In time the Lord's power wrought over this storm, and many of our persecutors were confounded and put to shame.
After I had lain prisoner above a year in Scarborough Castle, I sent a letter to the King, in which I gave him an account of my imprisonment, and the bad usage I had received in prison; and also that I was informed no man could deliver me but him. After this, John Whitehead being at London, and having acquaintance also with Esquire Marsh, he went to visit him, and spoke to him about me; and he undertook, if John Whitehead would get the state of my case drawn up, to deliver it to the master of requests, Sir John Birkenhead, who would endeavor to get a release for me.
So John Whitehead and Ellis Hookes drew up a relation of my imprisonment and sufferings, and carried it to Marsh; and he went with it to the master of requests, who procured an order from the King for my release. The substance of the order was that "the King, being certainly informed that I was a man principled against plotting and fighting, and had been ready at all times to discover plots, rather than to make any, etc., therefore his royal pleasure was that I should be discharged from my imprisonment," etc.
As soon as this order was obtained, John Whitehead came to Scarborough with it, and delivered it to the Governor; who, upon receipt thereof, gathered the officers together, and, without requiring bond or sureties for my peaceable living, being satisfied that I was a man of a peaceable life, he discharged me freely, and gave me the following passport:
"Permit the bearer hereof, George Fox, late a prisoner here, and now discharged by His Majesty's order, quietly to pass about his lawful occasions, without any molestation. Given under my hand at Scarborough Castle, this first day of September, 1666.
"Jordan Croslands,
"Governor of Scarborough Castle."
After I was released, I would have made the Governor a present for the civility and kindness he had of late shown me; but he would not receive anything; saying that whatever good he could do for me and my friends he would do it, and never do them any hurt. And afterwards, if at any time the mayor of the town sent to him for soldiers to break up Friends' meetings, if he sent any down he would privately give them a charge not to meddle. He continued loving to his dying day.
The officers also and the soldiers were mightily changed, and became very respectful to me, and when they had occasion to speak of me they would say, "He is as stiff as a tree, and as pure as a bell; for we could never bow him."
[Here is an interesting entry in the Journal in the year 1669: "I then visited friends at Whitby and Scarborough. When I was at Scarborough, the governor, hearing I was come, sent to invite me to his house, saying, 'Surely, you would not be so unkind as not to come and see me and my wife.' After the meeting I went to visit him, and he received me very courteously and lovingly.">[