for conscience' sake, Humphrey Smith, who was brought near to the grave by the prevailing sickness. Joseph Coal and William Bayley, both ministers in the Society of Friends, were likewise inmates of the same prison on a similar account.

In 1658, attempting to visit the Friends, prisoners in Southampton Jail, he was seized by a constable and his assistants, who treated him with great cruelty and barbarous violence. By order of the mayor he was then severely whipped, and cast, maimed and faint, into a cart; and thus conveyed, amid frost and snow, to a distance of twenty miles; treatment through which, he says: "The Lord carried me with cheerfulness, content, and without the least murmuring." In 1662, he was apprehended at a religious meeting, and was lodged in Horsham Jail. At the assize he refused to take an oath, and was sentenced to premunire, viz: "The loss of his lands and tenements during life, and of his goods and chattels forever; to be placed out of the king's protection, and to be imprisoned during the royal pleasure." The jailor also was strictly enjoined to keep him a close prisoner. During this confinement, which lasted upwards of ten years, he was subjected to much unworthy treatment at the hand of a professed minister of religion, named Letchford, who, having incensed the magistrates against the prisoner when on his trial, continued to instigate them to add afflictions to his bonds. Ambrose Rigge was, in consequence, transferred to the "Low Jail," and there confined among the felons. The keeper of this prison, filled with the same spirit of hatred and enmity, on one occasion, in the depth of winter, placed him in the "upper ward," but deprived him of his bed, forcing him (while the snow was often deep upon the ground) to lie upon the bare floor for weeks together. So rigorous was his imprisonment at that period that his friends found great difficulty in having food and water conveyed to him.

In 1672, chiefly through the exertions of George Whitehead, the king, Charles II., was induced to grant letters-patent under the great seal, for the liberation of the whole of the Friends prisoners throughout England, and Ambrose Rigge, as well as many others, was set at liberty. In reference to his sufferings, he remarks: "I have been made able and willing to bear all for the testimony of Jesus and word of God, not counting my life dear unto me, that I might finish my testimony with joy, being counted worthy, not only to believe, but also to suffer for that doctrine, faith and practice, for which the ancient Christians suffered the loss of their liberties, and many of them their lives.

At one time, when Richard Davies was a prisoner, although not strictly confined, a concern came upon him to visit some counties in England and Wales, but he was a prisoner, and though left much at liberty by his keeper, he would not go without consent. Most travelling Friends were at that time prisoners, and the sense of duty was urgent on Richard to visit the stripped meetings in Gospel love. He says:

I followed my good Guide, that showed me what to do. I went to the jailor and told him I had an occasion to go out a little while, and I could not go without acquainting him of it, because I was his prisoner. He said, "I warrant you will go to preach somewhere or other, and then you will be taken to prison; and what shall I do then?" I told him that if I was taken prisoner, I would send to him where I was, and he might send for me if he pleased. So he bid me have a care of myself.

CHAPTER VII.

FRIENDS AS ADVOCATES OF LIBERTY.

In his biography of William Penn, William Hepworth Dixon speaks of the famous trial of Penn and Mead, as one which had an important bearing in the promotion of civil liberty in Great Britain:

The great question agitating the country at that time was liberty of conscience with its consequence-free worship. The church of England was alarmed. The duke of York, the presumptive heir to the throne, was an avowed Catholic. The king himself was suspected of a leaning towards the ritual followed by his wife, his brother, his brother's wife,

Some of the courtiers had recently apostatised; and many others were suspected of only waiting a more favorable moment to declare themselves converts to the creed which alone found active sympathy at Whitehall. But, if Popery threatened from above, Puritanism was no less formidable below. The country was known to swarm with the disbanded soldiers of Cromwell- men as hostile to the establishment as to the monarchy. Sects were daily multiplying in number. And now in the midst of all these causes of dismay, the power with which parliament had armed the church in its own defence, six years before, was about to expire. This power was given (May 16th, 1664) by the conventicle act -granted as an experiment for three years, and afterwards renewed for a second term- which act declared it seditious and unlawful for more than five persons, exclusive of the family, to meet together for religious worship according to any other than the national ritual; and every person above the age of sixteen attending meetings of the character described was liable, for the first offence, to be fined five pounds or imprisoned during three months; for the second offence, to be fined ten pounds or imprisoned six months; for the third of

fence, to be fined a hundred pounds or transported beyond the seas for seven years; and for every additional offence, an additional hundred pounds fine was inflicted. This monstrous enactment had fallen with the heaviest weight on Quakers. Other denominations of dissenters, finding their excuses in the spirit which prevailed against their doctrines, evaded these penalties either by a pretended conformity or by secret adherence to their own rules. The followers of George Fox alone braved the law openly-continuing to worship in public as before and submitting to the fines, degradations, and imprisonments which the law awarded; resolved to tire out persecution by the patient spirit in which they endured affliction for consciences' sake.

William Penn soon became a victim of this enactment. The Quakers, as usual, taking no notice of the attempt of parliament to interfere with their modes of worship, went on the fourteenth of August to their meeting-house in Grace-church Street. They found it closed-and the doors guarded by a company of soldiers. Unable to enter the building, the members loitered about until there was a considerable crowd, when William Penn took off his hat and began to address them. Seeing this movement, the constables came forward and arrested him, together with captain William Mead, an old soldier of the commonwealth and now a draper in the city. Penn demanded to be shown their authority for this act, and the officers at once produced a warrant prepared beforehand, and signed by the lord mayor sir Samuel Starling. The whole of the little drama had been previously arranged by the civic powers; and Penn and Mead were instantly taken from the place of meeting to undergo examination. Knowing that admiral Penn was on his death-bed, the petty officers of the city gave a loose rein to their native insolence. When the prisoner refused to doff his hat, the lord mayor threatened to carry him to Bridewell and have him well whipped though he was the son of a commonwealth admiral! On being reminded that the law was against such a course of proceeding, he ordered them to be sent to the "Black Dog," a wretched sponging-house in Newgate Market, to await their trial at the Old Baily. From this place of durance he wrote to his father in

the most affectionate terms; and, while glorying in his sufferings for a great principle, expressed his deep regret at being dragged away from home at such a time.

On the first of September, 1670, the two prisoners were placed in the dock to answer the charges brought against them. Every thing considered, the character of the men, the interests at issue, the course of the proceedings and the final results--this is perhaps the most important trial that ever took place in England. Penn stood before his judges in this celebrated scene, not so much as a Quaker pleading for the rights of conscience as the Englishman contending for the ancient and imprescriptible liberties of his race. The special law on which he was arraigned, he knew very well that he had violated, and intended again and again to violate. His religious friends took the same view of the case: they acknowledged the conventicle act to be in force according to the mere forms of jurisprudence; but they contended that it was in direct contradiction to the Divine laws, and therefore not binding. Better versed in his country's history, Penn disputed its legality. He held it to be in equal hostility to the Bible and the Great Charter. This therefore was the point to be brought to an issue-Does an edict possess the virtue and force of law, even when passed by crown and parliament, which abolishes any one of the fundamental rights secured to the nation by the ancient constitution? A most important point in itself; and dear to England were the interests which hung on the result.

The trial itself was an instructive exhibition of arbitrary proceedings on the part of the courts and of courageous defense of their right on the parts of the prisoners. William Penn said: "We confess ourselves to be so far from recanting or declining to vindicate the assembling of ourselves to preach, pray or worship the eternal, holy, just God, that we declare to all the world, that we do believe it to be our indispensable duty, to meet incessantly upon so good an account; nor shall all the powers on earth be able to divert us from reverencing and adoring the God who made us." The sheriff, Richard