sinister and dangerous impressions), for want of full information may be less satisfied, and men of perverse principles may take occasion hereby to calumniate us, and render us as bloody persecutors, to satisfy the one and stop the mouths of the other, we thought it requisite to declare that, about three years since, diverse Quakers, of whose pernicious opinions and practices we had received intelligence from good hands,. . . ararrived at Boston, whose persons were only secured to be sent away by the first opportunity, without censure or punishment;" and "the prudence of the Court was exercised only in making provision to secure the peace and order here established against their attempts, whose design we were well assured by our own experience, as well as by the example of their predecessors in Munster, was to undermine and ruin the same." At length, they say, other discouragements having been found insufficient, "a law was made that such persons should be banished, on pain of death, according to the example of England, in their provision against Jesuits." And they argue: "The consideration of our gradual proceedings will vindicate us from the clamorous accusation of severity, our own just and necessary defence calling upon us, other means failing, to offer the points which these persons have violently and wilfully rushed upon, and thereby have become felones de se; which might it have been prevented, and the sovereign law, salus populi, been preserved, our former proceedings, as well as the sparing of Mary Dyer upon an inconsiderable intercession, will manifestly evince we desire their life absent rather than their death present." Dyer was not satisfied with herself, and in the following spring she came back to Boston again, and was 1 Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 385, 386. She had passed little, if any, of the intervening time at home. "I have not seen her above this half-year, and therefore cannot tell how, in the frame of her spirit, she was moved thus again Execution of two other Quakers. 1660. immediately put in prison. Her husband, then Secretary of Providence Plantations, wrote to Governor Endicott, blaming her misconduct, and entreating that she might be once more dis May 21. charged. At her arraignment, "she gave no other answer, but that she denied our law, and came to bear witness against it, and could not choose but come, and do as formerly." Again she was condemned to die. At the gallows the offer was again renewed to her of release, if she would promise henceforth to keep out of Massachusetts. But she refused it, and met her fate with brave determination. "In obedience to the will of the Lord I came," she said, "and in his will I abide faithful to the death."1 June 1. 1658. With an inconsistency which shows the repugnance felt by the Magistrates to executing the hard law, it was left inoperative in some cases of manifest violation.2 But it had one more victim. William Leddra, for making disturbances at Salem and Newbury, July. had been committed to the House of Correction at Boston. There he refused to work for his food, and, having been repeatedly scourged, was at last dismissed, with the threat of death if he should return. November. He returned, and was put in prison. On his trial the offer of liberation was made to him, if he would engage to go to England; but he rejected it, saying that he had no business there. He was condemned and executed. "All that will be Christ's 1660. 1661. March. to run so great a hazard to herself and perplexity to me and mine, and all her friends and well-wishers. So it is, from Shelter Island, about by Pequod, Narragansett, and to the town of Providence, she secretly and speedily journeyed, and as secretly from thence came to your jurisdiction. Unhappy journey, may I say, and woe to that generation, say I, that gives occasion 1 Sewel, History, &c., 227. March 14. disciples," he said at the foot of the ladder, "must take up the cross." The last words heard from his lips were those of the martyr Stephen, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 1 During Leddra's trial, Wenlock Christison, who had been banished, and threatened with death if he should return, came into court, and confronted the judges with bold language. "I am come here to warn you," he said, "that ye shed no more innocent blood." He was arrested, and after three months was brought up for trial. There was an unprecedented division among the Magistrates, and they are said to have been no less than two weeks in debate.2 The Governor was so vexed at what he thought their want of spirit, that at one moment, flinging something furiously on the table, he said, 'I could find it in my heart to go home'" (to England). "You that will not consent, record it," he cried, as he put the question a second time to vote; "I thank God I am not afraid to give judgment." Christison was condemned to die. But the dreadful sentence could not again be executed. In the mean time the General Court had met, and the evidences of opposition to any further pursuance of this rigorous policy were unmistakable. The contest of will was at an end. The trial that was to decide which party would hold out longest had been made, and the Quakers had conquered.* 1 1 Bishop, New England Judged, 329; Persecutions in New England, 13, 14. 2 Sewel, History, &c., 270. * Daniel Gould, who came in the company of Robinson and Stevenson from Salem to Boston, gives an account of the proceedings against them in his "Brief Narration of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers" (5-10). It seems, however, from the follow ing paper in the Massachusetts Archives (X. 273), both that Christison was not informed how the tide was VOL. II. 41 May 22. turning for his advantage, and that the pride of consistency in the Magistrates was spared the struggle which seemed to be awaiting it in his case : "I, the condemned man, doe give forth under my hand, that, if I may have my libarty, I have freedome to depart this Jurisdiction; and I know not yt ever I shall com into it any more. "WINLOCK CHRISTISON. from ye Goal in Boston, It was settled that the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay were not to have the disposal of their home. They had bought it, and paid dear for it. They had on their side that sort of rigid justice which accredited writers recognize, when they lay down the rule that a perfect right may be maintained at any cost to the invader.1 But trespassers had come who would not be kept away, except by violent measures, which had produced only a partial effect, and which the invaded could not prevail upon themselves any longer to employ. The feeling of humanity, which all along had pleaded for a surrender, at length uttered itself in overpowering tones. The Court, it is true, was not ready for such an express contradiction of some of the leading men, and such a Modification of the law against Quakers. formal concession of victory to the Quakers, as would have been afforded by a repeal of the law for capital punishment. But it made other enactments, which, in the existing state of feeling, would practically supersede the execution of that law. "Being desirous to try all means with as much lenity as might consist with safety to prevent the intrusions of the Quakers, who..... had not been restrained by the laws already provided," they ordered that such intruders should be tied to a cart's tail," and whipped from town to town" towards the borders of the jurisdiction." Should they return after being three times thus dealt with, and should "the Court judge not meet to release them," they were to be branded with the letter R on their left shoulder, and be severely whipped and sent away in manner as before." Should they return yet again, they were then to be amenable to the previous law for banishment on pain of death.2 1 Vattel, Law of Nations, Prelimi naries, § 17; Burlamaqui, Principles of Natural and Political Law, Part I. Chap. VII. §8; Puffendorf, Droit de la Nature, &c., Liv. I. Chap. VII. § 7. * Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 2–4. It has been commonly said that it was a mandate from Charles the Second that put a stop to the ill-treatment of the Quakers in New England. See below, p. 520. No hanging, and no branding, ever took place by force of this law. Under its provisions for other penalties, the contest between the rulers and the strangers was carried on for a considerable time longer. Though at length the vehemence on both sides cooled, it had not, on one side, yet reached its highest point of fervor. At first, after the discontinuance of capital punishment, the antics of the Quakers became more absurd than before. Far and near, they disturbed the congregations at their worship. George Wilson at Boston, and Elizabeth Horton at Cambridge, cried through the streets that the Lord was coming with fire and sword. Thomas Newhouse, having delivered in the meeting-house in Boston the message with which he alleged himself to be charged, broke two glass bottles "in a prophetic manner," proclaiming, “Thus will the Lord break you in pieces." One wretched woman, Mary Brewster, made herself a spectacle by walking about in a gown made of sackcloth; and another exhibited herself with her face smeared with grease and lampblack.1 "Deborah Wilson was constrained, being a young woman of very modest and retired life, and of sober conversation, as were her parents, to go through the town of Salem naked, as a sign." [Wardel], being a young and tender, chaste woman, .... as a sign to them [the church at Newbury], went in (though it was exceeding hard to her modest and shamefaced disposition) naked amongst them." " .. "Lydia The number of Quakers who were fined, imprisoned, or scourged, under a sentence from the General Court of Massachusetts, was about thirty. The number of those punished in like manner by sentences of the county courts, is not ascertained.3 Some similar proceedings 1 Hutch. Hist., I. 187; Persecutions the Sad and Great Persecution and in New England, 20. 2 Bishop, 377, 383. Martyrdom of the People of God, called 3 A summary in "A Declaration of Worshipping of God," is as follows: |