, though they offered to pay for them. But he told them, it was not their money, but their labour he desired. Thus he kept them five days without food, and with a three-corded whip gave them twenty blows. An hour after he told them, they might go out, if they would pay the marshal that was to lead them out of the country. They judging it very unreasonable to pay money for being banished, refused this, but yet said, that if the prison-door was set open, they would go away.

The next day the jailor came to W. Brend, a man in years, and put him in irons, neck and heels so close together, that there was no more room left between each, than for the lock that fastened them. Thus he kept them from five in the morning, till after nine at night, being the space of sixteen hours. The next morning he brought him to the mill to work, but Brend refusing, the jailer took a pitched rope about an inch thick, and gave him twenty blows over his back and arms, with as much force as he could, so that the rope untwisted; and then, going away, he came again with another rope, that was thicker and stronger, and told Brend, that he would cause him to bow to the law of the country, and make him work. Brend judged this not only unreasonable in the highest degree, since he had committed no evil, but he was altogether unable to work: for he wanted strength for want of food; having been kept five days without eating, and whipt also, and now thus unmercifully beaten with a rope. But this inhuman jailer relented not, but began to beat anew with his pitched rope, on this bruised body, and foaming at his mouth like a madman, with violence laid fourscore and seventeen blows more on him, as other prisoners that beheld it with compassion, have told; and if his strength, and his rope had not failed him, he would have laid on more; he threatened also to give him the next morning as many blows more. But a higher power, who sets limits even to the raging sea, and hath said, “hitherto thou shalt come, but no further,” also limited this butcherly fellow; who was yet impudently stout enough to say his morning prayer. To what a most terrible condition these blows brought the body of Brend, who because of the great heat of the weather, had nothing but a serge cassock upon his shirt, may easily be conceived; his back and arms were bruised and black, and the blood hanging as in bags under his arms; and so into one was his flesh beaten, that the sign of a particular blow could not be seen; for all was become as a jelly. His body being thus cruelly tortured, he lay down upon the boards, so extremely weakened, that the natural parts decaying, and strength quite failing, his body turned cold: there seemed as it were a struggle between life and death; his senses were stopped, and he had for some time neither seeing, feeling, nor hearing, till at length a divine power prevailing, life broke through death, and the breath of the Lord was breathed into his nostrils.

Now, the noise of this cruelty spread among the people in the town, and caused such a cry, that the governor sent his surgeon to the prison, to see what might be done; but the surgeon found the body of Brend in such a deplorable condition, that, as one without hopes, he said, his flesh would rot from off his bones, ere the bruised parts could be brought to digest. This so exasperated the people, that the magistrates, to prevent a tumult, set up a paper on their meeting-house door, and up and down the streets, as it were to show their dislike of this abominable, and most barbarous cruelty; and said, the jailer should be dealt withal the next court. But this paper was soon taken down again upon the instigation of the high-priest, John Norton, who having from the beginning been a fierce promoter of the persecution, now did not stick to say, ‘W. Brend endeavoured to beat our gospel ordinances black and blue, if he then be beaten black and blue, it is but just upon him; and I will appear in his behalf that did so.’ It is therefore not much to be wondered at, that these precise and bigoted magistrates, who would be looked upon to be eminent for piety, were so cruel in persecuting, since their chief teacher thus wickedly encouraged them to it.

In the meanwhile it pleased God, even miraculously to heal W. Brend, and to keep him alive; but as if the hearts of these persecutors were more hardened thereby, to show themselves obedient followers of their teacher, they made an order, that the jailer, if the Quakers that were in his custody refused to work, should whip them twice a week, the first time with ten lashes, the next time with fifteen, and so at each time with three more, till they would work. This was performed on four persons, two of which were William Leddra and John Rous, who may be mentioned hereafter. And to keep the passionate jailer within due bounds, forsooth, it was ordered that each time he should warn two constables to see the execution. But how little moderation was truly meant, and that this was more like a jest, may appear in that the jailer the first time laid fifteen lashes apiece on the said persons, and so added five stripes to the first number of ten.

It happened about this time, that some of the people called Quakers that lived there, being had before the magistrates, it was demanded by one of them, how they might know a Quaker; to which Simon Broadstreet, one of the magistrates, answered, ‘Thou art one, for coming in with thy hat on.’ Which made the other reply, it was a horrible thing to make such cruel laws, to whip and cut off ears, and bore through the tongue, for not putting off the hat. Then one of the bench said, that the Quakers held forth blasphemies at their meetings. To which one of the others desired him to make such a thing appear, if it were so, that they might be convinced: and further, that they should do well to send some to their meetings, that they might hear, and give account of what was done and spoken there; and not conclude of a thing they knew not. ‘But,’ said major-general Denison, ‘if ye meet together, and say any thing, we may conclude that ye speak blasphemy.’ A very strange syllogism indeed. No better, (to prove persecution lawful,) was the argument of Charles Chansey, chief teacher at the university, who in a sermon at Boston, argued thus: ‘suppose you should catch six wolves in a trap, and ye cannot prove that they killed either sheep or lambs: and now you have them they will neither bark nor bite: yet they have the plain marks of wolves, and therefore ye knock them down.’ A base expression, thus to compare man to a beast; for God said in plain terms to Noah, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” But these persecutors thought there was stress enough in it to call the Quakers wolves; and to make one pass for a Quaker, they counted it a sufficient proof, when they saw he did not put off his hat to men; ‘Knock him down, it is a wolf.’

And if the hat was not found fault with, something else was thought on; for at Salem twelve persons were fined forty pounds nineteen shillings, for not coming to church; and of others much money was extorted, because their wives absented themselves from the public worship. William Marston, of Hampton, was fined ten pounds for two books found in his house, viz. John Lilburn’s resurrection, and W. Dewsbury’s Mighty Day of the Lord. Thus these people did whatever they would, without any regard to the laws in Old England: and when once some prisoners appealed to it, the governor, John Endicot, and his deputy Bellingham, cried, ‘No appeal to England! No appeal to England.’ And they seemed to fear nothing for what they did to the Quakers: according to what major-general Denison said in open court, ‘This year you will go and complain to the parliament, the next year they will send some to see how things go, and in the third year the government will be changed.’ Now they not at all caring for Old England, denied also the prisoners their request of being tried according to the laws of that realm, by a jury. And the rulers dealing thus arbitrarily, the jailer of the house of correction did the like; for when some of his prisoners showed themselves not unwilling to work, provided that their families should have something of the gain, he would not allow that, unless they paid him eight-pence for every twelve-pence gain: and when they refused this, the whipping-post was his refuge.

But to go on: in the foregoing year mention was made of John Copeland, and Christopher Holder, these coming in the sixth month to Dedham, lodged there one night; but the next day, were taken up by a constable, and carried to Boston, where being brought before the governor, he said in a rage, ‘Ye shall be sure to have your ears cut off.’ Not long after, John Rous came again to Boston, but was shortly after taken, and committed to prison. On the 17th of September, he, with Holder, and Copeland, were brought before the magistrates in the court, where the deputy-governor told them, that they, in contempt of the magistrates and ministers, being come there again to seduce the people, might know that whatever befel them, whether the loss of their ears, or of their lives, their blood would be upon their own heads. They denying this, and saying, that the Lord had sent them hither, the governor, Endicot, said, ‘You are greater enemies to us, than those that come openly; since under pretence of peace, you come to poison the people.’ Being asked for proof that the Lord had sent them they replied, that it was some kind of proof that the Lord had sent them, because they met with such entertainment as Christ had told his disciples would be meted to them, for his name sake, viz. whipping, &c. To this, major-general Denison said, ‘Then when malefactors are whipt, they suffer for Christ’s sake.’ Then John Rous, whose father was a lieutenant-colonel in Barbadoes, said, ‘If we were evil-doers, the judgments of God would be heavier upon us than those we suffer by you.’ To which major Denison replied, ‘Mr. Rous, (for so I may call you, having heard your father is a gentleman,) what judgment of God do you look for greater than is upon you, to be driven from your father’s house, and to run about here as a vagabond, with a company of deceivers, except you look for a halter?’ To this Rous said, ‘I was not driven from my father’s house, but in obedience to the Lord I left it; and when the Lord shall have cleared me of this land, I shall return to it again.’ Then Endicot called to the secretary to read the law, who thereupon read this clause in it, that if any that had suffered the law, should presume to return again, they should have one of their ears cut off. Some more words were spoken, and among the rest, Endicot said, ‘The Quakers have nothing to prove their commission by, but the spirit within them, and that is the devil.’ And when one of the prisoners said, ‘We have seen some of your laws, that have many scriptures in the margin; but what example have you in Scripture for cutting off ears?’ Endicot asked, ‘What Scripture is there for hanging?’ To which Denison said scoffing, ‘Yes, they would be crucified.’ Then Endicot called the three prisoners by name, and said in great passion, ‘It is the sentence of the court, that you three have each of you his right ear cut off by the hangman.’ Then they were carried to the prison, and on the 16th of September, the Marshal’s deputy came thither, letting as many come in as he thought meet; and when the doors were made fast, the said marshal read the following order:

‘To the marshal-general, or his deputy: you are to take with you
the executioner, and repair to the house of correction, and there
see him cut off the right ears of John Copeland, Christopher
Holder, and John Rous, Quakers; in execution of the sentence of
the court of assistants, for the breach of the law, intitled
Quakers.

EDWARD RAWSON, _Secretary_.’

Then the prisoners were brought into another room, where John Rous said to the marshal, ‘We have appealed to the chief magistrate of England.’ To which he answered, he had nothing to do with that. Holder said, ‘Such execution as this should be done publicly, and not in private; for this was contrary to the law of England.’ But captain Oliver replied, ‘We do it in private to keep you from tattling.’ Then the executioner took Holder, and when he had turned aside his hair, and was going to cut off his ear, the marshal turned his back on him, which made Rous say, ‘Turn about and see it; for so was his order.’ The marshal then, though filled with fear, turned, and said, ‘Yes, yes, let us look on it.’ Rous, who was more undaunted than his persecutor, suffered the like, as well as the third, and they said, ‘those that do it ignorantly, we desire from our hearts the Lord to forgive them; but for them that do it maliciously, let our blood be upon their head; and such shall know in the day of account, that every drop of our blood shall be as heavy upon them as a millstone.’ Afterwards these persons were whipt again; but this practice becoming so common in New England as if it was but play, I will not detain my reader with it.

Persecution being now come to the cutting off of ears, did not stop there, but went higher, and rested not, before it came to the taking away of lives. But to compass that proved very difficult; for there were many honest people who abhorred such a cruelty. Yet John Norton, and the other priests, petitioned the magistrates, to cause the court to make some law to banish the Quakers, upon pain of death. This gave encouragement to the magistrates, for since the churchmen pushed on so wicked a business, no scruple was made to go on with this bloody work; and the court of magistrates voted it to be put in execution by a country court, which three magistrates made up, the majority of which might hang at pleasure, without trial by a jury; a thing not heard of in Old England: but it served the purpose of Norton, and his fellow preachers. The court where this law was made, consisted of twenty-five persons; and when it was put to the vote it was carried in the affirmative, the speaker and eleven being on the negative, but thirteen on the affirmative, so that one vote carried it. This so troubled one Wozel, when he heard it, having through illness been absent, that he got to the court, and weeping for grief, that his absence should occasion such a law to pass, said, if he had not been able to go, he would have crept upon his knees, rather than it should have passed. But what he said proved in vain; they had now passed the Rubicon, and what was eagerly desired, was obtained. Yet there was a great difference in the court, and the twelve that had voted in the negative, resolved to enter their dissents to that law; which the others seeing, and that so many difficulties would weaken their law, they admitted this addition, to be tried by a special jury; though a standing law of the country contained, that none be sentenced to death and banishment, but by a special jury, and a court of assistants; and such a court consisted of seven magistrates at the least. But it was now resolved, to prosecute the Quakers to death; and all this trial, when it came to it, was but, whether they were Quakers? Which they judged by their coming in covered; and that they had been banished out of the country. Now to enter upon this bloody business, the following act was made at a general court, held at Boston, the 20th of October, in this year, 1658.

‘_An Act made at a general court, held at Boston,
the 20th of October, 1658._

‘Whereas there is a pernicious sect, (commonly called Quakers,)
lately risen, who by word and writing have published and
maintained many dangerous and horrid tenets, and do take upon
them to change and alter the received laudable customs of our
nation, in giving civil respect to equals, or reverence to
superiors, whose actions tend to undermine the civil government,
and also to destroy the order of the churches, by denying all
established forms of worship, and by withdrawing from orderly
church-fellowship, allowed and approved by all orthodox
professors of the Truth, and instead thereof, and in opposition
thereunto, frequently meeting themselves, insinuating themselves
into the minds of the simple, or such as are least affected to
the order and government of church and commonwealth, whereby
divers of our inhabitants have been infected, notwithstanding all
former laws, made upon the experience of their arrogant and bold
obtrusions, to disseminate their principles among us, prohibiting
their coming in this jurisdiction, they have not been deterred
from their impetuous attempts to undermine our peace, and hazard
our ruin.

‘For prevention thereof, this court doth order and enact, that
every person, or persons, of the cursed sect of the Quakers, who
is not an inhabitant of, but is found within this jurisdiction,
shall be apprehended without warrant, where no magistrate is at
hand, by any constable, commissioner, or select man, and conveyed
from constable to constable, to the next magistrate, who shall
commit the said person to close prison, there to remain, without
bail, unto the next court of assistants, where they shall have
a legal trial: and being convicted to be of the sect of the
Quakers, shall be sentenced to be banished upon pain of death:
and that every inhabitant of this jurisdiction, being convicted
to be of the aforesaid sect, either by taking up, publishing, or
defending the horrid opinions of the Quakers, or the stirring
up mutiny, sedition, or rebellion against the government, or by
taking up their absurd and destructive practices, viz. Denying
civil respect to equals and superiors, and withdrawing from our
church assemblies, and instead thereof frequent meetings of
their own, in opposition to our church order; or by adhering
to, or approving of any known Quaker, and the tenets and
practices of the Quakers, that are opposite to the orthodox
received opinions of the godly, and endeavouring to disaffect
others to civil government, and church orders, or condemning
the practice and proceedings of this court against the Quakers,
manifesting thereby their complying with those, whose design is
to overthrow the order established in church and state, every
such person, upon conviction before the said court of assistants,
in manner as aforesaid, shall be committed to close prison for
one month, and then, unless they choose voluntarily to depart
this jurisdiction, shall give bond for their good behaviour,
and appear at the next court, where continuing obstinate, and
refusing to retract and reform the aforesaid opinions, they
shall be sentenced to banishment upon pain of death; and any one
magistrate, upon information given him of any such person, shall
cause him to be apprehended, and shall commit any such person to
prison, according to his discretion, until he come to trial, as
aforesaid.’

Here endeth this sanguinary act, being more like to the decrees of the Spanish Inquisition, than to the laws of a reformed Christian magistracy, consisting of such who, to shun persecution themselves, (which was but a small fine for not frequenting the public worship,) had left Old England. This act was answered by Francis Howgill, and the said answer published in print, wherein was plainly shown, that it spoke the language of the ancient persecuting Jews and heathen. In the sequel we shall see the bloody execution of it upon some persons.

THE FIFTH BOOK. 1659-1660.

1659.

In the forepart of the year 1659, there was great discord, and several factions among the people in England; for some adhered to the protector Richard, and others to the chief members of the long parliament; and the royalists made also a party. G. Fox being under a concern lest some young or raw people, who sometimes came amongst his friends, might be drawn into some of those several interests, wrote an epistle, warning such to be careful, and not at all to meddle with any plotting; but to consider that their warfare was a spiritual one, and not at all wanting the use of carnal weapons.

About this time William Caton came again into Holland, and finding at Amsterdam some malicious people who endeavoured to bring his fellow-believers there into trouble, and to stir up the mob against them, that so the magistrates might take occasion to look upon the Quakers as rioters, advised those of that persuasion to be circumspect, and to avoid as much as possibly they could the impending storm. In order thereto it was thought meet that their religious meetings, which on the weekdays were kept pretty late at night, on the first days of the week should not always be kept in one place, but sometimes in this, and at other times in another house. Sometimes a meeting was kept in an alley, at the town wall near the Regulars gate, where several English people dwelt, from whence it was called the English Alley, and has that name still: hither came very rude company, committing great insolence. The time before that W. Caton was in Holland, he met with an extraordinary rude encounter at the said place, insomuch that he seemed in danger of his life; for some wicked people, not daring to do their utmost in the house where he was, pushed him out of doors; but then a woman pulled him into her house, where he was safe, though at first he knew not whether he was among friends or foes. I yet well remember this fact, being at that time with my parents in the said disturbed meeting. Now Caton being a discreet and judicious person, and perceiving that some of his friends there had more of a rash zeal than true wisdom, advised the most moderate of them often to change meeting-places. In the beginning a meeting was kept now and then in St. John’s street, so called; and afterwards on Eland’s Graff, in an alley, at the house of one Richard Langham; and also on the Angelier’s Graff, in the house of my father; and some time after in the English alley abovesaid; and also without the town, near the river Amstel, in Kuypers Padt, or Cooper’s Lane; from whence the meeting was removed in the forepart of this year, (if my memory doth not deceive me,) into the Verwers Padt, or Dyer’s Lane; which was then without the city freedom, and the meeting-place was in a large garret of a tanner’s house, where oftentimes came abundance of people, and among these not a few of the rude rabble. Here the meeting was continued till the year 1663, when that place came into the possession of another owner.

W. Caton, after some stay in Holland, returned again to England. I think it was in this year that William Ames went into Germany, where being come into the Palatinate, he went to Heidelburgh, and came to the court of the prince Elector, Charles Lodowick, who treated him kindly, even at his own table, and seemed not to take offence at Ames’s hat, which he kept on, though the lords and others that were in the company, stood bareheaded. The baron of Helmont, who also was at that court, was wont to tell afterwards, that Ames walking once with his hat on, next to the prince in his garden, the courtiers asked the prince, whether they should question Ames for this incivility; but the prince said, ‘No, for I did expect that.’ At another time the prince made his chaplain and Ames both dine with him, on purpose, as it seems, that Ames, whom he knew to be a bold man, might find occasion to reprove his chaplain; for at meat he suffered his jester to come, who playing his tricks, the chaplain was silent; but Ames, who loved gravity, and was averse to jesting, took occasion from thence to reprove such vain actions; but chiefly he aimed at the chaplain, whom, because of his silence at the lewd behaviour of the jester, he called a dumb dog; which seemed to please the prince.

Now whilst William Ames was in the Palatinate, he got acquaintance with the Baptists at Krieshiem, a town not far from Worms; and among those people he found such entrance, that some families receiving the doctrine he preached, bore a public testimony for it there, and so continued till the settlement of Pennsylvania in America, when they unanimously went thither, not as it seemed without a singular direction of Providence; for not long after, a war ensued in Germany, where the Palatinate was altogether laid waste by the French, and thousands of people were bereft of their possessions, and reduced to poverty.

But to return to Ames, when some in the Palatinate began to give an ear to his preaching, a fine was settled upon those that gave him entertainment: but the prince Elector, being informed hereof, took off that fine; and though those of the consistory did send for Ames, the prince generously ordered them not to meddle with him. The prince’s sister also behaved herself very kindly towards him, and received his exhortations favourably.

A year after Ames came again into the Palatinate, with John Higgins, and visiting the prince Elector, he understood from the captain of the prince’s guard, that the prince was glad of Ames’s return thither. Awhile after Higgins delivered to the prince Elector a book of G. Fox, with a letter of Ames to the said prince, who was so well pleased with it, that he bade Higgins to thank Ames on his behalf, saying also that he took the coming of Ames and Higgins to him and his family very kindly, and really believed that what they spoke was in love to their souls.

Several years after this, some others of Ames’s friends from England, visited the aforesaid prince Elector, and he always, (to his praise be it said,) received them kindly. W. Ames, who was at sundry times in Germany, came not only to Hamburgh, but travelled also through Bohemia to Dantzick, and from thence to Poland. At Hamburgh and Dantzick he met with some that received the Truth he preached; but in Poland people were too rude and haughty, to get entrance among them.