The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers / Intermixed with Several Remarkable Occurrencs.

1664.

Pursuant to this warrant, Edward, (who therein was called a vagabond, for no other reason but that he was gone from his dwelling-place,) was led away to the market place, and there being stripped, his arms were bound to the wheel of a great gun. Then the constable John Loel, bade the hangman to do his work severely; which he did so cruelly that it was testified pease might lie in the holes that the knots of the whip had made in the flesh of his arms and back. And his body was swelled and very black from the waist upwards. Such was the doings of those, who to enjoy the free exercise of their worship, had left Old England; and thus they treated a man that was of good repute, and had lived in that country above twenty years; and was once by the governor himself acknowledged to be his friend, when he supplied him with necessaries in his want, saying then, that if ever it lay in his power he would requite him; which now he did, but in what an inhuman and barbarous manner! That this governor Endicot once had been a man of but a mean condition, appears from a letter written to him shortly after the death of Mary Dyar, by one John Smith, because he had not only caused his wife to be whipped severely, but had also kept her prisoner a whole winter, separate from her children, and had been assisting in the making of an order that no man or woman should bring any thing to the imprisoned Quakers, or carry any thing from them, upon the penalty of five pounds for the first time, and ten pounds for the second. In this letter John Smith said:

But I return to Edward Wharton, who after his whipping was not led the direct way to Salem, but by Charlestown, and so about the country, as if they had a mind to make a show of him: yet at Charlestown the constable was so compassionate, that he entertained him in his house, and anointed his stripes; and the next day he was conveyed to his home. Since that time the said Wharton was whipped again severely; but I pass by particulars to avoid prolixity. Yet I cannot forbear to say, that before he was whipped at Boston, as hath been said, it was told him that if he would promise the governor to come no more to the Quakers’ meeting in Boston, then it was likely the governor would let him have his liberty: to which Edward returned, ‘Not for all the world. And friends, I have a back to lend to the smiter, and I have felt your cruel whippings before now, and the Lord hath made me able to bear them; and as I abide in his fear, I need not fear what you shall be suffered to do unto me.’

The case of one Anne Needham being also very remarkable, I will give a short hint of it. She was fined at Boston for being one of those called Quakers; but her husband refused to pay the fine, asking them, seeing the law for adultery was death, whether if his wife had committed adultery, he must by that law have suffered death. She then was sentenced to be whipped, which the constable, Thomas Roots, performed with great cruelty; for seeing she kept silent whilst he lashed her, he did whatever he could with his tormenting whip, to make her cry out; but all his endeavours proved in vain; which made him say that the Quakers were a hard-hearted people: though this epithet much better fitted himself, and all those cruel persecutors that were really become hard-hearted to the highest degree, insomuch that they had not only shaken off humanity, but all true sense of piety, which I shall prove by instances whereof some are even blasphemous.

One Barlow, who formerly had been a preacher at Exeter, afterwards turned lawyer, and at length being become a marshal, would boast that when he went to distrain for fines, he would think what goods were most serviceable to the Quakers, and then he would take them away. By such doings he encouraged others to vice; for a certain Indian taking a knife from an Englishman’s house, and being told he should not steal, answered that he himself had thought so, but now he saw that Barlow and the magistrates did so by the Quakers. This Barlow in the days of Cromwell being grown rich with the spoils of the innocent, grew poor after king Charles was restored; which made Barlow say that he hoped for a good time again: and took the shameful liberty to add, he thought the Quakers would not let him want.

At Hampton, priest Seaborn Cotton, understanding that one Eliakim Wardel had entertained Wenlock Christison, went with some of his herd to Eliakim’s house, having like a sturdy herdsmen put himself at the head of his followers, with a truncheon in his hand. Wenlock seeing him in this posture, asked him what he did with that club: to which he answered, he came to keep the wolves from his sheep. Wenlock then asking whether those he led were his sheep, got no answer, but instead thereof was led away by this crew to Salisbury. This same Cotton having heard that major Shapleigh was become a Quaker, said he was sorry for it, but he would endeavour to convert him. And afterwards drinking in a house in an isle in the river Piscataway, and hearing the major was there in a warehouse, he went thither; but going up stairs, and being in drink, he tumbled down, and got such a heavy fall, that the major himself came to help this drunken converter.

When Edward Wharton was told once by governor Endicot, that every soul ought to be subject to the higher power; he thereupon asked whether that which set up the golden image, and required all to fall down and worship it, was the higher power: he answered, ‘Yea.’ Then Edward queried whether the power that required Daniel to be cast into the lion’s den, for praying to any besides the king for thirty days, was the higher power: the governor said, ‘Yea.’ The next question Edward asked, was, whether the three children that were cast into the fiery furnace for not falling down to, and worshipping the golden image, did well: and whether Daniel for praying to his God contrary to what the said higher power did command, did well: the governor replied, ‘Yea,’ also. But secretary Rawson seeing how the governor had talked himself into a noose, to help him out said, they did obey the higher power by suffering: to which Edward returned, ‘So do we too.’

Another of these magistrates whose name was Brian Pembleton, was asked by George Walton and his wife Alice, who was reputed one of the most godly women thereabout, what the anointing was which the apostle John exhorted the saints unto in that day: but what a wicked man this Pembleton was, may appear by the abominable answer he gave, viz. that John was either a fool or a madman, or else he did not know what he said. And blasphemous in a very high degree was what he said to the question, ‘What was that light which shone about Paul?’ For his answer was, ‘It was the light of the devil for aught he did know.’

Joshua Scotaway, also one of the magistrates, asked Mary Tomkins in the court at Boston, where she dwelt: to which she answered in the words of the apostle, ‘In God; for in him we live and move, and have a being.’ To which Scotaway did not stick to say, ‘So doth every dog and cat.’ No wonder truly, that men thus darkened in their minds, grew also quite hardened in persecuting, so as to glory in it; as did Thomas Daufort, a magistrate of Cambridge, who in the governor’s house at Boston, laying his hand on Wenlock Christison’s shoulder, said to him, ‘Wenlock I am a mortal man, and die I must, and that ere long; and I must appear at the tribunal seat of Christ, and must give an account for my deeds done in the body; and I believe it will be my greatest glory in that day, that I have given my vote for thee to be soundly whipped at this time.’ This made Wenlock say, ‘O wicked man, if thou hast nothing to glory in that day, but in drawing the blood of the innocent, and in laying stripes upon the servants of the living God, thy glory will be turned into shame, and wo will be thy portion.’

But no exhortation, how extraordinary soever, seemed to take any hold on these persecutors: for once a girl of thirteen or fourteen years of age, called Hannah Wright, whose sister had been banished for religion, was stirred with such zeal, that coming from Long Island, some hundreds of miles from Boston, into that bloody town, she appeared in the court there, and warned the magistrates to spill no more innocent blood. This saying so struck them at first, that they all sat silent; till Rawson the secretary said, ‘What, shall we be baffled by such a one as this? come, let us drink a dram.’

Here we see the religion of these men, who were once so precise that they would not join with the worship of the church of England. But it seems not improbable that they fell away to this hardness of heart, because being convinced in their understandings of some superstitious ceremonies that were yet remaining in the church of England, they were not faithful to testify against those things, and to set their light on the candlestick; but that to shun the cross and avoid sufferings, they chose to go into a strange country. And yet they were so presumptuous as to say they were the purest church on earth, and their magistrates and preachers very godly men, and it may be some of their cruel executioners seeing how their magistrates, (as hath been said of Thomas Daufort,) did glory in cruelty, have been foolish enough to persuade themselves that their excessive whipping was some kind of meritorious work. But whatever these English people thought, they were worse than others, for in some places of America lived also Swedes, who in regard of their worship were no less despised by the English, than were the old Samaritans by the Jews; and yet these Swedes entertained the Quakers when they came amongst them, far better than the English did: and thus they made it appear that they surpassed them in life, if not in possession. But the precise New Englandmen seemed to place great virtue in a sturdy severity, of which the following is an instance.

A Dutchman, an Ostender, whose name was John Lawrence, was committed for adultery, and brought before the court at Boston, where the governor John Endicot, asked him whether he was guilty or not guilty: to which the prisoner, who it seems spoke but bad English, said ‘No guilt.’ On which Endicot said in a scoffing manner, ‘No gelt; there’s no money:’ for gheld signifies money in Dutch. Thus the Dutchman’s words and meaning were scoffingly perverted; and though there was no clear evidence against him, yet he was condemned to be hanged; but he denying the fact, the execution was deferred; and in the meanwhile the priests, John Wilson and James Mayo, came to him in prison to see what they could get out of him; and Mayo told him his time was near at an end, and that he must shortly die: and therefore he would have him now confess. To which the prisoner returned, ‘What will you have me to confess that which I never did?’ But Mayo did not desist, but said, ‘Confess, my son, and give glory to God.’ Yet the prisoner continued in denying the charge, and affirmed he was clear. But, said the priest, ‘You cannot be clear; for our Lord and Saviour saith. “Whosoever looketh upon a fair woman, and lusteth after her, he hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”’ Truly a very perverse use of the Scripture for compassing a false end. But the Dutchman seeing how they came to betray him, was cautious, and at length, after a long and tedious imprisonment, found means to break prison, and thus escaped from those who grew accustomed to be merciless; so that sometimes others as well as Quakers, felt the weight of their severity.

As it happened about the time that William Leddra was put to death, one Elizabeth Nicholson and her two sons, Christopher and Joseph, were charged with the death of her husband and their father Edmund Nicholson, who was found dead in the sea; and information being given that these people did show love to those they called cursed Quakers, they were all three fetched from their habitation at Salem and carried to Boston, and were tried for their lives merely on suspicion; but nothing of murder was proved against them; yet the mother was fined a great sum, and her two sons were sentenced to stand under the gallows certain hours, with ropes about their necks, and to be whipped in the market place, which was performed accordingly. And because these young men were not daunted, priest Wilson standing by, said, ‘Ah, cursed generation.’ And at Salem they were whipped also, which was done so mercilessly that one of the young men sunk down, or died away under the torture, though he was raised up and came to life again.

By this we may see how these New England persecutors were become inured to excessive severity. But before I leave them, I must also mention the dreadful exit of some of them.

The last act of governor Endicot’s bloody part that occurs, was the cruel whipping of Edward Wharton at Boston, related before; for the time was now come that he must go off the stage, to give an account of his extravagant severity before another tribunal than that of his sanguinary court. The measure of his iniquity was now filled up, and he was visited with a loathsome disease, insomuch that he stunk alive, and so died with rottenness, his name being like to give a bad savour through ages to come.

Yet more remarkable was the death of major-general Adderton, who when Mary Dyar was hanged, said scoffingly, and in an insulting way, that she hung as a flag, for others to take example by; and who also, when Wenlock Christison being condemned to death, warned the persecutors because of the righteous judgments of God, presumptuously said, ‘You pronounce woes and judgments, and those that are gone before you pronounced woes and judgments; but the judgments of the Lord God, are not come upon us as yet.’ But how he himself was struck by these judgments, and served for an example to others, we are to see now.

He, upon a certain day, having exercised his soldiers, and riding proudly on his horse towards his house, when he came about the place where usually they loosed the Quakers, so called, from the cart, after they had whipped them, a cow came and crossed the way, at which his horse taking fright, threw him down so violently, that he died, his eyes being started out of his head, his brains out of his nose, his tongue out of his mouth, and his blood out of his ears. Thus God’s judgments came upon him suddenly and unawares.

And John Norton, the chief priest of Boston died likewise on a sudden. It was he who promoted the putting to death of those martyrs that died at Boston, as hath been related; and when he saw the magistrates paused upon the execution of W. Robinson and M. Stevenson, he encouraged them thereto, especially because John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut, earnestly dissuaded the shedding of innocent blood. He it was also, who when William Brend was beaten so barbarously with a rope, as hath been related in its due place, did not stick to say, since William Brend endeavoured to beat their gospel ordinances black and blue, it was but just upon him if he was beaten black and blue also. But this Norton was now struck with a blow that made him sink: for having been at his worship-house in the forenoon, and intending to go in the afternoon, as he was walking in his house he fetched a great groan, and leaning his head against the mantle tree of the chimney, he was heard to say, ‘The hand, or the judgments of the Lord are upon me.’ These were his last words, and he sunk down, and had fallen into the fire if he had not been caught by somebody that was present. More examples of this nature I could produce, but these may suffice.

What I have related of these cruelties and much more, was published in print about that time, that so the king and parliament of England might know what happened there; for those actions were come in public view, and known there all about the country. All that they did was to set a false colour upon their severity, and to disguise matters: and it was their happiness that they had not to do with revengeful people, else they might have been involved in great straits: but the friends of the persecuted committed vengeance to God; though some of the great ones in England advised them to sue the persecutors, which according to law they might have done.

Richard Bellingham, a fierce persecutor, and governor after John Endicot, went distracted ten years after, and so died. Not long before, William Coddington, governor of Rhode Island, wrote a letter to him, wherein he put him in mind of the former times; for he, (the said Coddington,) had been one of the first erectors of colonies in New England, and the first that built a house at Boston, and afterwards was a magistrate seven years, but when persecution arose he declared against it; and the case was debated three days in the court, but the moderate party was the weakest, and was opposed by all the priests, except one John Cotton, who said he remembered how at their departure from England he had preached on Acts, iv. 11, and had showed from that text that there was an inward grace which was to be minded, and that therefore he would not give his vote for persecuting the asserters of that doctrine; showing thereby much more sense of religion than the other persecuting priests. Now though Coddington was one of the greatest merchants or traders in that country, and in all probability might have acquired great riches there, yet seeing his good counsel was not hearkened to, he resolved to depart that place, and to go and live somewhere else. But whatever he said in his letter to Bellingham, this man remained hardened like Pharaoh, having showed himself cruel, even when Mary Fisher and Anne Austin first came to Boston, where he treated them in a barbarous manner.

Yet one thing remarkable I may mention here, which when I first heard, I could not fully give credit to; but thinking it worth the while to make a narrow inquiry into it, I did so, not only by writing, but also from the mouths of persons that had been eye-witnesses, or had been informed by such; and from these I got this concurring observation, viz. that the country about Boston was formerly a very fruitful soil that produced excellent wheat; but that since the time this town had been stained with the blood of the Quakers, so called, no wheat, &c. would grow to perfection within twenty miles, though the ground had been ploughed and sown several times; for sometimes what was sown was spoiled by vermin or insects; at other times it grew up, but scarce yielded more than was sown, and so could not countervail the charge; and in another year the expected harvest was quashed by another accident; and these disappointments continuing many years, the people at length grew weary of making further trial, and so left the ground untilled; notwithstanding that twenty miles off from Boston the soil is fruitful, and yields very good corn. But there having been so many reiterated instances of unfruitfulness nearer the town, ancient people that are alive still, and remember the first times, generally agree in their opinion that this is a judgment from heaven, and a curse on the land, because of the shedding of innocent blood at Boston. This relation I had from so many credible persons, (though the one knew nothing of the other, as differing much in time,) yet what they told me did so well agree in the main, that I could not but believe it, though I do not use to be credulous; and therefore I have been the more exact in my inquiry, so that I can no longer question the case; but it seems to me as a punishment on that blood-thirstiness which now hath ceased long ago.

In the island of Barbadoes those called Quakers suffered also much by the people, instigated not a little by the priests, Samuel Graves, Mathew Gray, Thomas Manwaring, and Francis Smith; for these being often drunk, gave occasion thereby to be reproved: and one Thomas Clark coming once into the place of public worship, and exhorting the auditors to desist from lewdness, and to fear God, was so grievously beaten with sticks, that he fell down in a swoon; and Graves who had preached then, went to the house of the said Clark, pulled his wife out of doors, and tore her clothes from her back. And Manwaring, who had threatened Clark that he would procure a law to be made, by which his ears should be cut off, once wrote in a letter to him, ‘I am sorry that your zeal surpasseth your moderation, and that a club must beat out of you what the devil hath inspired.’ And this was because Clark had told him that his conversation was not becoming a minister of the Gospel. Other rough treatment Clark met with I pass by, though once he was set in the stocks and imprisoned. But now I leave America, and return to England.