As it happened about the time that William Leddra was put to death, one Elizabeth Nicholson and her two sons, Christopher and Joseph, were charged with the death of her husband and their father Edmund Nicholson, who was found dead in the sea; and information being given that these people did show love to those they called cursed Quakers, they were all three fetched from their habitation at Salem and carried to Boston, and were tried for their lives merely on suspicion; but nothing of murder was proved against them; yet the mother was fined a great sum, and her two sons were sentenced to stand under the gallows certain hours, with ropes about their necks, and to be whipped in the market place, which was performed accordingly. And because these young men were not daunted, priest Wilson standing by, said, ‘Ah, cursed generation.’ And at Salem they were whipped also, which was done so mercilessly that one of the young men sunk down, or died away under the torture, though he was raised up and came to life again.
By this we may see how these New England persecutors were become inured to excessive severity. But before I leave them, I must also mention the dreadful exit of some of them.
The last act of governor Endicot’s bloody part that occurs, was the cruel whipping of Edward Wharton at Boston, related before; for the time was now come that he must go off the stage, to give an account of his extravagant severity before another tribunal than that of his sanguinary court. The measure of his iniquity was now filled up, and he was visited with a loathsome disease, insomuch that he stunk alive, and so died with rottenness, his name being like to give a bad savour through ages to come.
Yet more remarkable was the death of major-general Adderton, who when Mary Dyar was hanged, said scoffingly, and in an insulting way, that she hung as a flag, for others to take example by; and who also, when Wenlock Christison being condemned to death, warned the persecutors because of the righteous judgments of God, presumptuously said, ‘You pronounce woes and judgments, and those that are gone before you pronounced woes and judgments; but the judgments of the Lord God, are not come upon us as yet.’ But how he himself was struck by these judgments, and served for an example to others, we are to see now.
He, upon a certain day, having exercised his soldiers, and riding proudly on his horse towards his house, when he came about the place where usually they loosed the Quakers, so called, from the cart, after they had whipped them, a cow came and crossed the way, at which his horse taking fright, threw him down so violently, that he died, his eyes being started out of his head, his brains out of his nose, his tongue out of his mouth, and his blood out of his ears. Thus God’s judgments came upon him suddenly and unawares.
And John Norton, the chief priest of Boston died likewise on a sudden. It was he who promoted the putting to death of those martyrs that died at Boston, as hath been related; and when he saw the magistrates paused upon the execution of W. Robinson and M. Stevenson, he encouraged them thereto, especially because John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut, earnestly dissuaded the shedding of innocent blood. He it was also, who when William Brend was beaten so barbarously with a rope, as hath been related in its due place, did not stick to say, since William Brend endeavoured to beat their gospel ordinances black and blue, it was but just upon him if he was beaten black and blue also. But this Norton was now struck with a blow that made him sink: for having been at his worship-house in the forenoon, and intending to go in the afternoon, as he was walking in his house he fetched a great groan, and leaning his head against the mantle tree of the chimney, he was heard to say, ‘The hand, or the judgments of the Lord are upon me.’ These were his last words, and he sunk down, and had fallen into the fire if he had not been caught by somebody that was present. More examples of this nature I could produce, but these may suffice.
What I have related of these cruelties and much more, was published in print about that time, that so the king and parliament of England might know what happened there; for those actions were come in public view, and known there all about the country. All that they did was to set a false colour upon their severity, and to disguise matters: and it was their happiness that they had not to do with revengeful people, else they might have been involved in great straits: but the friends of the persecuted committed vengeance to God; though some of the great ones in England advised them to sue the persecutors, which according to law they might have done.
Richard Bellingham, a fierce persecutor, and governor after John Endicot, went distracted ten years after, and so died. Not long before, William Coddington, governor of Rhode Island, wrote a letter to him, wherein he put him in mind of the former times; for he, (the said Coddington,) had been one of the first erectors of colonies in New England, and the first that built a house at Boston, and afterwards was a magistrate seven years, but when persecution arose he declared against it; and the case was debated three days in the court, but the moderate party was the weakest, and was opposed by all the priests, except one John Cotton, who said he remembered how at their departure from England he had preached on Acts, iv. 11, and had showed from that text that there was an inward grace which was to be minded, and that therefore he would not give his vote for persecuting the asserters of that doctrine; showing thereby much more sense of religion than the other persecuting priests. Now though Coddington was one of the greatest merchants or traders in that country, and in all probability might have acquired great riches there, yet seeing his good counsel was not hearkened to, he resolved to depart that place, and to go and live somewhere else. But whatever he said in his letter to Bellingham, this man remained hardened like Pharaoh, having showed himself cruel, even when Mary Fisher and Anne Austin first came to Boston, where he treated them in a barbarous manner.
Yet one thing remarkable I may mention here, which when I first heard, I could not fully give credit to; but thinking it worth the while to make a narrow inquiry into it, I did so, not only by writing, but also from the mouths of persons that had been eye-witnesses, or had been informed by such; and from these I got this concurring observation, viz. that the country about Boston was formerly a very fruitful soil that produced excellent wheat; but that since the time this town had been stained with the blood of the Quakers, so called, no wheat, &c. would grow to perfection within twenty miles, though the ground had been ploughed and sown several times; for sometimes what was sown was spoiled by vermin or insects; at other times it grew up, but scarce yielded more than was sown, and so could not countervail the charge; and in another year the expected harvest was quashed by another accident; and these disappointments continuing many years, the people at length grew weary of making further trial, and so left the ground untilled; notwithstanding that twenty miles off from Boston the soil is fruitful, and yields very good corn. But there having been so many reiterated instances of unfruitfulness nearer the town, ancient people that are alive still, and remember the first times, generally agree in their opinion that this is a judgment from heaven, and a curse on the land, because of the shedding of innocent blood at Boston. This relation I had from so many credible persons, (though the one knew nothing of the other, as differing much in time,) yet what they told me did so well agree in the main, that I could not but believe it, though I do not use to be credulous; and therefore I have been the more exact in my inquiry, so that I can no longer question the case; but it seems to me as a punishment on that blood-thirstiness which now hath ceased long ago.
In the island of Barbadoes those called Quakers suffered also much by the people, instigated not a little by the priests, Samuel Graves, Mathew Gray, Thomas Manwaring, and Francis Smith; for these being often drunk, gave occasion thereby to be reproved: and one Thomas Clark coming once into the place of public worship, and exhorting the auditors to desist from lewdness, and to fear God, was so grievously beaten with sticks, that he fell down in a swoon; and Graves who had preached then, went to the house of the said Clark, pulled his wife out of doors, and tore her clothes from her back. And Manwaring, who had threatened Clark that he would procure a law to be made, by which his ears should be cut off, once wrote in a letter to him, ‘I am sorry that your zeal surpasseth your moderation, and that a club must beat out of you what the devil hath inspired.’ And this was because Clark had told him that his conversation was not becoming a minister of the Gospel. Other rough treatment Clark met with I pass by, though once he was set in the stocks and imprisoned. But now I leave America, and return to England.