From the “Life of John Bolles” we take the following:—
I have before me a copy of the record of proceedings, in July, 1725, before Joseph Backus, Esq., a magistrate of Norwich, Conn., against Andrew Davis, John Bolles, and his son Joseph Bolles (a young man of twenty-four years), John Rogers (the younger), Sarah Culver and others, charged with Sabbath breaking, by which it appears that for going on Sunday, from Groton and New London, to attend Baptist worship in Lebanon, they were arrested on Sunday, imprisoned till the next day and then heavily fined, the sentence being that if fine and costs were not paid they should be flogged on the bare back for non-payment of fine, and then lie in jail till payment of costs. As none of them would pay, they were all flogged, the women as well as the men, John Bolles receiving fifteen stripes and each of the others ten.
According to the statement of one of the sufferers, Mary Mann of Lebanon wished to be immersed, and applied to John Rogers (the younger) and his society for baptism. Notice was publicly posted some weeks beforehand that on Monday, July 26th, 1725, she would be baptised and that a religious meeting would be held in Lebanon on Sunday, July 25th, “the day,” says Rogers, “on which we usually meet, as well as the rest of our neighbors.”[[6]] When the Sunday came, a company of Baptists, men and women, from Groton and New London, set out for Lebanon, by the county road that led through Norwich. The passage through Norwich was so timed as not to interfere with the hours of public worship. After they had passed through the village, they were pursued and stopped, brought back to Norwich, imprisoned until Monday, and then tried, convicted and sentenced for Sabbath breaking. It must be added that a woman who was thus stripped and flogged was pregnant at the time, and that the magistrate who ordered the whipping stood by and witnessed the execution of the sentence. This outrage was much talked of throughout New England, and led to the publication of divers proclamations and pamphlets.
Deputy Governor Jenks, of Rhode Island, the following January, having obtained a copy of the proceedings against Davis and the others, ordered it to be publicly posted in Providence, to show the people of Rhode Island “what may be expected from a Presbyterian government,” and appended to it an indignant official proclamation.
Governor Jenk’s Proclamation.
I order this to be set up in open view, in some public place, in the town of Providence, that the inhabitants may see and be sensible of what may be expected from a Presbyterian government, in case they should once get the rule over us. Their ministers are creeping in amongst us with adulatious pretense, and declare their great abhorrence to their forefather’s sanguinary proceedings with the Quakers, Baptists and others. I am unwilling to apply Prov. xxvi, 25, to any of them; but we have a specimen of what has lately been acted in a Presbyterian government, which I think may suppose it sits a queen and shall see no sorrow. I may fairly say of some of the Presbyterian rulers and Papists, as Jacob once said of his two sons, Gen. xlix, 5 and 6 verses, “They are brethren, instruments of cruelty are in their habitations! O, my soul, come not thou into their secret! Unto their assembly, mine honor, be thou not united!” Amos v, 7, “They who turn judgment into wormwood and leave off righteousness in the earth.” Chapter vi, 12, “For they have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock!” And I think in whomsoever the spirit of persecution restest there cannot be much of the spirit of God. And I must observe that, notwithstanding the Presbyterian pretended zeal to a strict observance of a first day Sabbath was such that those poor people might not be suffered to travel from Groton to Lebanon on that day, on a religious occasion, as hath been minded, but must be apprehended as gross malefactors and unmercifully punished; yet, when a Presbyterian minister, which hath a great fame for abilities, hath been to preach in the town of Providence, why truly then the Presbyterians have come flocking in, upon the first day of the week, to hear him, from Rehoboth, and the furthest parts of Attleborough, and from Killingly, which is much further than John Rogers and his friends were travelling; and this may pass for a Godly zeal; but the other must be punished for a sinful action. Oh! the partiality of such nominal Christians!
Joseph Jenks, Dep. Gov.
CHAPTER II.
In the contemplation of noble deeds, we become more noble, and by the just anathematizing of error our love of truth is made stronger. As the bee derives honey from nauseous substances, so we would extract good even from wrongdoing. It is with no spirit of animosity towards any one that we pursue this subject.
No word of palliation for the acts of the Rogerenes, no admission of wrong done to them by their opponents, is heard from the ecclesiastical side. Perhaps even the severity of the statements made against them may be an evidence in their favor.