George Fox: An Autobiography

by George Fox

But I told Friends it would be a great charge to lie at an inn; and many Friends and people would be coming to visit us, and it might be hard for him to bear our having meetings in his house. Besides, we had many Friends in the prison already, and we had rather be with them. So we let the man know that we were sensible of his kindness, and to prison we went; the poor man that brought us thither delivering both the mittimus and us to the jailer.

This jailer had been a very wicked, cruel man. Six or seven Friends being in prison before we came, he had taken some occasion to quarrel with them, and had thrust them into the dungeon amongst the felons, where there was hardly room for them to lie down. We stayed all that day in the prison-yard, and desired the jailer to let us have some straw. He surlily answered, "You do not look like men that would lie on straw."

After a while William Smith, a Friend, came to me, and he being acquainted in the house, I asked him what rooms there were in it, and what rooms Friends had usually been put into before they were put into the dungeon. I asked him also whether the jailer or his wife was the master. He said that the wife was master; and that, though she was lame, and sat mostly in her chair, being only able to go on crutches, yet she would beat her husband when he came within her reach if he did not do as she would have him.

I considered that probably many Friends might come to visit us, and that if we had a room to ourselves, it would be better for them to speak to me, and me to them, as there should be occasion. Wherefore I desired William Smith to go speak with the woman, and acquaint her that if she would let us have a room, suffer our Friends to come out of the dungeon, and leave it to us to give her what we would, it might be better for her.

He went, and after some reasoning with her, she consented; and we were put into a room. Then we were told that the jailer would not suffer us to have any drink out of the town brought into the prison, but that what beer we drank we must take of him. I told them I would remedy that, for we would get a pail of water and a little wormwood once a day, and that might serve us; so we should have none of his beer, and the water he could not deny us.

Before we came, when the few Friends that were prisoners there met together on First-days, if any of them was moved to pray to the Lord, the jailer would come up with his quarter-staff in his hand, and his mastiff dog at his heels, and pluck them down by the hair of the head, and strike them with his staff; but when he struck Friends, the mastiff dog, instead of falling upon them, would take the staff out of his hand.

When the First-day came, I spoke to one of my fellow-prisoners, to carry a stool and set it in the yard, and give notice to the debtors and felons that there would be a meeting in the yard, and they that would hear the Word of the Lord declared might come thither. So the debtors and prisoners gathered in the yard, and we went down, and had a very precious meeting, the jailer not meddling.

Thus every First-day we had a meeting as long as we stayed in prison; and several came in out of the town and country. Many were convinced, and some there received the Lord's Truth who have stood faithful witnesses for it ever since.

When the sessions came we were brought before the justices, with many more Friends, sent to prison whilst we were there, to the number of about twenty. The jailer put us into the place where the thieves were put, and then some of the justices began to tender the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to us. I told them I never took any oath in my life; and they knew we could not swear, because Christ and His Apostle forbade it; therefore they but put it as a snare to us. We told them that if they could prove that, after Christ and the Apostle had forbidden swearing, they did ever command Christians to swear, then we would take these oaths; otherwise we were resolved to obey Christ's command and the Apostle's exhortation.

They said we must take the oath that we might manifest our allegiance to the king. I told them I had been formerly sent up a prisoner by Colonel Hacker, from that town to London, under pretence that I had held meetings to plot to bring in King Charles. I also desired them to read our mittimus, which set forth the cause of our commitment to be that we "were to have a meeting"; and I said Lord Beaumont could not by that act send us to jail unless we had been taken at a meeting, and found to be such persons as the act speaks of; therefore we desired that they would read the mittimus and see how wrongfully we were imprisoned.