"Dear heart,
"This day we came into Bristol, near night, from the sea; glory to the Lord God over all for ever, who was our convoy, and steered our course! who is the God of the whole earth, of the seas and winds, and made the clouds His chariots, beyond all words, blessed be His name for ever! He is over all in His great power and wisdom. Amen."
[171] When George Fox married Margaret Fell she had one son, George, and seven daughters, as follows: Margaret, who married John Rous; Bridget, who married John Draper; Isabel, twice married, first to William Yeomans, and then to Abraham Morrice; Sarah, who married William Mead (Penn's companion in the famous trial), Mary, who married Thomas Lower; Susanna, who married William Ingram, and Rachel, who married Daniel Abraham.
[172] This is the beginning of a serious opposition to Fox's system of government, which finally grew to an open schism. It was headed by John Wilkinson and John Story. It was one of the most trying struggles of Fox's life.
[BC] That is, in reclaiming those who have gone astray.
[173] Margaret Fox and her daughter were sent on under the escort of a Friend, a merchant from Bristol, who, Fox says, "seemed to have met us providentially to assist my wife and her daughter in their journey homewards, when by our imprisonment they were deprived of our company and help." Fox had just received a message that his mother was in her last illness, and it had been his intention to part from his wife in Warwickshire and have a last visit with his aged mother. This privilege never came, for Mary Fox, of Fenny Drayton, died while her son was in Worcester prison.
[174] This is Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale.
[175] It will be noticed that Fox is set at liberty on the errors in his indictment, and not on a judicial decision that it is illegal to imprison on a præmunire.
[176] George Fox was now only fifty-one years old, but he was prematurely broken by the sufferings and exposures which only such an iron constitution as he possessed could have endured for thirty years. He still had fourteen years to live, but from now on a decided change appears. There is no cessation of activity, but it is activity of a quieter sort. Only one important mission journey falls in these years—the visit to Holyland and Germany. Henceforth he makes his pen speak for him. Epistles and books are the main results of these fourteen years. The Journal grows dry and devoid of dramatic interest, and our gleanings from it will be few. He is much at Swarthmore or at Kingston, near London, where Margaret Rous, a daughter of his wife, lived.
[BD] 1677.
[BE] Worminghurst.