This being tendered they will not take it and then we must adde more force to the Law and that is If any man refuse or neglect to take it by such a time shall pay Five pounds or depart the Colony VVhen the time is come they are the same as they were Then goes out the Marshal and fetcheth away their Cows and other Cattel Well another Court comes They are required to take the Oath again They cannot Then Five pounds more On this Account Thirty five head of Cattel as I have been credibly informed hath been by the Authority of our Court taken from them the latter part of this Summer and these People say If they have more right to them than themselves Let them take them Some that had a Cow only some Two Cows some Three Cows and many small Children in their Families to whom in Summer time a Cow or two was the greatest Outward Comfort they had for their subsistance A Poor Weaver that hath Seven or Eight small Children I know not which he himself lame in his Body had but two Cows and both taken from him The Marshal asked him what he would do he must have his Cows The Man said That God that gave him them he doubted not but would still provide for him To fill up the Measure yet more full though to the further emptying of Sandwitch Men of their outward Comforts The last Court of Assistants the first Tuesday of this Instant the Court was pleased to determine Fines on Sandwitch Men for Meetings sometimes on First Dayes of the Week sometimes on other dayes as they say They meet ordinarily twice in the week besides the Lords Day One Hundred and Fifty pounds whereof W. Newland is Twenty four pounds for himself and his Wife at Ten shillings a Meeting W. Allen Forty six pounds some affirm it Forty nine pounds The poor VVeaver afore spoken of Twenty pounds Brother Cook told me One of the Brethren at Barnstable certified him that he was in the Weavers house when Cruel Barloe Sandwitch Marshal came to demand the Sum and said he was fully informed of all the Poor Man had and thought if all laid together it was not worth Ten pounds VVhat will be the End of such Courses and Practices the Lord only knows I heartily and earnestly pray that these and such like courses neither raise up among us nor bring in upon us either the Sword or any devouring Calamity as a Just Avenger of the Lord's Quarrel for acts of Injustice and Oppression and that we may every one find out the Plague of his own heart and putting away the Evil of his own Doings and meet the Lord by Entreaties of Peace before it be too late and there be no Remedy Our Civil Powers are so exercised in things appertaining to the Kingdom of Christ in matters of Religion and Conscience that we can have no time to effect any thing that tends to the Promotion of the Civil Weal or the Prosperity of the Place But now we must have a State-Religion such as the Powers of the World will allow and no other A State-Ministry and a State-way of Maintenance And we must worship and serve the Lord Jesus as the World shall appoint us we must all go to the Publick Place of Meeting in the Parish where he dwells or be presented I am informed of Three or Four score last Court presented for not coming to Publick Meetings and let me tell you how they brought this about You may remember a Law once made called Thomas Hinckley's Law That if any neglected the Worship of God in the Place where he lives and sets up a Worship contrary to God and the Allowance of this Government to the publick Prophanation of Gods Holy Day and Ordinance shall pay Ten shillings This Law would not reach what then was aimed at Because he must do so and so that is all things therein expressed or else break not the Law In March last a Court of Deputies was called and some Acts touching Quakers were made and then they contrived to make this Law serviceable to them and that was by putting out the word and and putting in the word or which is a Disjunctive and makes every Branch to become a Law So now if any do neglect or will not come to the Publick Meetings Ten shillings for every Defect Certainly we either have less Wit or more Money than the Massachusets For for Five shillings a day a man may stay away till it come to Twelve or Thirteen pounds if he had it but to pay them And these men altering this Law now in March yet left it Dated June 6. 1651. and so it stands as the Act of a General Court they to be the Authors of it Seven years before it was in being And so you your self have your part and share in it if the Recorder lie not But what may be the Reason that they should not by another Law made and dated by that Court as well effect what was intended as by altering a word and so the whole sence of the Law and leave this their Act by the date of it charged on another Courts account Surely the chief Instruments in the business being privy to an Act of Parliament for Liberty should too openly have acted repugnant to a Law of England but if they can do the thing and leave it on a Court as making it six years before the Act of Parliament there can be no danger in this And that they were privy to the Act of Parliument for Liberty to be then in being is evident That the Deputies might be free to act it They told us That now the Protector stood not engaged to the Articles for Liberty for the Parliament had now taken the Power into their Own hands and had given the Protector a new Oath Only in General to maintain the Protestant Religion and so produced the Oath in a Paper in writing Whereas the Act of Parliament and the Oath are both in one Book in Print So that they who were privy to the One could not be ignorant of the Other But still all is well if we can but keep the People ignorant of their Liberties and Priviledges then we have liberty to Act in Our own Wills what we please We are wrapped up in a Laborynth of Confused Laws that the Freemens Power is quite gone and it was said last June-Court by one That they knew nothing the Freemen had there to do Sandwitch-men may not go to the Bay lest they be taken up for Quakers William Newland was there about his Occasions some Ten dayes since and they put him in Prison Twenty four hours and sent for divers to witness against him but they had not Proof enough to make him a Quaker which if they had he should have been whipt Nay they may not go about their Occasions in other Towns in our Colony but Warrants lie in Ambush to apprehend and bring them
same ground as did this Magistrate but these things I spare being so plain and manifest So they passed away in the Moving of the Lord to Rhoad Island after they had been twenty four Weeks Prisoners in your Slaughter-House at Boston that is to say Joseph Nicholson twenty four Weeks and his Wife eighteen And after they had received your Cruelty as to her Life who might have perished in her Travil as aforesaid but this was the thing ye desired as to her and the rest as your Words and Deeds have made manifest so that it might be with safety to your selves which was your wariness indeed not that it was your Love to those People whom ye sought to Destroy but therein had not your Wills though ye have been suffered to put some of them to Death that what ye would do and what was in your hearts might be made manifest And eight more when Joseph and his Wife passed from Boston were in Prison who by Your bloody Law were in condition of Banishment upon Pain of Death so to root them out This being the often Expression of some of you That they or you must give way and why can't ye Live together seeing ye were made of One Blood and to breath in one Ayre and the Bishops might with as much Justice have used the same Argument as you And your M. General Denison often said in Court as I have alledged That they and you could not well live together Your minds are very great that would swell bigger than the Ordinance of the God of Heaven who hath made mankind to dwell on all the face of the Earth and that at Present the Power was in your hands but Know ye how long it will be Wisdom would have tought ye had ye kearkened unto it to have done by Men Whilst ye are in Power as ye would have done to your selves when ye are Out and as it was not done unto you when ye were under who even now are under another Jurisdiction and the rest must fend off as I have said said he So mind your State and how ye have given Law against your selves You should have been absolute first had ye been wise Men and made your selves so viz. Independant from England as your Action bespoke your Mind in making it Death Directly or Indirectly to seek the Alteration of Your Government which was upon the endeavouring of some by Petition to England to have their Grievances redrest before any of the People called Quakers came into Your Jurisdiction whom You used at Your pleasure and to prevent them formed this Law that all things might be secure in your hands and so far ye proceeded further That neither Oliver nor his Son Richard were Proclaimed Protectors not that Ye liked them not but that ye thought them so much your Friends as that by the Indulgence of them ye might get clear of England though ye pretended something else viz. the Danger of some Body who which that some Body was it may be judged And One of your Priests said by such as Endeavoured by Petition to England to have Redress That if they had their due they should be led up Windmil-Hill that is to the Gallows in plain English to be Hanged For on Windmil-Hill stood the Gallows at Bostow And some of the said Petitioners were taken and Imprisoned and Fined in great summes of Mony for so doing As Doctor Child Samuel Maverick David Yeal and others that were Merchants whom ye Sought to find out viz. the Petitioners by putting some to an Oath in the Nature of that Ex Officio to accuse any but themselves which one of them resolving not to take and yet afterwards doing was so tormented in his Spirit that he died miserable And this is something of the Provision ye have made against your Dependency on England and upon which none durst from that time upon their Lives Petition to England for Redress of any Grievance whatsoever And this is the Tyranny under which doth lie the People of New-England and upon Account of this Appeals to England have been denied of which I have spoken Now this was upon a Petition wherein they desired to be ruled according to the Laws of England and that they might have the Liberty of English men or else they intended to Petition to Enland which was put into the Court at Boston where it kindled a great fire against the Petitioners and most of the Pulpits rang of it see how the Priests are in all Places the Trumpeters of Rebellion whose Interest as it appears is to be severed from England and to make some of them Examples that is to hang them the Magistrates were set on by the Priests and the said Priest for One. So they made their Law as aforesaid And Richard Bellingham your Deputy Governor who deserves not to be named amonst men Who when in England in that day of the Bishops hid himself under a Bed for fear of an Appariter but is now thus Cruel to the Innocent said to the said Joseph and his Wife after that ye had pronounced on them the Sentence of Banishment upon Pain of Death That their Law was too strong for them and that they should be Hanged assuredly if they should be taken again after Banishment in which he lied for they were before you several times after their said Banishment and the time Limited was expired and yet they were not Hanged as they were whom ye had already put to Death but the Lord delivered them out of your hands and that they would take a Course with his wife hereafter which was after she should be delivered for she was great with Child when she was Banisht and this was said when ye Banisht her And Your Goaler Rejoyced when he met Joseph as he was in the Way to the Prison after his Banishment Telling him That he viz. the said Joseph was come again to see whether the Gallows would hold him as he rejoyced at the sight of some other Friends who were sent to Prison for that purpose of which I have spoken And it was boasted in Court That ye had men in Armes to maintain your Laws and to defend your selves And what Laws are they Against Conscience or for Religion and what Religion is it which Men in Armes must maintain and against whom are your Armes Those who do not resist you and who are few in Number a few Men and Women What Defence is this If Men in Armes should come to try you Would you thus maintain it I could never find that cruel men dare much to sight Such a Generation of Blood-thirsty men Ravening after the Prey after Blood the Blood of the Innocent who have been Ancient in your Cruelty and have long been filling up your measure who as soon as you had escaped the hands of those you feared in England gotten large Farmes about you you sat down at Rest and then soon began to
the beginning But the Righteous God will fill to you again yea double in the Cup that ye have filled and ye shall surely have your Reward Therefore deceive not your selves for as you have sown so shall ye reap as you have done so shall it be done unto you and ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have taken Vengeance upon You and rendred unto you according to your Deeds Then shall you see and be ashamed for your Envy at My People Shame shall cover you who have said unto them Where is now the Lord thy God and ye shall be a Perpetual Desolation the Mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it who also will do it and perform it in its season and the time is near Now as to the Sufferings What were they and your House of Correction that ye make so slight of them and say of them which proving Insufficient The First Two that came Over after this your Law were Anne Burden and Mary Dyar her whom ye afterwards put to death after that ye had reprieved her of which in its place The One's business was viz. Anne Burden's to gather up some Debts in the Country her Husband being dead who was a long Inhabitant therein for the maintenance of her and her children who had lived about Sixteen years in Boston and those parts and was unblamable before them with whom she lived Nor had ye any thing wherewithal to charge her now but that she was a Plain Quaker as Richard Bellingham said and that she must aside your Law who came for her Debts Mary Dyar's to pass that way to Rhoad Island having before she arrived there no knowledge of what ye had done These Two ye imprisoned and kept close Prisoners that none might come at them and though William Dyar came for his Wife from Rhoad Island after he heard that she was there and in Prison yet ye suffered him not to have her until he became bound in a great Penalty so great was your fear not to lodge her in any Town of your Colony nor to permit any to have speech with her an unmanly thing in her Journey But as for Anne Burden ye held her to it and when she was very sick in Prison ye suffered not her Friends to come and visit her Yea your Jaylor shut her up in a close Room in the heat of Summer upon the Visit of Two Friends at the Window as they came from your Meetings And as for her Debts though some Tender-hearted People were moved to look after them whilst she was in this Restraint and had procured to the value of about Thirty Pounds of it and desired that she might have her Liberty when ye sent her away to pass to England by Barbados because the Goods so gathered for that part of the Debt were not fit for England which was so reasonable that you seemed at first as if it might be if any Voluntarily would receive her for that ye could compel none so to do but He that brought her thither and they upon this seeming Liberty of yours had procured such a Passage Yet ye suffered her not to go but most unreasonably compell'd the Master of the Ship that brought her thither to carry her back for England without any of her Goods with her nor had she so much as One Penies-worth of her Husband's except to the Value of Six shillings which an honest man sent her upon an old Account whilst she was in new-New-England but ye returned her Empty to her Fatherless Children though they were born in the Country and after that ye had kept her there for the space of about Twelve weeks close Prisoner and put her to the charge of her abiding there and going back and when the Master of the Ship asked who should pay for her Passage Ye advised him to take so much of her Goods as would answer it which he refusing to do so wicked a thing and rather trusting to her Honesty of which he was perswaded that she would not let him be a loser though he could not compel her to pay seeing she went not of her own will and which she paid him in London upon that Account ye let him go And when he that had the first trust from her husband with the Estate was to convey what was gathered to Barbados after she was gone Ye stopp'd to the value of six pounds ten shillings of it for her Passage who so went upon her own and paid it in London aforesaid and of seven shillings for Boat-hire to carry her on Sihpboard though the Master proffered John Endicot your Governour to carry her in his own but Richard Bellingham your Deputy-Governor would not but sent her with the Hangman in a Boat that he had prest and of Fourteen pounds for the Jaylon to whom she owed nothing and as for the rest she heard of some that was sent to the Barbados by the honest man that stirred to have it in but of him that was intrusted she neither heard when nor what nor hath she any thing of it come to her hands 25th of the 2d Month 1660. to relieve her and her Children and as for the Remainder of the Estate left in the Country which should have been a Livelihood for her and hers and for which she came what is become of it she knoweth not nor cannot go over to Enquire without a Prison And this is your Mercy your way to pay Debts your Tenderness your Regard to the Widow and the Fatherless your Justice and the Execution of your Laws when the Reason of your Law hath no place And for this Expect that ye shall have your Reward from Him who is the Father of the Fatherless and the Husband to the Widow who is no Respecter of Persons but will render to every man according to his works Mary Clark is the next whose tender Body being a Mother of Children and having a Husband in England whom she left being moved of the Lord to come unto you ye unmercifully tore with Twenty stripes of a Whip with Three Cords laid on with fury after she had delivered her Message to you which she had from the Lord which ye turned your backs upon and said Ye would not hear like those Proud men to whom the Prophet Jeremiah spake in the Word of the Lord. So she turned her Back to you and ye smote it as aforesaid and having detained her Prisoner about Twelve weeks after in the Winter season ye turned her out of your Jurisdiction Who now is not And this is your House of Correction and the beginning of the inslicting of the Penalty which ye say was Insufficient Christopher Holder and John Copeland are the next who being moved of the Lord to go to Salem a Town in your Colony and speaking a few words viz. Christopher Holder in Your Meeting after the Priest had done was haled back by the hair of the head and his Mouth violently stopp'd with