Meanwhile, the other four colonies proceeded to pass more stringent laws themselves, though those of Plymouth and Connecticut were less severe than those of New Haven, where the penalties rose to branding the letter H on the hands of male Quakers, and boring the tongues of Quakeresses with a red-hot iron.[[680]] This latter punishment, as well as the cutting off of ears, was likewise added to the Massachusetts laws.[[681]] In 1658, the Commissioners of the United Colonies “seriously comended” to the several colonies that they pass legislation declaring that, if any Quaker, once banished, returned, the offender should suffer death.[[682]] Massachusetts, however, which was clearly behind the suggestion, was the only colony that did so. Connecticut, which was lenient in its treatment, had but little trouble, and Governor Winthrop of that colony told the Massachusetts magistrates that he would go down on his bare knees to beg that they would not execute the death-penalty. Plymouth was more influenced by its powerful neighbor, and one of the magistrates, deposed for his toleration of the sect, wrote of the persecution in Massachusetts, “we expect that we must do the like, we must dance after their Pipe; now Plymouth-Saddle is upon the Bay-Horse.”[[683]]

In spite of a petition signed by twenty-five names, which was presented to the General Court in Boston, asking for severer laws against the Quakers,[[684]] and which was probably inspired by the Reverend John Norton, there was a strong sentiment in the colony against such action. The cruel sufferings that the authorities by this time had inflicted upon Mary Dyer, Mary Clark, Christopher Holden, the Southwicks, Richard Dowdney, and many others, and their patience under affliction, were telling heavily in favor of the Quakers and against the clergy.[[685]] In the case of William Brend, the people became so aroused as temporarily to frighten the authorities in their mad course. He had been put “into Irons, Neck and Heels, lockt so close together, as there was no more room between each, than for the Horse-Lock that fastened them on”; and was kept in that way for sixteen hours, without food, after having been whipped. The next day he was whipped again with a tarred rope, so severely that the rope untwisted; but a new one was procured, and he was given ninety-seven more blows. “His Flesh was beaten Black, and as into a Gelly; and under his Arms the bruised Flesh and Blood hung down, clodded as it were in Baggs.” The next morning, after threatening to give him more, the Puritan jailer went to church. Brend, who had then been some days without food, finally became unconscious. The people, learning the facts, protested loudly, and a tumult was raised. Endicott sent “his Chyrurgion, to see what might be done (such Fear was fallen upon you,” writes our authority, “lest ye should suffer for his Blood) who thought it impossible according unto Men that he should live, but that his Flesh would Rot from off his Bones, ere that bruised Flesh could be brought to digest (this was the Judgment of your Governors Chirurgion), and such a cry was made by the People that came in to see him, that ye were constrained, for the satisfaction of them, to set up a Paper at your Meeting-House-Door, and up and down the Streets, That the Jaylor should be dealt withal the next Court; but it was soon taken down again, upon the instigation of John Norton (your High-Priest unto whom, as the Fountain or Principal, most of the Cruelty and Bloodshed herein rehearsed, is to be imputed) and the Jaylor let alone: For, said John Norton (but how Cruelly let the Sober judge)—W. Brend endeavored to beat our Gospel-Ordinances black and blue; and if he was beaten black and blue, it was Just upon him; and said he would appear in the Jaylor's behalf.”[[686]]

It is not intended to go into all the details of the many other and, happily, somewhat less terrible cases of the persecution; and the above extract from a contemporary has been given because the grim realities of the past are apt to be blurred by our easy modern phrases.

The Reverend John Norton, the Reverend Charles Chauncey, and other divines, as well as the Governor and other leading laymen, continued to press for a law allowing them to execute the death-penalty legally. The struggle, as usual, ranged the people against the theocratical leaders, and the deputies refused to pass the law prepared by the clergy and voted by the magistrates, which not only imposed death upon any Quaker who should return after banishment, but denied the right of trial by jury, and relegated the cases to a court composed of three magistrates, a majority of whom could impose the penalty.[[687]] The House of Deputies, which contained twenty-six members, finally consented to the passage of the law, somewhat amended, by a majority of one, owing to the absence, on account of illness, of one of those who had opposed the bill.[[688]] In view of the severe penalties imposed upon all who might speak in defense of Quaker doctrines, the thirteen who stood out to the end deserve all praise.

Immediate steps were taken to influence public opinion in favor of the new law, and Norton was appointed by the Court to write a treatise in support of it, which was published the following year.[[689]] Meanwhile, the persecution continued unabated. At the same court at which the law was passed, six Quakers were banished on pain of death, and four months later, the children of two of them, Daniel and Provided Southwick, were ordered sold into bondage in Virginia or the West Indies, by the County Treasurer, to pay the accumulated fines imposed upon them for not attending a Puritan church. No ship's captain, however, sufficiently hardened in the religion of New England could be found to share in the guilt of this transaction.[[690]] There is no need of going into the details of the other cases, which were soon overshadowed by those of the martyrs who voluntarily suffered the extreme penalty, in order to testify to the truth as they saw it, and to die for liberty of opinion.

There is no doubt that Mary Dyer, William Robinson, and Marmaduke Stevenson had counted the full cost when they returned from banishment to face certain death, in the autumn of 1659. Sentence was pronounced on the eighteenth of October, and the execution took place a few days later.[[691]] On the petition of her son, Mary Dyer had been reprieved, and was once more banished; but with a fiendish ingenuity of cruelty, she was not to know of it, and was to be led to the gallows with a rope about her neck, and to wait while the two men were being hung. As they were led to execution, the three walked hand in hand. “Are you not ashamed to walk between two young men?” asked the Puritan marshal, with characteristic coarseness. “It is an hour of the greatest joy I can enjoy in this world,” answered the pure-hearted woman. “No eye can see, no ear can hear, no tongue can speak, no heart can understand, the sweet incomes and refreshing of the spirit of the Lord which I now enjoy.”[[692]] After the others had died, her hands and legs were bound, her face covered, and the rope adjusted around her neck. At that moment her reprieve was announced to her. She refused to accept her life, but was taken to Rhode Island by her family. The following spring, however, she returned and told the General Court that she was to bear witness against the unjust law, which this time was allowed to take its course.[[693]] A few months later, another Quaker, William Leddra, suffered the same penalty.

So far, in the Puritan colonies, mainly in Massachusetts, over forty had been whipped, sixty-four imprisoned, over forty banished, one branded, three had had their ears cut off, five had had the right of appeal to England denied them, four had been put to death, while many others had suffered in diverse ways.[[694]]

There are many contemporary evidences, however, to show that the sympathy of the people went out more and more to the victims. At the time of the execution of Robinson and Stevenson, a heavy guard had been necessary to allow the sentence to be carried out, and the Court had found it needful to prepare a long defense of their action against such as might feel “pitty and comiseration,” and others who might look upon the magistrates as “bloody persecutors.” Apologetic broadsides were printed to the same effect.[[695]]

While the trial of Leddra was in progress, a banished Quaker, Wenlock Christison, suddenly appeared in court, and after declaring his identity, looked into the stern face of Endicott, and solemnly said to him, “I am come here to warn you that you should shed no more innocent blood, for the blood that you have shed already, cries to the Lord for vengeance to come upon you.”[[696]] He was immediately arrested, and at his trial protested that the colony had no authority to make laws repugnant to the laws of England, and that there was no law there providing for capital punishment against Quakers. But by this time even the magistrates had begun to hesitate in their course, and several refused to vote for his death. Endicott, in a fury, pounded the table, and ordered another vote, thundering out, “You that will not consent, record it: I thank God I am not afraid to give judgment.” It is said that the result was uncertain, and that the Governor himself precipitately passed the sentence of death.[[697]]

The sentence, however, was never executed. Not only had the people of Massachusetts now risen in revolt against the persecuting tyranny of the ministers and magistrates, but the colony was to be stayed in its course by a stronger power. The English monarchy had been restored a year before, and the relations of Massachusetts to the mother-country were about to undergo a marked change.