[AT] That is, kindly-spirited.
[162] George Bishop, in "New England Judged," p. 351, says that New England Yearly Meeting was set up in 1661. John Burnyeat, who had attended it in 1671, says in his Journal, "It begins in the ninth of the Fourth month every year; and continues for much of a week, and is a general meeting once a year for all Friends in New England." The records for several years after its origin were destroyed by fire. They are, however, complete from 1683 to date.
[163] For an account of Fox's relations with Roger Williams see note in next chapter.
[164] "Shelter Island" lies at the Eastern end of Long Island, between Gardiner's Bay and Little Peconic Bay. Nathaniel Sylvester was the sole proprietor of the island, and he made it a shelter for persecuted Friends from New England.
[AU] Point Judith.
[165] Rye is now in New York State. The boundary between New York and Connecticut was long in dispute. At this time it seems Rye was in Governor Winthrop's territory.
[AV] Now Governor's Island.
[AW] In New Jersey.
[166] This narrative has sometimes been questioned and sometimes been taken to prove that Fox was an instrument in working miracles. Neither solution is satisfactory, or necessary. Recent medical annals give similar cases. A dislocated neck is not necessarily fatal. The incident shows again Fox's readiness in dealing coolly and skillfully with hard situations. He endeavors to do what can be done.
[167] It is not easy to follow Fox's scanty itinerary. There are two Tinicum islands in the Delaware (it is called "Dinidock" in the first edition of the Journal). The crossing was probably made at the upper island, which is just in front of what is now the city of Burlington, though this would be hardly ninety miles from Middletown Harbour, as he estimates. He then travels down across the very country which Friends afterwards settled under the leadership of William Penn. There is evidence to show that the idea of forming in America a colony of Friends originated with George Fox. We learn from a letter of Josiah Coale, a Friend who had travelled extensively among the Indians, that George Fox had commissioned him to treat with the Susquehanna Indians for the purchase of a strip of territory. Fox's letter is not preserved, but Josiah Coale's answer is among the Swarthmore MSS., and is as follows: "Dear George,—As concerning Friends buying a piece of land of the Susquehanna Indians, I have spoken of it to them and told them what thou said concerning it, but their answer was that there is no land that is habitable or fit for situation beyond Baltimore's liberty [i. e., beyond the domain of Lord Baltimore,] till they come to or near the Susquehanna fort, and besides William Fuller, who was the chief man amongst Friends with the Indians ... is withdrawn at present, ... so that without him little can be done at present with the Indians; and besides, these Indians are at war with another nation of Indians, who are very numerous, and it is doubted by some that in a little space they will be so destroyed that they will not be a people. Thine in the truth,