At length he came to Lancaster, where, at the inn, he met with colonel West, who was very glad to see him. Next he came to Swarthmore, where he wrote some epistles and other papers. After having staid there some days, he went to some other places in the North, and to Scotland. Here, travelling from town to town, he met with great opposition from some priests: for in an assembly, they had drawn up several articles, or curses, to be read in their steeple-houses, the first of which was, ‘cursed is he that saith every man hath a light within him sufficient to lead him to salvation: and let all the people say, Amen.’ An independent pastor preaching one day against the Quakers, and the light, and calling the light natural, cursed it, and so fell down as dead in his pulpit; the people carrying him out, and pouring strong waters into him, it brought him to life again; but he was mopish, and, as one of his hearers said, he never recovered his senses.
In October G. Fox came to Edinburgh, where he was summoned to appear before the council, who, though indifferently civil, yet told him, he must depart the nation of Scotland by that day seven-night: against which he not only spoke but wrote also. Whilst G. Fox was in Scotland, his friends there were brought to a great strait; for, being excommunicated by the Presbyterian teachers, charge was given, that none should buy or sell, nor eat nor drink with them. Hence it came to pass, that some having bought bread, or other victuals, of their neighbours, these frightened with the curses of their priests, did run, and fetch it from them again. But colonel Ashton, a justice of peace, put a stop to these proceedings, and being afterwards convinced of the Truth, had a meeting settled at his house, and declared the Truth, and lived and died in it.
G. Fox now travelled almost over all Scotland, and had in some places good opportunities to declare the gospel, being often heard with satisfaction by the English soldiers; but the Scotch generally gave little heed. He went also among the Highlanders, who were a mischievous people. Returning at length to Leith, the innkeeper told him, that the council had granted forth warrants to apprehend him, because he was not gone out of the nation after the seven days were expired, that they had ordered him to depart in. Some others told him the same, to whom he said, ‘What do you tell me of their warrants against me? If there were a cart load of them I do not heed them; for the Lord’s power is over them all.’ From Leith he went to Edinburgh again, and went to the inn where he had lodged before, and no man offered to meddle with him. Alexander Parker and Robert Widders being also there, he resolved to go with Parker to Johnston, out of which town some time before he had been led by soldiers; and he came into Johnston just as they were drawing up the bridges, the officers and soldiers never questioning him. And coming to captain Davenport’s house, from which he had been hauled before, he found there many officers, who lifting up their hands, wondered that he came again; but he told them, the Lord God hath sent him amongst them again. Then the Baptists sent him a letter by way of challenge, that they would discourse with him again the next day. And he sent them word, that he would meet them at a certain house, about half a mile out of the town, at such an hour. For he thought if he should stay in town to speak with them, they might, under pretence of discoursing with him, have raised people to carry him out of the town again, as they had done before. At the time appointed he went to the place, captain Davenport and his son accompanying him; and there he staid some hours, but none of them came; whereby the intent of the Baptists was sufficiently discovered. Being thus disappointed, he went back again to Edinburgh, and past through the town, as it were, against the cannon’s mouth. The next day, being the first day of the week, he went to the meeting in the city, and many officers and soldiers came to it, and all was quiet. The following day he went to Dunbar, where walking with a friend or two of his in the steeple-house yard, and meeting with one of the chief men of the town there; he spoke to one of his friends to tell him, that about the ninth hour next morning, there was to be a meeting there, of the people of God, called Quakers, of which they desired him to give notice to the people of the town. To which he said, that they were to have a lecture there by the ninth hour; but that a meeting might be kept there by the eighth hour, if they would. G. Fox thinking this not inconvenient, desired him to give notice of it. Accordingly in the morning many came, both poor and rich; and a captain of horse being quartered in the town, came there with his troopers also. To this company G. Fox preached, and after some time the priest came, and went into the steeple-house; but G. Fox and his friend being in the steeple-house yard, most of the people staid with them; so that the priest having but few hearers, made short work, and coming out, stood a while and heard G. Fox, and then went away. This was the last meeting he had in Scotland, and he understood afterwards, that his labour had not been in vain, but that the number of believers increased. Now he departed from Dunbar, and came to Berwick in Northumberland, and from thence to Newcastle, where we will leave him awhile, and return again to New England.
We have seen before, that a law was made there, to prevent the Quakers coming into that country. The first I find that came after that, were Anne Burden, a widow, whose business was to gather up some debts in the country, that were due to her; and Mary Dyer from Rhode Island, who, before her coming, knew nothing of what had been done there concerning the Quakers. These two were both imprisoned, which William Dyer, Mary’s husband, hearing, came from Rhode Island, and did not get her released without a great deal of pains; becoming bound in a great penalty, not to lodge her in any town in that colony, nor to permit any to speak with her: an evident token that he was not of the society of Quakers, so called, for otherwise he would not have entered into such a bond; but then without question, he would also have been clapped up in prison. As for Anne Burden, she was kept in prison, though sick, about a quarter of a year. Whilst she was in this restraint, some tender-hearted people had procured of her debts to the value of about thirty pounds in goods; and when she at length was to be sent away, she desired that she might have liberty to pass for England, by Barbadoes, because her goods were not fit for England. Now how reasonable soever this request was, yet a master of a ship was compelled to carry her to England, without her goods, for which she came there, except to the value of about six shillings, which an honest man sent her upon an old account. And when the master of the ship asked who should pay for her passage, the magistrates bid him take so much of her goods as would answer it. But he was too honest to do so, being persuaded that she would not let him be a loser, though he could not compel her to pay, since she went not of her own will: yet for all that she paid him at London. After she was gone, when he that had the first trust from her husband, was to convey her goods to Barbadoes, these rapacious people stopped to the value of six pounds ten shillings for her passage, for which they paid nothing, and seven shillings for boat-hire to carry her on ship-board, though the master proffered the governor to carry her in his own boat, but that was not allowed; she being sent with the hangman in a boat that was pressed: besides, they took to the value of fourteen shillings for the jailer, to whom she owed nothing. Now, though this widow had made such a great voyage, to get something of what was due to her, to relieve her, and her fatherless children, yet after three years she had nothing of it come to her hands; and whether she got any thing since I never understood.
The next of the Quakers that came to Boston, was Mary Clark, who, having left her husband, John Clark, a merchant taylor, with her children at London, came thither to warn these persecutors to desist from their iniquity: but after she had delivered her message, she was unmercifully rewarded with twenty stripes of a whip with three cords, on her naked back, and detained prisoner about twelve weeks in the winter season. The cords of these whips were commonly as thick as a man’s little finger, having each some knots at the end; and the stick was sometimes so long, that the hangman made use of both his hands to strike the harder.
The next that came were Christopher Holder and John Copeland, who had been banished before; and coming to Salem, a town in the same colony, Holder spoke a few words in their meeting, after the priest had done; but was hauled back by the hair of his head, and a glove and handkerchief thrust into his mouth, and so turned out with his companion; and next day had to Boston, where each of them received thirty stripes with a knotted whip of three cords, the hangman measuring his ground, and fetching his strokes with the greatest strength he could: which so cruelly cut their flesh, that a woman seeing it fell down as dead. Then they were locked up in prison, and the jailer kept them three days without any food, not giving them so much as a draught of water; and so close that none might come to speak with them; lying on the boards without bed or straw. Thus they were kept nine weeks prisoners, without fire, in the cold winter season. And Samuel Shattock, of Salem, who endeavoured to stop the thrusting of the glove and handkerchief into Holder’s mouth, lest it should have choaked him, was also carried to Boston, and there imprisoned, till he had given bond for twenty pounds, to answer it at the next court, and not to come at any meeting of the Quakers.
The career of this cruelty did not stop here; for Lawrence Southick and Cassandra, his wife, members of the public church at Salem, and an ancient and grave couple, having entertained the aforesaid C. Holder and J. Copeland, were committed to prison, and sent to Boston, where Lawrence being released, his wife was kept seven weeks prisoner, and then fined forty shillings for owning a paper of exhortation, written by the aforesaid Holder and Copeland.
The next that came from England, as being under a necessity from the Lord to come to this land of persecution, was Richard Dowdney, who was apprehended at Dedham, and brought to Boston, having never before been in that country; yet he was not spared for all that, but thirty stripes were also given him in like manner as the former. And after twenty days imprisonment, he was sent away with Holder and Copeland; after having been threatened with cutting off their ears, if they returned. These cruel dealings, so affected many inhabitants, that some withdrew from the public assemblies, and meeting by themselves quietly on the First days of the week, they were fined five shillings a week, and committed to prison. The first whose lot this was, were the aforesaid Lawrence and Cassandra Southick, and their son Josiah, who, being carried to Boston, were all of them, notwithstanding the old age of the two, sent to the house of correction, and whipped with cords, as those before, in the coldest season of the year, and had taken from them to the value of four pounds thirteen shillings, for not coming to church.
Leaving New England for a while, I will turn another way. It was in this year, about the latter end of summer, that a certain young man named George Robinson, felt a motion to travel to Jerusalem. In order thereunto, he embarked in a ship bound for Leghorn, in Italy, where, having staid about two weeks, being daily visited by English and others, he went with a French ship towards St. John D’Acre, formerly called Ptolemais, a city in Asia bordering upon the Mediterranean sea, near Palestine, where, having lodged about eight days in a French merchant’s house, he embarked in a vessel bound for Jaffa or Joppa. What occurred by the way with some Turks, who demanded unreasonable tribute of him, I pass by; but a certain Armenian on that occasion having seen his meek behaviour, said, he was a good Christian, and was very kind to him. Being arrived at Jaffa, he went to Ramoth, but the Friars at Jerusalem having heard of his coming, gave orders to some to stop him, which was done accordingly; and after having been locked up about a day, there came an ancient Turk, a man of great repute, who took him into his house, and courteously entertained him. After four or five days there came an Irish friar from Jerusalem, with whom, falling into discourse of religious matters, the friar at first behaved himself kindly, but told him afterwards, that was not the business he came about, but that he was sent from his brethren, the friars, at Jerusalem, to propound to him some questions.
- Whether he would promise, when he came to Jerusalem, that he would visit the holy places as other pilgrims did?
- Whether he would pay so much money as pilgrims used to do?
- Whether he would wear such a sort of habit as was usual with pilgrims?
- That he must speak nothing against the Turks laws.
- And when he came to Jerusalem, not speak any thing about religion.