In the next year, (September, 1658), Holder, Copeland, and another young man named Rouse, had their right ears cut off in the prison. A number of women were whipped and imprisoned; and one, Katharine Scott of Providence, being in Boston, pronounced the above punishment in prison, “a work of darkness,” and was therefore shamefully treated and abused, although a mother of children, and “a grave, sober, ancient woman.” She was publicly whipped, and threatened with hanging if found in Boston again.
Three persons known as Quakers, on their way from Salem to Rhode Island, to provide a place for themselves and families, were arrested by the constable at Dedham, and sent to Boston, where Gov. Endicott set them at liberty, but fined them twelve shillings, as it would seem for the stupidity of the constable. The constable, no doubt, arrested them for fear of being fined for neglect of duty.
In 1658-59, persecutions continued fearfully, and numbers were arrested, imprisoned, and punished. In the latter year, William Robinson, formerly a London merchant, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Myra (or Mary) Dyar, having returned after banishment, were sentenced to be hung; and the two men were hung, Oct. 20. Myra Dyar was upon the ladder, her arms and legs tied, and the rope about her neck, when, at the urgent solicitation of her son, she was spared and sent out of the colony; but she returned again the next year, impressed with the belief that her death was necessary to the cause she had espoused,—as fanatical as were the Puritans themselves,—and was hung in June. The bodies of the men, it is said, were shamefully stripped and abused, after they were literally cut down, and were thrown into a hole together.
In July, 1660, Margaret Brewster, from Barbadoes, and two or three other women, made an incursion into the Old South Church; she appeared “in sackcloth, with ashes on her head, barefoot and her face blackened,” with some purpose of warning the people against the black pox, “if they put in practice a cruel law against swearing.”
It is said also “that Deborah Wilson went through the streets of Salem naked as she came into the world, for which she was well whipped.” Thomas Newhouse went into a meeting-house in Boston, and smashed two empty bottles together, with a threat to the people; and, no doubt, other provoking things were done.
In March, 1661, persecutions still prevailing, William Leddra, who came from Barbadoes, was arrested, together with one William Brend; and Drake says, “The cruelties perpetrated on these poor, misguided men are altogether of a character too horrid to be related.” It is said that Leddra would not accept life on any terms, and was therefore hung on the 14th of March; and Capt. Johnson, who led him forth to the gallows, was afterwards taken “with a distemper which deprived him of his reason and understanding as a man.”
These proceedings, outrageous as they certainly were, led to a movement in England by the Quakers and their friends, which resulted in an order from the King, Sept. 9, 1661, requiring that a stop should be put to all capital or corporal punishments. The following are the words of this remarkable document:—
“Charles R.
“Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. Having been informed that several of our subjects amongst you, called Quakers, have been and are imprisoned by you, whereof some have been executed, and others (as hath been represented unto us) are in danger to undergo the like: We have thought fit to signify our pleasure in that behalf for the future, and do hereby require, that if there be any of those people now amongst you, now already condemned to suffer death or other corporal punishment, or that are imprisoned, and obnoxious to the like condemnation, you are to forbear to proceed any further therein, but that you forthwith send the said persons, whether condemned or imprisoned, over into this Our Kingdom of England, together with the respective crimes or offenses laid to their charge, to the end such course may be taken with them here as shall be agreeable to our laws and their demerits; and for so doing these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge.
“Given at Our Court at Whitehall the ninth day of Sept., 1661, in the thirteenth year of Our Reign.