Worse was to follow—in June, 1659, William Robinson, of London, Merchant, and Marmaduke Stevenson, a country-man from East Yorkshire, under a religious concern, passed from Rhode Island to Boston, where with an aged man named Nicholas Davis[52] they were speedily imprisoned, Mary Dyer, who came from Rhode Island, sharing the same fate; there they remained until the sitting of the Court of Assistants, when they were sentenced to banishment, and should they be found within the Jurisdiction of the Court after the 14th of September following they were condemned to death. They were kept prisoners till the 12th of September. Mary Dyer and Nicholas Davis “found freedom to depart” out of the Province; but William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson “were constrained in the love and power of God not to depart,” so they passed out of prison to Salem and remained there and at Piscataway and the parts thereabouts in the service of the Lord. On the 13th of October they returned to Boston “that metropolis of Blood” as it was styled, and with them Alice Cowland, “who came to bring Linnen to wrap the dead bodies of them who were to suffer.” Several other Friends joined them and the Chronicler tells us: “These all came together in the Moving and Power of the Lord as one, to look your Bloody Laws in the Face,” and to accompany those who should suffer by them. Mary Dyer had returned also and on the 19th of the same month she, with William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, was condemned to death. On the 28th of the same month they were led forth to execution, by the back way, we are told, for the authorities were afraid “of the fore way lest it should affect the people too much.” Drums, too, were beaten, so that no words from the prisoners might be heard; we are told that they came “to the place of Execution Hand in Hand, all three of them as to a Weding-day, with great Chearfulness of Heart.” The two men were hanged, but Mary Dyer was reprieved at the last moment, by petition of her son, only to suffer the death penalty a few months later.
Yet another martyr was to seal his testimony with his blood—William Leddra, described as of Barbados but a native of Cornwall, was executed at Boston the 14th of March, 1660/61, under the law of banishment, who, before his final trial, had suffered much persecution and grievous cruelty. His beautiful and saintly nature is revealed in a letter written by him “To the Society of the little Flock of Christ,” dated from Boston prison the day before his execution; therein is no fierce denunciation of his persecutors, but words of consolation and hope to his sorrowing friends.[53]
A contemporary letter, printed in New England Judged, is extremely interesting as showing the unbiassed opinion given by an entire stranger of the sentence passed upon this saintly man. So moved was he by the scene at the execution that he was impelled to remonstrate with those in authority. The letter is from Thomas Wilkie to his friend, George Lad, “Master of the America, of Dartmouth, now at Barbados,” dated Boston, 26th of March, 1661. It is as follows:[54]
On the 14th of this Instant, here was one William Leddra, which was put to Death. The People of the Town told me, He might go away if he would: But when I made further Enquiry I heard the Marshal say, That he was Chained in Prison, from the time he was condemned, to the Day of his Execution. I am not of his Opinion: But yet Truly me thought the Lord did mightily appear in the Man.
I went to one of the Magistrates of Cambridge who had been of the Jury that condemned him (as he told me himself) and I asked him by what Rule he did it? He answered me, That he was a Rogue, a very Rogue. But what is this to the Question (I said) where is your Rule? He said, He had abused Authority. Then I goes after the Man [William Leddra], and asked him, Whether he did not look on it as a Breach of Rule, to slight and undervalue Authority? And I said, That Paul gave Festus the Title of Honour tho’ he was a Heathen (I do not say these Magistrates are Heathens) I said then, when the Man was on the Ladder, He looked on me, and called me Friend, and said, Know, that this Day I am willing to offer up my Life, for the Witness of JESUS. Then I desired leave of the Officers to speak, and said, Gentlemen, I am a Stranger, both to your Persons and Country, and yet a Friend to both: And I cried aloud, For the Lord’s sake, take not away the Man’s Life; but remember Gamaliel’s Counsel to the Jews, If this be of Man, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot Overthrow it; But be careful ye be not found Fighters against God. And the Captain said, Why had you not come to the Prison? The Reason was, Because I heard, the Man might go if he would; and therefore I called him down from the Tree and said, Come down, William, you may go away if you will. Then Captain Oliver said, It was no such matter; And asked, What I had to do with it? And besides, Bad me be gone. And I told them, I was willing; for I cannot endure to see this, I said. And when I was in the Town, some did seem to Sympathise with me in my Grief. But I told them, That they had no Warrant from the Word of God, nor President from our Country; nor Power from his Majesty, to Hang the Man. I rest,
Your Friend,
Thomas Wilkie.
A bold protest, boldly made; the Chronicler, to our regret, is silent as to the fate of the protester.
Soon after the Restoration, Charles II., “judging it necessary that so many remote Colonies should be brought under uniform inspection for their future regulation, security and improvement,” signed a Commission appointing thirty-five members of Privy Council, the nobility, gentry and merchants, a Council for Foreign Plantations. (Calendar of State Papers Colonial). Wide powers were vested in this Council, any five members were empowered to “inform themselves of the condition of Plantations and of the Commissions by which they were governed as well as to require from any Governor an exact account of the constitution of his laws and government, number of inhabitants and any information he was able to give.” The Commissioners were also “to provide learned and orthodox ministers to reform debaucheries of planters and servants and instruct natives and slaves in the Christian faith.” The first meeting was held 7th of January, 1661, when Committees were appointed for the several Plantations; attention was first directed to the New England Colonies, and information, petitions and relations of those who had been sufferers were laid before the Council. At a subsequent meeting held on 11th of March, 1661, Captain Thomas Breedon, who had returned from New England in 1660, appeared and reported as to conditions in Massachusetts Colony. He presented a book of the Laws of the Colony which were stated to be by patent from the King, but he had never seen the patent and did not know whether they acted in accordance with the same. “Distinctions between freemen and non-freemen, members and non-members, is as famous as Cavaliers and Roundheads was in England, and will shortly become as odious. The grievances of the non-members who are really for the King, and also some of the members, are very many.”