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nor did the tenderness of sex protect the women. The rabble were too often led and encouraged by clergymen.

"Many of these abuses (observes the historian), being committed on the first day of the week, the day they called their sabbath, with impunity, under a government and by a people who pretended to make it a point to observe it with all the pharisaical strictness, and in many cases beyond the strictness, which the Mosaical law appointed for observing the seventh day, furnish an occasion to reflect upon the irrational inconsistency of superstition in every shape; by which I understand an over-zealous attachment to some circumstantials of religion, while the essential part, viz. the inwardly sanctifying power thereof, whereby we are taught to honour God, and love and do good to mankind, is overlooked. These men, it is probable, would have thought it a heinous crime to have been employed on that day in any honest labour, though in itself lawful, and in some sort necessary, and yet shewed no reluctance or compunction in committing unlawful actions, as opposite to good government as religion, in assaulting persons and destroying the property of inoffensive, unresisting neighbours and fellow-citizens with violence and outrage, whose only crime was, the applying the day to the best purpose, the assembling to worship their Maker in that way they were persuaded in their consciences was most acceptable to him."*

So general was the persecution under which this people suffered, that scarcely one of them, whose travels and services to the society are preserved on record, escaped personal abuse or cruel imprisonment in any quarter of the

nation.

George Fox, in 1653, was summoned before the magis trates at Carlisle, and committed to prison till the assizes, as a blasphemer, and heretic, and a seducer. He had exasperated them by his plain-dealing, in endeavouring to shew them, that although they, being Presbyterians and Independents, were high in the profession of religion, they were without the possession of what they professed. The ground of his being summoned was, his having exhorted the people to truth and honesty, at the market-cross on a * Gough's History, vol. 1. p. 267-271, and the note.

market-day, and having preached to them on the Sunday, after the service was concluded; on which he had been assaulted by rude people in the church, and rescued by the governor. During his confinement the general wish was, that he might be hanged:" and the high-sheriff declared with rancour, that he would guard him to execution himself, At the assizes, it was found that the charge of blasphemy could not be made good, and it was concluded not to bring him to trial; and he was left with the magistrates of the town. By their order he was put among the felons and murderers, in a dungeon, noisome and filthy to the last degree, where men and women were kept together, one of whom was almost eaten up with lice; and the deputy of the jailer would often fall on him and the friends who visited him with a cudgel: while the prisoners, vile as they were, behaved affectionately to him, received his admonitions with deference, and some embraced his doctrine. At length, the parliament having instituted an inquiry concerning his situation, and the governor having remonstrated on it, he was released. In 1654, at Whetstone in Leicestershire, he was brought before colonel Hacker, who gave him liberty to go home, if he would stay there and not go abroad to meetings. To this Fox replied, "if he should agree thereto, it would imply that he was guilty of something, for which his home was made his prison; and if he went to meeting, they would consider that as a breach of their order therefore he plainly told them he should go to meeting, and could not answer their requirings." Upon this he was, next day, carried prisoner by captain Drury to London. When Cromwell was informed of his arrival, he sent to him this message: "That the protector required of George Fox, that he should promise not to take up the sword, or any other weapon, against him or the government, as it then was: that he should write it in what words he saw proper, and set his hand to it." Fox returned an answer to this effect; and was afterward introduced to Cromwell, and they had much discourse about religion, in which the protector carried himself with great moderation and Fox had his liberty given him.*

In 1656, Fox, accompanied by William Salt of London, and Edward Pyott of Bristol, travelled through Devon* Gough's History, vol. 1. p. 132-136. 155, 156.

shire into Cornwall, to Market-Jew, where he wrote a paper, containing an exhortation to fear God, and learn of Christ the light; which fell into the hands of major Ceely, a justice at St. Ives, who committed Fox and his companions to Launceston jail, on the charge of spreading papers to the disturbance of the public peace, and having no pass, though persons unknown, for travelling up and down, and refusing to take the oath of abjuration, and to give sureties for their good behaviour. After nine weeks' confinement they were brought to their trial, before judge Glyn, at the assizes: here they demanded justice for their false imprisonment; and major Ceely, not adhering to the charges in the mittimus, brought up new accusations of a treasonable proposal, and an assault: and they were indicted for coming, by force and arms, into a court, into which they were conducted as prisoners. But on no ground could any illegal criminality be proved against them. The judge ordered them to be taken away; and, in their absence, fined them twenty marks apiece for coming into court with their hats on, and commanded that they should be detained in prison till their fines were paid. Seeing no prospect of an immediate release from such a commitment, they discontinued the weekly payment of seven shillings apiece for themselves, and as much for their horses, which the jailer had extorted. Upon this they were turned into a dismal and most noisome dungeon, called Doomsdale, where the excrements of former prisoners had been accumulating for many years. They were not allowed beds or straw to lie on; and, the filthiness of the place not allowing them room to sit down, they were obliged to stand all night. Neither were they permitted to cleanse it, or to have any victuals but what they received with difficulty through the grate. This cruel treatment continued till the sessions at Bodmin, when, on a representation of their case to the justices, an order was obtained for opening the door of Doomsdale, and for permission to clean it, and to buy their provisions in the town. About the end of thirty weeks they were discharged by an order from major-general Desborrow, in consequence of applications made in their favour to Cromwell. During this imprisonment one of Fox's friends offered himself to the protector to lie in prison, body for body, in his stead: to which proposal Cromwell answered,

he could not grant it, being contrary to law; and turning to some of his council standing by him, asked, "Which of you would do as much for me, if I were in the same condition ?" The next places at which we find Fox are, Cardiff, Swansea, and Brecknock. He visited these towns in 1657; settled a meeting at Swansea; and, at the latter place, met with rude treatment, and was exposed to danger from the populace, raised and stimulated to riot and tumult by the magistrates.†

Another sufferer amongst the Quakers, was Miles Halhead, one of their first zealous preachers; who, at Skipton and Doncaster, was sorely beaten and bruised by the populace, and left for dead. Thomas Briggs, in Lancaster, Robert Widders and Willian Dewsbury, in Cumberland, were also severally abused in like manner.‡ John Cam and John Audland were assaulted at Bristol, to the great risk of their lives, by hundreds of the rabble, instigated by Farmer, a clergyman. William Caton and John Stubbs, besides being haled before the magistrates at Dover, were at Maidstone sent to the house of correction, stripped, and their necks and arms put into the stocks, and so cruelly whipped with cords as to draw tears from the spectators. After this, under the plea that "he that would not work should not eat," they were kept several days without victuals, only on the allowance of a little water once a day: and soon after were sent out of town, by different ways, with a pass, as vagabonds.§

At Wymondham in Norfolk, Richard Hubberthorn was committed to bridewell for addressing the congregation after sermon in the parish-church and on the next day removed to a very incommodious prison, being a poor hole in a cross wall of Norwich-castle; where he was detained till the sessions. The justices then, waiving the original ground of his commitment, charged him with contempt of authority, for appearing before them with his hat on; and under this pretence recommitted him to prison, where he lay a long time.||

The sufferings in which the members of this society were inveived by the sentence of magistrates, were in many instances heightened by the severity and injustice of the jail+ Ibid. p. 289. Ibid. p. 169.

* Gough's
's History, vol. 1. p. 210-217.
Ibid. p. 137.

§ Ibid. p. 162. 166, 167.

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ers: James Lancaster, George Whitehead, and Christopher Atkinson, for not complying with the jailer's extravagant demands, were obliged to lie in their clothes on the floor, in the prison at Norwich, for eight weeks in the cold winter of 1654.* At St. Edmundsbury, 1655, the same Whitehead, John Harwood, George Rose, George Fox the younger, and Henry Marshall, because they refused to gratify the avaricious demands of the jailer for lodgings, and required a free prison, were turned down to the common ward among the felons, in a low dungeon, with a damp earthen floor, where they lay upon rye-straw. In this situation they were exposed to abuse from the prisoners, who frequently took away their food and other necessaries, alleging the jailer's permission one desperate fellow frequently kicked and smote, and in a drunken fit threatened to kill them; saying, "if he killed them, he should not be hanged for it." After they had been in prison thirty weeks, arrears of dues of fourteen pence a week were demanded from each of them; and on their remonstrating against it, the turnkey was ordered to take away their clothes and boxes, which was done, with a threat to take their coats from off their backs. And for the space of twenty-four weeks, they were obliged to lie upon part of their body-clothes on straw. Some necessaries of linen brought to them by a friend were seized, and the provisions sent to them were examined. Their friends were not admitted in; and, if they attempted to speak to them at the window or door of the jail, water was frequently thrown on them to drive them away. At length, in consequence of an application to the protector, an inquiry into the treatment they had received was instituted, and the jailer was restrained from exercising or permitting the cruel abuse they had hitherto suffered. After an imprisonment from twelve to fifteen months, through repeated applications to Cromwell, seconded by the private solicitations of Mrs. Mary Sanders, a waiting gentlewoman in his family, an order for their release was obtained, directed to sir Francis Russel, a man of moderation, and averse from persecution, who immediately caused them to be set at full liberty. But the case of James Parnel, a native of Retford in Nottinghamshire, who was educated in the schools of literature, in the sixteenth year of his age * Gough's History, vol. 1. p. 170. Ibid. p. 176–180.

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