Mary Dyar being returned to prison, wrote the following letter, which she sent to the rulers of Boston.
To the General Court in Boston.
‘Whereas I am by many charged with the guiltiness of my own blood; if you mean in my coming to Boston, I am therein clear, and justified by the Lord, in whose will I came, who will require my blood of you, be sure, who have made a law to take away the lives of the innocent servants of God, if they come among you, who are called by you, cursed Quakers; although I say, and am a living witness for them and the Lord, that he hath blessed them, and sent them unto you; therefore be not found fighters against God, but let my counsel and request be accepted with you, to repeal all such laws, that the Truth and servants of the Lord may have free passage among you, and you be kept from shedding innocent blood, which I know there are many among you would not do, if they knew it so to be; nor can the enemy that stirreth you up thus to destroy his holy seed, in any measure countervail the great damage that you will, by thus doing, procure. Therefore seeing the Lord hath not hid it from me, it lieth upon me, in love to your souls, thus to persuade you. I have no self-ends the Lord knoweth; for if my life were freely granted by you, it would not avail me, nor could I expect it of you, so long as I should daily hear or see the sufferings of these people, my dear brethren, and the seed with whom my life is bound up, as I have done these two years; and now it is like to increase, even unto death, for no evil doing, but coming among you. Was ever the like laws heard of among a people that profess Christ come in the flesh? And have such no other weapons but such laws to fight against spiritual wickedness withal, as you call it? Wo is me for you! Of whom take ye counsel? Search with the light of Christ in you, and it will show you of whom, as it hath done me and many more, who have been disobedient and deceived, as now ye are: which light as ye come into, and obeying what is made manifest to you therein, you will not repent that you were kept from shedding blood, though it were by a woman. It is not mine own life I seek, (for I choose rather to suffer with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of Egypt,) but the life of the seed, which I know the Lord hath blessed, and therefore seeks the enemy thus vehemently to destroy the life thereof, as in all ages he ever did. O hearken not unto him, I beseech you, for the seed’s sake, which is one and all, and is dear in the sight of God, which they that touch, touch the apple of his eye, and cannot escape his wrath; whereof I having felt, cannot but persuade all men that I have to do withal, especially you who name the name of Christ, to depart from such iniquity as shedding blood, even of the saints of the Most High. Therefore let my request have as much acceptance with you, if you be Christians, as Esther’s had with Ahasuerus, whose relation is short of that that is between Christians; and my request is the same that her’s was: and he said not that he had made a law, and it would be dishonourable for him to revoke it; but when he understood that those people were so prized by her, and so nearly concerned her, as in truth these are to me, you may see what he did for her. Therefore I leave these lines with you, appealing to the faithful and true witness of God, which is one in all consciences, before whom we must all appear; with whom I shall eternally rest, in everlasting joy and peace, whether you will hear or forbear. With him is my reward, with whom to live is my joy, and to die is my gain, though I had not had your forty-eight hours warning, for the preparation of the death of Mary Dyar.
‘And know this also, that if through the enmity you shall declare yourselves worse than Ahasuerus, and confirm your law, though it were but by taking away the life of one of us, that the Lord will overthrow both your law and you, by his righteous judgments and plagues poured justly upon you, who now, whilst ye are warned thereof, and tenderly sought unto, may avoid the one, by removing the other. If you neither hear, nor obey the Lord, nor his servants, yet will he send more of his servants among you, so that your end shall be frustrated, that think to restrain them ye call cursed Quakers, from coming among you, by any thing you can do to them. Yea, verily, he hath a seed here among you, for whom we have suffered all this while, and yet suffer; whom the Lord of the harvest will send forth more labourers to gather, out of the mouths of the devourers of all sorts, into his fold, where he will lead them into fresh pastures, even the paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake. Oh, let none of you put this good day far from you, which verily in the light of the Lord I see approaching, even to many in and about Boston, which is the bitterest and darkest professing place, and so to continue so long as you have done, that ever I heard of. Let the time past, therefore, suffice, for such a profession as brings forth such fruits as these laws are. In love, and in the spirit of meekness, I again beseech you, for I have no enmity to the persons of any; but you shall know, that God will not be mocked; but what ye sow, that shall ye reap from him, that will render to every one according to the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. Even so be it, saith
MARY DYAR.’
A copy of this was given to the general court after Mary Dyar had received sentence of death, about the 8th or 9th month, 1659.
The day appointed to execute the bloody sentence, was the 27th of October, when in the afternoon the condemned prisoners were led to the gallows by the marshal Michaelson, and captain James Oliver, with a band of about two hundred armed men, besides many horsemen; as if they were afraid that some of the people would have rescued the prisoners: and that no actors on the stage might be wanting, the priest Wilson joined the company, who, when the court deliberated how to deal with the Quakers, said, ‘Hang them, or else’ (drawing his finger athwart his throat,) as if he would have said, ‘Dispatch ’em this way.’ Now the march began, and a drummer going next before the condemned, the drums were beaten, especially when any of them attempted to speak. Glorious signs of heavenly joy and gladness were beheld in the countenances of these three persons, who walked hand in hand, Mary being the middlemost, which made the marshal say to her, who was pretty aged, and stricken in years, ‘Are not you ashamed to walk thus hand in hand between two young men?’ ‘No,’ replied she, ‘this is to me an hour of the greatest joy I could enjoy in this world. No eye can see, nor ear can hear, no tongue can utter, and no heart can understand, the sweet incomes, or influence, and the refreshings of the spirit of the Lord, which now I feel.’ Thus going along, W. Robinson said, ‘This is your hour, and the power of darkness.’ But presently the drums were beaten; yet shortly after the drummers leaving off beating, Marmaduke Stevenson said, ‘This is the day of your visitation, wherein the Lord hath visited you.’ More he spoke, but could not be understood, by reason of the drums being beaten again. Yet they went on with great cheerfulness, as going to an everlasting wedding feast, and rejoicing that the Lord had counted them worthy to suffer death for his name’s sake.
When they were come near the gallows, the priest said in a taunting way to W. Robinson, ‘Shall such jacks as you come in before authority with their hats on?’ To which Robinson replied, ‘Mind you, mind you, it is for the not putting off the hat we are put to death!’ Now being come to the ladder, they took leave of each other with tender embraces, and then Robinson went cheerfully up the ladder, and being got up, said to the people, ‘This is the day of your visitation, wherein the Lord hath visited you: this is the day the Lord is risen in his mighty power, to be avenged on all his adversaries.’ He also signified, that he suffered not as an evil-doer: and desired the spectators to mind the light that was in them; to wit, the Light of Christ, of which he testified, and was now going to seal it with his blood. This so incensed the envious priest, that he said, ‘Hold thy tongue; be silent; thou art going to die with a lie in thy mouth.’ The rope being now about his neck, the executioner bound his hands and legs, and tied his neckcloth about his face: which being done, Robinson said, ‘Now ye are made manifest;’ and the executioner being about turning him off, he said, ‘I suffer for Christ, in whom I live, and for whom I die.’ He being turned off, Marmaduke Stevenson stepped up the ladder, and said, ‘Be it known unto all this day, that we suffer not as evil-doers, but for conscience sake.’ And when the hangman was about to turn him off, he said, ‘This day shall we be at rest with the Lord;’ and so he was turned off.
Mary Dyar seeing her companions hanging dead before her, also stepped up the ladder; but after her coats were tied about her feet, the halter put about her neck, and her face covered with a handkerchief, which the priest Wilson lent the hangman, just as she was to be turned off, a cry was heard, ‘Stop, for she is reprieved.’ Her feet then being loosed, they bade her come down. But she whose mind was already as it were in heaven, stood still, and said, she was there willing to suffer as her brethren did, unless they would annul their wicked law. Little heed was given to what she said, but they pulled her down, and the marshal and others taking her by the arms, carried her to prison again. That she thus was freed from the gallows, this time, was at the intercession of her son, to whom it seems they could not then resolve to deny that favour. She, now having heard why she was reprieved, wrote the next day, being the 28th of October, the following letter to the court.