A Book of Quaker Saints

by L. V. Hodgkin

The fisherman smiles and nods. He puts his arm more tenderly than ever round his small daughter as he says, 'Ay, ay, dear heart, never thou fear.' Then, drawing Margery closer to him, he begins his tale. It is a long story. The sun has set; the crescent moon has disappeared; and the stars are stealing out, one by one, before he has finished. I wish you and I could listen to that story, don't you? Well, we can! Someone who heard it from the fisherman's own lips has written it all down for us. He is telling it to us in his own words to-day, as he told it to those children in Scarborough village long ago.

Now and then we must interrupt him to explain some of the words he uses, or even alter the form of the sentences slightly, in order fully to understand what it is he is talking about.

But he is telling his own story.

'My name,' begins the fisherman, 'is Richard Sellar. It was during the war between the Dutch and English that I was pressed at Scarborough in 1665.'

'Pressed' means that he was forced to go and fight against his will. When the country is in danger men are obliged to leave their peaceful employments and learn to be soldiers and sailors, in order, as they think, to defend their own nation by trying to kill their enemies. It is something like what people now call 'conscription' that Richard Sellar is talking of when he speaks of 'being pressed.' He means that a number of men, called a 'press-crew,' forced him to go with them to fight in the king's navy, for, as the proverb said, 'A king's ship and the gallows refuse nobody.'

'I was pressed,' Richard continues, 'within Scarborough Piers, and refusing to go on board the ketch [or boat] they beat me very sore, and I still refusing, they hoisted me in with a tackle on board, and they bunched me with their feet, that I fell backward into a tub, and was so maimed that they were forced to swaddle me up with clothes.'

Richard Sellar could not help himself. Bound, bruised, and beaten he was carried off in the boat to be taken to a big fighting ship called the Royal Prince, that was waiting for them off the mouth of the Thames and needing more sailors to man her for the war.

The press-crew however had not captured enough men at Scarborough, so they put in at another Yorkshire port, spelled Burlington then but Bridlington now. It was that same Burlington or Bridlington from which Master Robert Fowler had sailed years before. Was he at home again now, I wonder, working in his shipyard and remembering the wonderful experiences of the good ship Woodhouse? Surely he must have been away on a voyage at this time or he would if possible have visited Richard Sellar in his confinement on the ketch. Happily at Bridlington there also lived two kind women, who, hearing that the ketch had a 'pressed Quaker' on board, sent Richard Sellar a present of food—green stuff and eatables that would keep well on a voyage: these provisions saved his life later on. After this stay in port the ketch sailed on again to the Nore, a big sand-bank lying near the mouth of the Thames.

'And there,' Richard goes on to say, 'they haled me in at a gunport, on board of the ship called the Royal Prince. The first day of the third month, they commanded me to go to work at the capstan. I refused; then they commanded me to call of the steward for my victuals; which I refused, and told them that as I was not free to do the king's work, I would not live at his charge for victuals. Then the boatswain's mate beat me sore, and thrust me about with the capstan until he was weary; then the Captain sent for me on the quarter-deck, and asked me why I refused to fight for the king, and why I refused to eat of his victuals? I told him I was afraid to offend God, for my warfare was spiritual, and therefore I durst not fight with carnal weapons. Then the Captain fell upon me, and beat me first with his small cane, then called for his great cane, and beat me sore, and felled me down to the deck three or four times, and beat me as long as his strength continued. Then came one, Thomas Horner (which was brought up at Easington), and said, "I pray you, noble Captain, be merciful, for I know him to be an honest and a good man." Then said the captain, "He is a Quaker; I will beat his brains out." Then falling on me again, he beat me until he was weary, and then called some to help him; "for" said he, "I am not able to beat him enough to make him willing to do the king's service."'

There Richard lay, bruised and beaten, on the deck. Neither the sailors nor the Captain knew what to do with him. Presently up came the Commander's jester or clown, a man whose business it was to make the officers laugh. 'What,' said he, 'can't you make that Quaker work? Do you want him to draw ropes for you and he won't? Why you are going the wrong way to work, you fool!'