As to the profitableness, the author said, ‘Besides the twenty pounds and ten shillings apiece for meeting, if you can but tempt any by your questions, or other provocations, to speak but a word to answer you, it will serve to make him a preacher, and then for the first time there is twenty pounds, and for the second forty pounds. It is no matter what is spoke, or to what concern; if you swear you did hear such an one speak, it is enough to make him a preacher. And as to the inability, there is no danger that you should fall short of your salary; for you can by your power make void that old proverb, Where it is not to be had, the king must lose his right. But your prerogative is such, that if the offender hath it not, you can command your servants to levy it on any other that is not an offender in that nature, provided he be there, otherwise an appeal will be granted.’
At this rate the author treated the matter, taking out of the way all difficulties and scruples which any might have objected; and though he did this mostly in a burlesque way, yet what he said was so firm and strenuous, that he gave proofs of being a man of understanding, and of a great wit; for though in an ingenious way he showed the abominableness of this informing trade, yet he proposed it safe every way: and if any might tell them they were knights of the post; yet however the thing fell out, it was never attended with loss, but always with a certain gain; since in the prosecution nothing could be objected, but what might be easily quashed, and the opposers thus frustrated.—‘And when to all these infallible profits was added the honourableness of the office, what could one desire more? for was it not honourable indeed to command both magistrates and military officers, to follow the informers where they will? and to obtain this office, one needed not to be at great cost to purchase it, nor to break his pate with studying; since at the very first conventicle they entered they might commence doctors.’ But of what religion or profession these informers should be, the author himself seemed not to know: ‘They must be no jews,’ said he, ‘for these were not to covet their neighbours’ ox, nor ass, nor any thing that was their neighbours; neither should they be gentiles, for they had conscience accusing, and did by nature the things contained in the law, having the law writ in their hearts. And Christians they could be by no means; for they say they forsake the devil and all his works, and all the lusts of the flesh, and not to hurt any by word nor deed, which is less than by swearing,’ [the common fact of the informers.] To conclude, the author said: ‘for any into whose hands this may come, if they fear any danger in it, they ought not to conceal it, but to bring it before some justice, or the chief magistrate of the place, with an account how they came by it, and then they are innocent: then if it cannot clear itself, let it lie in prison till it perish.’
Now I return to George Fox, whom we left in the ship going to America. During his voyage he suffered much in his body; for the many hurts and bruises he had formerly received, and the griefs and infirmities he had contracted in England by cold, and hardships, and long imprisonments, returned upon him now he came to sea, and caused great pain. And after having been seven weeks and some odd days at sea, he, with his fellow-travellers, came safe to the island of Barbadoes. His occurrences there he hath described at large in his journal. Many of the great ones, especially the governor, showed him much kindness. And after he had edified his friends there on many occasions, and exhorted them to the maintaining of good order, both in things relating to the church, and in the governing of their blacks; he now, being restored to health again, departed the island after a stay of three months, and set sail for Jamaica, where he had not been long, ere Elizabeth Hooton, several times mentioned in this work, departed this life, having been well the day before she died; and thus she finished her days in a good frame of mind. After he had been there about seven weeks, he performed his service to his satisfaction.
1672.
In the beginning of the year 1672 he took shipping for Maryland, where being come, he with those with him travelled through woods and wildernesses, over bogs and great rivers, to New England. By the way he had sometimes opportunity to speak to the Indians and their kings; and at other times he met with singular cases, all which, for brevity’s sake, I pass by in silence. He went also to the town formerly called New Amsterdam, which name is now changed into that of New York. Here he lodged at the governor’s house, and had also a meeting there. From thence he returned again to Maryland, and came also into Virginia, and Carolina, and thus spent above a year travelling to and fro in America.
Whilst he was there, England and France were entered into war against Holland. Now though I have yet in fresh remembrance those sad times, and in what a wonderful manner it pleased the Lord to save our country from being quite overrun and subdued, yet I shall not mention those things, since they are at large set down by other writers. Yet transiently I will give a touch of the remarkable exaltation of William III. prince of Orange, and afterwards king of Great Britain.
I have already said in its due place, how it was endeavoured to exclude him by the perpetual edict from ever being stadtholder or deputy. But how strong soever this edict was sworn to, yet heaven brought it to nought, and broke the ties of it by the refuse of the nation: for women, and many others of the mob, forced the magistrates, when the French were come into the province of Utrecht, and all seemed to run into confusion, to break their oaths, and to restore that young and magnanimous prince to the honour and dignity of his renowned ancestors. The miserable fate of the two brethren, John and Cornelius de Wit, who had been chief instruments in making the said perpetual edict, and were killed and butchered in a most abominable manner by the inhabitants of the Hague, was not without good reason disapproved by many grave and serious people. It is true, it was a great mistake that they acted so, that they seemed to set limits to the Almighty; though I do not believe their intent was such, but rather that what they did in making void the stadtholdership, they judged conducive to the benefit of their country. After they were murdered, the widow of Cornelius de Wit seemed to have a firm belief that they were entered into everlasting glory: for though for some time after their death she was under a great concern, considering how on a sudden, and at unawares, they were hurried out of this life; yet at length, early in the morning, either in a dream or in a vision, she beheld them both in a cloud in a glorious form, with hands lifted up, and clothed with pure white raiment. By this sight all her former solicitude and fear was taken from her, and she was fully satisfied concerning their eternal well-being. I have this relation from several credible persons, who said they had it from her own mouth; and they all agreed in the material circumstances.
1673.
In England, where it was observed that persecution for religion, during the war, could not but be prejudicial to the public, the king published a declaration, whereby the execution of the penal laws was suspended. But since the Papists, against whom the most of these laws had been made, thus got liberty to enter into offices of trust, many of the people grew jealous on this account; insomuch that the parliament in the year 1673, showed their dislike to the king, telling him, that the penal statutes about ecclesiastical matters could not be suspended but by an act of parliament. The king, wanting money to continue the war, yielded somewhat to parliament, in respect to the popish priests and jesuits, consenting that the laws against them should continue in force.
This summer G. Fox returned to England, and arrived at Bristol, of which he gave notice to his wife by a letter; and she delayed not to go to him; with her came also her son-in-law Thomas Lower, and two of her daughters: her other son-in-law John Rouse, accompanied by William Penn, &c. came also from London; and since at that time there was a fair at Bristol, many of his friends came thither from other parts of the country, and so were at a great meeting he had there, in which he preached concerning the three chief teachers, viz. ‘That God was the first teacher of man and woman in paradise; and that as long as they kept to God’s teaching, they kept in the image of God, and in righteousness, holiness, and dominion over all that God hath made: but when they hearkened to the false teaching of the serpent, who was out of truth, and so disobeyed God, they lost the image of God, to wit, righteousness and holiness; and so coming under the power of satan, were turned out of paradise. That this serpent was the second teacher, and that man following his teaching, came into misery, and into the fall. And that Christ Jesus was the third teacher, of whom God said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him:” and that this Son himself said, “Learn of me:” that he was the true gospel teacher, that never fell, and therefore was to be heard in all things, since he was the Saviour and the Redeemer, and having laid down his life, had bought his sheep with his precious blood.’ Of this he treated at large in the said meeting. After some stay at Bristol, he went to Gloucestershire; and going from thence to Oxfordshire, he came at length to London, where persecution being not so hot now as formerly, the Baptists and Socinians were very active in blackening the Quakers, by publishing several books against them, in which they averred that the Quakers were no Christians. But these malicious books were not left unanswered, nor the falsehoods contained in them.