The case of one Anne Needham being also very remarkable, I will give a short hint of it. She was fined at Boston for being one of those called Quakers; but her husband refused to pay the fine, asking them, seeing the law for adultery was death, whether if his wife had committed adultery, he must by that law have suffered death. She then was sentenced to be whipped, which the constable, Thomas Roots, performed with great cruelty; for seeing she kept silent whilst he lashed her, he did whatever he could with his tormenting whip, to make her cry out; but all his endeavours proved in vain; which made him say that the Quakers were a hard-hearted people: though this epithet much better fitted himself, and all those cruel persecutors that were really become hard-hearted to the highest degree, insomuch that they had not only shaken off humanity, but all true sense of piety, which I shall prove by instances whereof some are even blasphemous.
One Barlow, who formerly had been a preacher at Exeter, afterwards turned lawyer, and at length being become a marshal, would boast that when he went to distrain for fines, he would think what goods were most serviceable to the Quakers, and then he would take them away. By such doings he encouraged others to vice; for a certain Indian taking a knife from an Englishman’s house, and being told he should not steal, answered that he himself had thought so, but now he saw that Barlow and the magistrates did so by the Quakers. This Barlow in the days of Cromwell being grown rich with the spoils of the innocent, grew poor after king Charles was restored; which made Barlow say that he hoped for a good time again: and took the shameful liberty to add, he thought the Quakers would not let him want.
At Hampton, priest Seaborn Cotton, understanding that one Eliakim Wardel had entertained Wenlock Christison, went with some of his herd to Eliakim’s house, having like a sturdy herdsmen put himself at the head of his followers, with a truncheon in his hand. Wenlock seeing him in this posture, asked him what he did with that club: to which he answered, he came to keep the wolves from his sheep. Wenlock then asking whether those he led were his sheep, got no answer, but instead thereof was led away by this crew to Salisbury. This same Cotton having heard that major Shapleigh was become a Quaker, said he was sorry for it, but he would endeavour to convert him. And afterwards drinking in a house in an isle in the river Piscataway, and hearing the major was there in a warehouse, he went thither; but going up stairs, and being in drink, he tumbled down, and got such a heavy fall, that the major himself came to help this drunken converter.
When Edward Wharton was told once by governor Endicot, that every soul ought to be subject to the higher power; he thereupon asked whether that which set up the golden image, and required all to fall down and worship it, was the higher power: he answered, ‘Yea.’ Then Edward queried whether the power that required Daniel to be cast into the lion’s den, for praying to any besides the king for thirty days, was the higher power: the governor said, ‘Yea.’ The next question Edward asked, was, whether the three children that were cast into the fiery furnace for not falling down to, and worshipping the golden image, did well: and whether Daniel for praying to his God contrary to what the said higher power did command, did well: the governor replied, ‘Yea,’ also. But secretary Rawson seeing how the governor had talked himself into a noose, to help him out said, they did obey the higher power by suffering: to which Edward returned, ‘So do we too.’
Another of these magistrates whose name was Brian Pembleton, was asked by George Walton and his wife Alice, who was reputed one of the most godly women thereabout, what the anointing was which the apostle John exhorted the saints unto in that day: but what a wicked man this Pembleton was, may appear by the abominable answer he gave, viz. that John was either a fool or a madman, or else he did not know what he said. And blasphemous in a very high degree was what he said to the question, ‘What was that light which shone about Paul?’ For his answer was, ‘It was the light of the devil for aught he did know.’
Joshua Scotaway, also one of the magistrates, asked Mary Tomkins in the court at Boston, where she dwelt: to which she answered in the words of the apostle, ‘In God; for in him we live and move, and have a being.’ To which Scotaway did not stick to say, ‘So doth every dog and cat.’ No wonder truly, that men thus darkened in their minds, grew also quite hardened in persecuting, so as to glory in it; as did Thomas Daufort, a magistrate of Cambridge, who in the governor’s house at Boston, laying his hand on Wenlock Christison’s shoulder, said to him, ‘Wenlock I am a mortal man, and die I must, and that ere long; and I must appear at the tribunal seat of Christ, and must give an account for my deeds done in the body; and I believe it will be my greatest glory in that day, that I have given my vote for thee to be soundly whipped at this time.’ This made Wenlock say, ‘O wicked man, if thou hast nothing to glory in that day, but in drawing the blood of the innocent, and in laying stripes upon the servants of the living God, thy glory will be turned into shame, and wo will be thy portion.’
But no exhortation, how extraordinary soever, seemed to take any hold on these persecutors: for once a girl of thirteen or fourteen years of age, called Hannah Wright, whose sister had been banished for religion, was stirred with such zeal, that coming from Long Island, some hundreds of miles from Boston, into that bloody town, she appeared in the court there, and warned the magistrates to spill no more innocent blood. This saying so struck them at first, that they all sat silent; till Rawson the secretary said, ‘What, shall we be baffled by such a one as this? come, let us drink a dram.’
Here we see the religion of these men, who were once so precise that they would not join with the worship of the church of England. But it seems not improbable that they fell away to this hardness of heart, because being convinced in their understandings of some superstitious ceremonies that were yet remaining in the church of England, they were not faithful to testify against those things, and to set their light on the candlestick; but that to shun the cross and avoid sufferings, they chose to go into a strange country. And yet they were so presumptuous as to say they were the purest church on earth, and their magistrates and preachers very godly men, and it may be some of their cruel executioners seeing how their magistrates, (as hath been said of Thomas Daufort,) did glory in cruelty, have been foolish enough to persuade themselves that their excessive whipping was some kind of meritorious work. But whatever these English people thought, they were worse than others, for in some places of America lived also Swedes, who in regard of their worship were no less despised by the English, than were the old Samaritans by the Jews; and yet these Swedes entertained the Quakers when they came amongst them, far better than the English did: and thus they made it appear that they surpassed them in life, if not in possession. But the precise New Englandmen seemed to place great virtue in a sturdy severity, of which the following is an instance.
A Dutchman, an Ostender, whose name was John Lawrence, was committed for adultery, and brought before the court at Boston, where the governor John Endicot, asked him whether he was guilty or not guilty: to which the prisoner, who it seems spoke but bad English, said ‘No guilt.’ On which Endicot said in a scoffing manner, ‘No gelt; there’s no money:’ for gheld signifies money in Dutch. Thus the Dutchman’s words and meaning were scoffingly perverted; and though there was no clear evidence against him, yet he was condemned to be hanged; but he denying the fact, the execution was deferred; and in the meanwhile the priests, John Wilson and James Mayo, came to him in prison to see what they could get out of him; and Mayo told him his time was near at an end, and that he must shortly die: and therefore he would have him now confess. To which the prisoner returned, ‘What will you have me to confess that which I never did?’ But Mayo did not desist, but said, ‘Confess, my son, and give glory to God.’ Yet the prisoner continued in denying the charge, and affirmed he was clear. But, said the priest, ‘You cannot be clear; for our Lord and Saviour saith. “Whosoever looketh upon a fair woman, and lusteth after her, he hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”’ Truly a very perverse use of the Scripture for compassing a false end. But the Dutchman seeing how they came to betray him, was cautious, and at length, after a long and tedious imprisonment, found means to break prison, and thus escaped from those who grew accustomed to be merciless; so that sometimes others as well as Quakers, felt the weight of their severity.