CHAP. barbarity, began in the month called July, 1656. MaXII. ry Fisher and Ann Austin having arrived in the road

Stwel's Hist. p.

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 misus'ed 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.

20. 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."

21. 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 unblamable 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!"

22. The following year, 1657, Anne Burden and 168, 169. Mary Dyer were imprisoned at Boston; and Mary Clark, for warning these persecutors to desist from their iniquity, was unmercifully rewarded with twenty stripes of a three corded whip on her naked back, and detained in prison about three months in the winter season. [*] The cords of these whips were commonly as thick as a man's little finger, having each some knots at the end.

* See Rev. ii.

10.

23. 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

XII.

woman seeing it, fell down for dead. Then they CHAP. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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.

P. 191.

26. The same year William Brend and William Sewer's Leddra, came to Newbury; thence they were carried History, 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 with a three-corded whip.

27. 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, and then brought to the mill to work, but Brend refusing, was beaten by the inhuman jailor, with a pitched rope, more than a hun- 191, 192. dred strokes, till his flesh was bruised into a jelly, his body turned cold, and for some time he had neither seeing, feeling nor hearing.

28. The high priest, John Norton, was heard to say, "William Brend endeavoured 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?

ibid. P.

29. In the same year, John Copeland, Christopher ibid. p. Holder, and John Rous were taken up, and in a private 193, 194, manner had their right ears cut off by authority. And,

XIL

CHAP. 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. The petition was granted October 20th, 1658, by the court of Boston. A short extract of the law is as follows.

* See

Acts vi

แ

30. Whereas there is a pernicious sect, (com'monly called Quakers)—do take upon them to change and alter the received laudable customs of our na' tion,—and also to destroy the order of the churches, by denying all established forms of worship [*]— 14&xvi. For prevention thereof, this court doth order and enact, that every person or persons-being convict'ed to be of the sect of the Quakers, shall be sen'tenced to be banished upon pain of death."

20, 21.

Sewel's

P. 218.

31. Daniel and Provided Southick, son and daughHistory, ter to Lawrence and Cassandra, not frequenting the assemblies of such a persecuting generation, were fined ten pounds, though it was well known they had no estate, their parents being already brought to poverty by their rapacious persecutors. To get this money, the general court at Boston issued out an order, by which the treasurers of the several counties were empowered to sell the said persons to any of the English nation at Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer the said fines.

32. William Maston, at Hampton, was fined ten pounds for two books found in his house, five pounds for not frequenting their church, and three pounds besides as due to the priest; for which fine he had taken from him, what amounted to more than twenty pounds. Not long after, above a thousand pounds were taken from some, only because they had separated themselves from the persecuting church.

33. THOMAS PRINCE, governor of Plymouth, was p. 219. heard to say, That in his conscience the Quakers were such a people as deserved to be destroyed, they, their wives and children, their houses and lands, without pity or mercy.-Humphrey Norton at New-Haven, for being a Quaker, was severely whipt, and burnt in the hand with the letter H. to signify Heretic.

ibid.

34. The unjust and bloody sentence of death was P. 226. executed upon William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson, the 27th of October, 1659. When they

CHAP.

XIL

were come near the gallows, the priest [Wilson] tauntingly said to Robinson," Shall such Jacks as you 'come in before authority with their hats on?" To which Robinson replied, " Mind you, mind you, it is for the not putting off the hat we are put to death!" 35. The persons that were hanged, were barbarously used-even their shirts were ripped off with a knife, and their naked bodies cast into a hole that was dug, without any covering. And Priest Wilson makes a ballad on them.-On the 31st of the third month 1660, Mary Dyer was sentenced to death by ENDI- Sewel's COT, and the next day executed.-William Leddra History, returned to Boston, was cast into an open prison, and locked in chains day and night, in a very cold winter, and was sentenced to death, and executed on the 14th of the first month 1661.

36. Many, both men and women, were stript naked from the waist and upward, tied to the cart-tail and scourged in the most brutal and barbarous manner, while the priests, who were the principal instigators to such more than savage meanness, were pleased in nothing better than in the exercise of such antichristian and diabolical cruelties.

P. 204.

272, 324.

37. Peter Pearson and Judith Brown, being stript bid, p. to the waist, were fastened to a cart-tail, and whipt through the town of Boston-Also Josiah Southick was stript and led through the streets of Boston at the cart-tail, and vehemently scourged by the hangman. The same day he was whipt at Roxbury, and the next morning at Dedham. The whip used for these cruel executions, was not of whip cord, but of dried guts; and each string with three knots at the end.

1662.

38. At Dover, Anne Coleman, Mary Tomkins, and Allice Ambrose, were sentenced to be fastened to the cart-tail, and whipt on their naked backs, through Dec. 22. eleven towns, a distance of near eighty miles. Then in a very cold day, the deputy Walden, at Dover, caused these women to be stript naked, from the middle upward, and tied to a cart, and then whipt them, while the priest looked on and laughed at it, Two of their friends testified against Walden's cruel- *See Jer. ty, for which they were put in the stocks.*

xx. 1,2,

Acts a

39. The women were carried to Hampton, and there 24

XIL

CHAP. whipt-from thence to Salsbury and again whipt.William Barefoot at length obtained the warrant from the constable and let them go: the priest advising to the contrary. Not long after, these women returned to Dover, and were again seized, while in meeting, and barbarously dragged about at the instigation of [a man falsely called] Hate-evil Nutwell, a ruling elder.*

Hist. of

40. Afterwards, Anne Coleman, and four of her friends were whipt through Salem, Boston, and Dedham, by order of Hawthorn the magistrate. Anne Coleman was a little weakly woman; Bellingham encouraging the executioner while she was fastening to the cart at Dedham, he laid on so severely, that with the knot of the whip he split the nipple of her breast, which so tortured her, that it almost took away her life.

41. These are a few instances out of many, of those diabolical, beastly, and more than savage cruelties, which were exercised by those who pretended that for conscience sake they had chosen the wilderness of America! And such were the fruits of the Protestant religion in its greatest purity.-Let them cease to disgrace the name of Jesus; they never knew him, but were the great-grand children of those who persecuted the prophets-they were the posterity of CAIN-Walking in the way of BALAAM-Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame.

42. To the above matters of fact may be added the Redemp. following just remark inserted in the History of ReNow [c.] demption. After speaking of the persecutions and

P. 458.

oppressions in the times of the SrUARTS, and the tyranny of archbishop LAUD and his furious associates, the writer observes, that " persecution has not been 'confined to such men: every sect (says he) and some of the best men in each have engaged in ⚫ the diabolical business.With what bitterness

*The barbarity of their persecutors, on this occasion, exceeds all description. Being seized in meeting, while on their knees in prayer, they were dragged by their arms nearly a mile, through a deep snow, across fields and over stumps, by which they were much bruised. The next day they were barbarously dragged down a steep hill to the water side and threatened with drowning, and one of them was actually plunged into the water, when a sudden shower obliged them to retreat-At length, after much abuse, these poor victims of orthodox barbarity, were turned out of doors at midnight, and with their cloathes wet and frozen, were obliged to suffer the inclemency of a severe winter's night.