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Imprudently calculating on the effect of their threats, the Court had placed themselves in a position which they could not maintain without grievous severity, nor abandon without humiliation and danger. For a little time there seemed reason to hope that the law would do its office without harm to any one. The first six Quakers who were banished after its enactment went May. away and returned no more.1

1659.

But men more desperate than these had the matter in hand. William Robinson, "being in Rhode Island," conceived that "the Lord had commanded him to go to Boston, and to lay down his life there." Marmaduke Stevenson was at the island of Barbadoes when he "heard that New England had made a law to put the servants of the living God to death, if they returned after they were sentenced away." He took passage for Rhode Island; and there "the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, 'Go to Boston with thy brother, William Robinson." The pair went accordingly. Mary Dyer "was moved of the Lord to come from Rhode Isl

June.

thought Norton, "which ventures over the wide sea, out of a ravening desire to prey upon the sheep, when landed, discovered, and taken, hath no cause to complain, though, for the security of the flock, he be penned up, with that door opening unto the fold fast shut, but having another door purposely left open, whereby he may depart at his pleasure, either returning from whence he came, or otherwise quitting the place." (Heart of New England Rent, &c., p. 56; comp. Rel. Baxter., II. 291.)

1 Bishop, New England Judged, 100 et seq. Daniel and Provided Southwick, Quakers of Salem, being fined for absence from public worship, refused to pay their fines, or to work in prison. "In answer to what should be done for the satisfaction of the fines, the Court, upon perusal of a law (which

was made upon the account of debts), resolved, that the Treasurers of the several counties were, and should be, fully empowered to sell the said persons to any of the English nations, as Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer the said fines." (Bishop, 108-112; comp. Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 366.) The Treas urer of Essex accordingly applied to the master of a vessel to take the Southwicks to Barbadoes, but without avail. If the expectation in this case was to extort the fine, or otherwise enforce submission, by terror, it was disappointed. But to me it does not seem probable that, if the Magistrates had been in earnest in the desire to have their prisoners conveyed away to servitude in another English colony, the refusal of one shipmaster would have defeated them.

.....

Sept. 12.

and" to visit them; and they were also joined at Boston by Nicholas Davis, from Barnstable in Plymouth Colony. The four were apprehended and received sentence of banishment, with the addition that they should suffer death unless they withdrew from the jurisdiction. "Nicholas Davis and Mary Dyer found freedom to depart; ... but the other two were constrained in the love and power of the Lord not to depart, but to stay in the jurisdiction, and to try the bloody law unto death." Possibly they doubted whether the Magistrates had nerve to execute it, or would be able to resist the popular pressure in favor of mercy. In that case their own triumph would be signal. But, in the last resort, they expected to conquer by dying.

Oct. 13.

Robinson and Stevenson were at that age of early manhood when enthusiasm is most inconsiderate, and when, however the fact may be explained, experience shows that life is least prized. The day after their discharge, they appeared at Salem, whence they pursued their way to the settlements on the Piscataqua. After four weeks they returned to Boston, accompanied by some Salem friends, one of whom, a woman, showed the Governor some linen, which she said. she had brought for the winding-sheets of those who were to suffer. Mary Dyer, having reconsidered her duty, had returned to Boston a few days before. On the second day of the session of the General Court, Robinson, Stevenson, and Dyer were arraigned at its bar Oct. 13. for "rebellion, sedition, and presumptuous obtruding themselves, notwithstanding their being sentenced to banishment on pain of death, as underminers of this government," &c. Avowing themselves to be the persons "banished by the last Court of Assistants," they were sentenced to be hanged on the eighth day following.1 Precautions were taken against a popular outbreak.

1 Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 383; Bishop, New England Judged, 114 et seq.

1

"Captain James Oliver, with one hundred soldiers. ... completely armed with pike, and musketeers with powder and bullet," was instructed "to lead them to the place of execution." Thirty-six soldiers were also to be "ordered by Captain Oliver to remain in and about the town, as sentinels to preserve the peace of the place while the rest should go to the execution;" and the selectmen of Boston were "to press ten or twelve able and faithful persons every night during the sitting of the Court, to watch with great care the town, especially the prison." 1

At this point, without doubt, - if not before, the government should have paused and retraced its steps. It would have had to acknowledge itself beaten; but this it could afford to do, and this it was obliged to do at last. The present mortification of defeat, as things stood, was only to be escaped by laying up cause for reflections still more painful. It was a misfortune for both parties in this contest, that, in the weaker party, idiotic folly was mated with an indomitable boldness. But, as it was so, the stronger could only maintain its ground at too great cost; and magnanimity and pity should have interposed. And, had not the provocations of the contest disturbed the judgment of the leaders, it should seem they might have owned that measures of extreme rigor were no longer indispensable for the safety of the institutions which it was their duty to protect. Whether or not their imaginations had exaggerated the original danger, it could no longer, after an experiment of more than three years, be justly considered great. With all the advantage of the compassion which their sufferings called forth, the Quakers had made comparatively an extremely small number of converts; for, if their sufferings com

1 Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 383, 384. This Court sat nearly four weeks. They despatched a variety of other matters; but it is striking to see how, as if

haunted by uneasiness about this business of the Quakers, they keep recurring to it in different forms. Ibid., 390, 391, 397, 403, 407, 410.

manded pity, their actings were too wayward to allow respect. Their oddities and dreams were proved to be not at all to the taste of the sober mass of the NewEngland people.

Such being the retrospect and such the prospect from the point at which this conflict had now arrived, it is not unreasonable to believe that, if the voice of Winthrop had not been hushed in the grave, the sad story of the severities against the Quakers would have extended little further. It is natural to imagine him urging, that, as to any shame in concession, the government was too strong, and should be too noble, to be proud; that, as to any danger in concession, the danger, whatever it might have been, was past, for, while many felt for the hardships of the eccentric intruders, few became their disciples; and that, though they had no right whatever to come to Massachusetts, yet, if they were bent on coming, as it now seemed they were, to die there, if they were not permitted to live, the price of being rid of them was too great. And such considerations, urged with an authority like his, could not have failed to arrest the enactment, or the execution, of the law, when, though backed by the influence of the three most considerable men who survived in the Colony, it had with difficulty been carried by a majority of one vote.

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Perhaps each party had continued to hope that the other would relent when the terrible gallows should be reared. But so it was not to be. The contest of will was to last longer. Whatever the rulers of New England in those days promised or threatened, that it was their practice to do. On the other hand, if they presumed that their antagonists were accessible to fear, the supposition was without good ground. The eminent Quakers were set on being martyrs. Their Lord's precept, "When they shall persecute you out of one

Execution of

city, flee ye into another," did not commend itself to their minds. On the appointed day, the convicts, surrounded by the guard, went from the gaol to Oct. 27. Boston Common hand and hand, Mary Dyer walking between her companions. They attempted to address the crowd, but were prevented by the two Quakers. beating of drums. The two men were hanged, and their bodies were buried beneath the gallows. Mary Dyer, who had stood during the scene with a halter about her neck, was now told that she was dismissed to the care of her son, who had come from Rhode Island to intercede with the Magistrates in her behalf. Her courage had not yet reached the height to which it aspired. She was prevailed upon to accept the deliverance, and was led out of the jurisdiction.

Declarations

The undaunted deportment of the sufferers increased the wide-spread resentment against the law which had condemned them. The Court, still in session, felt the embarrassments of its position, and immediately proceeded to consider some "declarations which had been presented to vindicate the justice of the proceedings." From several drafts which had been offered, it selected two to "go forth, by the authority and order of of the Court. the General Court, the first of them to the press, to be printed, the other from the Secretary to the towns, in writing." "Although "-such is, in one of them, the language of the Court-"the justice of our proceedings against William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Mary Dyer, supported by the authority of this Court, the laws of the country, and the laws of God, may rather persuade us to expect encouragement and commendation from all prudent and pious men, than convince us of any necessity to apologize for the same; yet, forasmuch as men of weaker parts, out of pity and commiseration (a commendable and Christian virtue, yet easily abused, and susceptible of

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