CHAP. XII. 48. Such were the dire decrees and bloody resolutions by which they rooted out every appearance of truc light, and in their rage for orthodoxy, went on butchering one another, until the testimony of George Fox furnished a common object of persecuting cruelty. CHAPTER XII. THE PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS IN ENGLAND AND THE same year in which the National Covenant of persecuting venom was subscribed by CHARLES, and the defenders of his sovereignty, George Fox, and those who embraced his testimony, received the name of Quakers, from GERVAS BENNET, a perseHistory, P. cuting magistrate, on account of George Fox's bidding him and those about him, tremble at the word of the Lord. Sewel's 25 Eccl. History, vol. v. p. 451. Sewel's 335. 2. Mosheim says, "It is not at all surprising that the secular arm was at length raised against these pernicious fanatics, for they would never give to magistrates those titles of honor and pre-eminence that are designed to mark the respect due to their authority; they also refused obstinately to take the oath of allegiance to their sovereign, and to pay tithes to the clergy; hence they were looked upon as rebellious subjects, and, on that account, were frequently punished [persecuted] with great severity." 3. How astonishingly dark must be the state of the human race, when such discerning and otherwise liberal-minded men as Mosheim, with apparent sincerity, utter such a sentiment! What better reason for persecution was this than the Papists had? 4. The unreasonable fines, imprisonments, banishments, and other acts of cruelty which they suffered, under the united rage of Protestant priests and politicians, may be seen at large in Sewel's History of the People called Quakers; a few particulars of which we shall notice. 5. After relating many scenes of cruelty, which terminated in the death of the sufferers, the historian says, "Severe persecuHistory, P. tion raged not only in London, but all over the kingdom [in 1662] of which a relation was printed of more than four thousand two hundred of those called Quakers, both men and women, that were imprisoned either for frequenting meeting or for refusing to Many of these were grievously beaten, or their clothes torn, or taken away from them; and some were put into such swear. stinking dungeons, that some great men said, they would not have put their hunting dogs there." 6. Some prisons were crowded full of both men and women, so that there was not sufficient room for all to sit down at once; and in Cheshire, sixty-eight persons were in this manner locked up in a small room. By such ill treatment many grew sick, and not a few died in such jails; for no age or sex was regarded, but even ancient people, of sixty, seventy, and more years of age, were not spared.' CHAP. XII. 7. "This year [1676] died in prison John Sage, being about Sewel's eighty years of age, after having been in prison at Ivelchester, in 514 Somersetshire, almost ten years, for not paying tithes. And it appeared, that since the restoration of king CHARLES, above two hundred of the people ealled Quakers, died in prisons in England, where they had been confined because of their religion." 8. The first of those called Quakers, who really suffered banishment, were Edward Brush and James Harding, who were carried to Jamaica. And it is stated as a remarkable fact, that the plague which soon after raged with such violence in London, first broke out in a house next door to where Edward had lived. 9. In the forepart of the year 1665, many of the Quakers were Ibid. p. 430. sentenced to be transported; and as the sentences of transportation were multiplied in the course of the following summer; so (as is remarked) the number of those that died of the pestilence much more increased. 10. In consequence of those cruel sentences, fifty-five Quakers, eighteen of whom were women, were put on board one ship; but before they were able to proceed on their voyage, the plague so increased that many died on board the ship; and according to the bills of mortality, in the beginning of August, while the ship was yet in port, upwards of three thousand died in one week in the city of London. 11. Notwithstanding the number of deaths still increased, and the pestilence raged to that degree, in the latter end of September, that upwards of eight thousand people died in London in one week, and the grass grew in the most populous streets of the city; yet the Quakers' meetings were still disturbed, and sentences of transportation still continued. 12. According to the laws of the realm, the penalty for attend- Ibid. p. 403. ing any conventicle or religious meeting, separate from the established worship, was three months imprisonment or five pounds for the first offence, and ten pounds or six months imprisonment, for the second, and banishment beyond the seas, for seven years, for the third offence, or one hundred pounds for a discharge, and the additional sum of one hundred pounds more for every new offence committed. CHAP. Sewel's History, p. 486. 13. And in case that any one, being condemned to banishment, should escape or return within the time prescribed, he should suffer death, and forfeit all his goods and chattels forever. Under this worse than savage system many were fleeced of their whole estates, while the malicious priests exercised their utmost vigilance to detect the innocent, and inflame the civil powers, with whom they shared the spoil. 14. It would be endless to enumerate the sums unjustly and cruelly extorted from the harmless Quakers, by those greedy dogs. "Among others (says Sewel) one Henry Marshal, having several benefices-yet how great soever his revenues were, kept poor people of that persuasion in prison for not paying tithes to him and once he said, from the pulpit, that not one Quaker should be left alive in England." And the bishop of Peterborough said publicly-"When the parliament sits again, a stronger law will be made, not only to take away their lands and goods, but also to sell them for bond slaves." 15. Thus the churchmen blew the fire of persecution, and kindled so high a flame in the breasts of unmerciful statesmen, that, Justice PENNISTON WHALLEY, who had fined many of those called Quakers for attending their religious meetings, encouraged the people at the sessions to persecute the Quakers Ibid. p. 486. without pity, saying, "Harden your hearts against them, for the act of the thirty-fifth of Q. ELIZABETH, is not made against the Papists; since the church of Rome is a true church, as well as any other church; but the Quakers are erroneous and seditious persons." 16. And again, at the trial of William Penn, the recorder of the court ventured to say, "Till now I never understood the reason of the policy and prudence of the Spaniards in suffering the Inquisition among them. And certainly it will never be well with us, till something like the Spanish inquisition, be in England." The fact is, they never had been without something like it, during the whole progress of the Reformation, as their own histories, creeds, and confessions abundantly declare. 17. The same histories, creeds and confessions, with the impartial records of other writers, make it also most pointedly manifest. that there is no essential difference between the spirit and conduct of the Protestant reformers, and those infernal and beastly cruelties practised in the darkest ages of popery, and that they, as well as their Catholic ancestor, gloried in nothing greater than in building up their Zion with blood. 18. We shall now leave Europe, and trace the conduct of those famous Protestants who called themselves Puritans, who fled from the iron arm of persecution at home, and crossed the Atlantic, to find liberty of conscience in the destined land of American freedom. 19. The persecution of the Quakers in New England, under the established hierarchy of governor John Endicot, priests Norton, Wilson, and others, differed from those before mentioned, only as a small stream differs from a great flood. The same spirit prevailed, and the same cruelties were exercised: such as, imprisoning, fining, confiscation of goods, banishing, unmerciful scourging, burning with hot iron, cutting off ears, and destroying their innocent lives by the ignominious gallows. CHAP. XII. History, p. 157 20. These detestable scenes of more than savage barbarity, Sewel's began in the month of July, 1656. Mary Fisher and Ann Austin having arrived in the road before Boston, the deputy governor Bellingham, had them brought on shore, and committed to prison, as Quakers. They were stript naked, under pretence of knowing whether they were witches, "and in this search, (says Sewel,) they were so barbarously misused that modesty forbids to mention it." After about five weeks imprisonment, they were sent back to Old England, their beds and bibles being taken by the jailor for his fees. 21. Scarce a month after, eight others of those called Quakers came; they were locked up in the same manner as the former; and after about eleven weeks stay, were sent back. John Endicot bid them "Take heed that ye break not our ecclesiastical laws, for then ye are sure to stretch by the halter." 22. Then a law was made to prohibit all masters of ships from bringing any Quakers into that jurisdiction. Nicholas Upsal, a member of the church, and a man of unblameable character, for speaking against such proceedings, was fined twenty-three pounds, and imprisoned also for not coming to church; next they banished him out of their jurisdiction; and though a weakly old man, yet he was forced to depart in the winter. Nicholas afterwards met with an Indian prince, who having understood how he had been used, offered to make him a warm house; and further said, "What a God have the English, who deal so with one another about their God! 23. The following year, 1657, Anne Burden and Mary Dyer Ibid. p 168, were imprisoned at Boston; and Mary Clark, for warning these 169. persecutors to desist from their iniquity, was unmercifully re Candid reader, pause and consider, which of these conducted the most like real Christians, those unmerciful persecutors, or this untutord savage, as they would call him; and which had the best credentials for the kingdom of God, according to the words of Christ. (See Math. xxv. 34, to the end.) Yet the former has been the general characteristic of the spirit of orthodoxy, from the time the term was invented to the present day, and which its votaries have never failed to put in practice, as far as they had the power. These cruel persecutors were the Puritan fathers so much extolled, who fled from the land of oppression; and so it continues, even in the present time, under the professed liberal constitutions of this land! as facts, though artfully disguised, abundantly prove. And it is evident, that nothing but the divided state of professors, prevents similar scenes being again enacted in full force, as the horrid tragedy of the Salem witchcraft and the unmerciful persecution of the Quakers. CHAP. warded with twenty stripes of a three corded whip on her naked back, and detained in prison about three months in the winter *See Rev. season. [*] The cords of these whips were commonly as thick as a man's little finger, each having some knots at the end. ii. 10. Sewel's History, p. 191. 24. Christopher Holder and John Copeland were whipt at Boston the same year, each thirty stripes with a knotted whip of three cords, the hangman measuring his ground and fetching the strokes with all the force he could, which so cruelly cut their flesh, that a woman seeing it, fell down for dead. Then they were locked up in prison and kept three days without food, or so much as a drink of water, and detained in prison nine weeks in the cold winter season, without fire, bed, or straw. 25. Lawrence and Cassandra Southick, and their son Josiah, being carried to Boston, were all of them, notwithstanding the old age of the two, sent to the house of correction, and whipt with cords as those before, in the coldest season of the year, and had taken from them to the value of four pounds ten shillings. for not coming to church. 26. In the year 1658, a law was made, which, besides imposing heavy penalties and imprisonments, extended to working in the house of correction, severe whipping, cutting off ears, and boring through their tongues with a red hot iron, whether male or female, and such like inhuman barbarities. 27. The same year, William Brend and William Leddra, came to Newbury; thence they were carried to Boston, to the house of correction, to work there; but they, unwilling to submit thereto, were kept five days without any food, and then beaten twenty strokes each with a three-corded whip. 28. Next they were put into irons, neck and heels so close together, that there was no more room left between, than for the lock that fastened them, and kept in that situation sixteen hours, Ibid. p. 191, and then brought to the mill to work; but Brend refusing, was beaten by the inhuman jailor, with a pitched rope, more than a hundred strokes, till his flesh was bruised into a jelly, his body turned cold, and for some time he had neither seeing, feeling, nor hearing. 192. Ibid. p. 193, 194. 29. The high priest, John Norton, was heard to say, "William Brend endeavored to beat our Gospel ordinances black and blue, if then he be beaten black and blue, it is but just upon him; and I will appear in the behalf of him that did so." Bloody priest! Who will appear in thy behalf, at the great tribunal of Almighty God? 30. In the same year, John Copeland, Christopher Holder, and John Rous were taken up, and in a private manner had their right ears cut off by authority. And, as if these inhuman barbarities were not sufficient, John Norton, and other priests petitioned for a law to banish the Quakers, on pain of death. |