IMITATED.
As by the lopping axe, the sturdy oak
Improves her shade, and thrives beneath the stroke;
Tho’ present loss and wounds severe she feel,
She draws fresh vigour from th’ invading steel.
G. Fox keeping in continual motion, went with James Nayler to Walney Island, having first had a meeting at a little town called Cockan, after which a man came to him with a pistol, and held it at him, but it would not go off. G. Fox then zealously speaking to him, he was so struck, that he trembled with fear, and went away. The next morning G. Fox went over in a boat to James Lancaster’s, and as soon as he came to land, about forty men with staves, clubs, and fishing-poles, fell upon him, beating and punching him, and endeavoured to thrust him backward into the sea: but he pressing on, was knocked down and stunned. When he came to himself again, he saw James Lancaster’s wife, throwing stones at his face, and her husband James was lying over him, to keep the blows and the stones from off him; for the people had persuaded this woman, that G. Fox had bewitched her husband, and promised her to kill him when he came thither. But the Lord, by his invisible power, preserved him wonderfully, so that they could not take away his life. At length he got up, but was soon beat down again into the boat; which James Lancaster observing, came to him, and set him over the water. Being come to the other side, they saw how the wicked crew was fallen upon James Nayler, with an horrible cry, ‘Kill him; Kill him.’ For whilst they had been beating G. Fox, they had not minded Nayler, who was walking up into a field.
G. Fox being now come again to Cockan, met with no better entertainment, for the people came on with pitchforks, flails, and staves, to keep him out of the town, crying, ‘Kill him; Knock him on the head.’ But he was preserved alive; and after having been much abused, they drove him a pretty way out of the town, and left him. Then James Lancaster went back to look after James Nayler. In the meanwhile G. Fox went to a ditch of water, and washed himself from the blood and dirt. After which he walked about three miles to the house of one Thomas Hutton, but was so bruised that he could hardly speak; only he told where he left James Nayler. Whereupon the said Hutton, and Thomas Lawson, the priest mentioned before, (who lodged then at Hutton’s house,) took each of them a horse, to see if they could find James Nayler; and they lighting on him, brought him thither that night.
Margaret Fell the next day hearing what was befallen G. Fox, sent an horse for him; but he was so sore bruised, that he was not able to bear the shaking of the horse, without much pain. When he was come to Swarthmore, the justices Sawrey and Thompson gave forth a warrant against him; but judge Fell coming home, made it ineffectual, and sent out warrants into the Isle of Walney, to apprehend all those riotous persons: whereupon some of them fled the country. But what is remarkable, James Lancaster’s wife, who so wickedly behaved herself, repented so of her evil, that she became afterwards one of G. Fox’s friends.
Judge Fell now desired of G. Fox a relation of what had befallen him: but he was backward, and said, that those people could not do otherwise in the spirit they were; and that they manifested the fruits of their priests’ ministry. Which made the judge afterward say to his wife, ‘G. Fox spoke of the things as a man that had not been concerned.’
The occasion upon which a warrant was issued out against him, was a design the priests had laid to touch his life; in order to which a report was spread, that in a certain meeting he had spoken blasphemy; and they, to maintain this forgery, had suborned false witnesses. The time of the sessions at Lancaster being come, G. Fox went thither with judge Fell, who on the way told him, that such a matter had never been brought before him, and that he did not know what to do in the case. But G. Fox said, ‘When Paul was brought before the rulers, and the Jews and priests accused him of many false things, he stood still all that while, till they had done; and when they had done, Felix, the governor, beckoned to him to speak for himself. And so, said G. Fox, thou mayest do by me.’