had so held and set them-free Saying That they could not hinder men from Travailing on their Journeys And yet the same Governor and Deputy Governor Signed a Warrant to levy Twelve Shillings on the said men who were so brought back to pay the men for the aiding them So levying Fines to force some away and to keep others Back neither suffering them to Live in Quietness or to Depart in Peace Sarah Gibbens and Dorothy Waugh were the next on whom ye laid your Bloody cruelty For they coming to Boston being moved of the Lord and being found in your Meeting Place speaking a few Words after your Lecture was ended Ye caused them to be had to your House of Correction where your Jaylor a Member of your Church kept them Three days without food in a close Room though they tendred Money for Provisions not having eaten One Morsel of Bread during all that time Then ye sent for them to your Court and asked them many Ensnating Questions to get matter against them in which having not prevailed for the Lord was with them giving them a Mouth and Wisdom which ye could not resist ye sentenc'd them to Prison to be severely Whipt Two Young Women and not spared such was your cruelty which was as Cruelly executed the second day of the week following with a Three-fold-Corded-knotted Whip with which ye gave them Ten Lashes apiece to the tearing of their Flesh and beating it to pieces and then shut them up your usual manner and stopt the Windowes to prevent them from Ayre and all manner of Refreshment for Eight days together so that Provisions they had not nor could have any brought them during that space of time after their fore Whippings and Three daies before they were so whipt and Perished they must had not the Lord wonderfully kept them beyond what man could have been able to undergoe as he did enable them to give him thanks for his presence after they were so sorely whipt to the astonishment of the People And the Goaler being asked why he would not let them have food for their Money and what he meant to keep them without food He answered They should famish if they would not eat the Prison food which was for their Work which they could not do in your Wills who were not Idle persons and who had Money of their Own and how could they work when their Backs were torn And your Governor John Endicot being asked by Sarah Gibbens when they were had before you after the first Three days as aforesaid Whether it were Justice or Equity to keep them so up and not to suffer them to have food for their money that being the Third day they had been so kept and had not eaten One Morsel of Bread And further that ye might all see that God was with them that they were so preserved without food and that they came well into the Town as hundreds could witness and that if they perished their Blood would fall heavy on them who were the occasion thereof He answered He Matter'd or it matters not And when he had set them at Liberty to be sent out of the Country Your Jaylor detained them certain days after all this for their fees and had kept them longer had not the Lord by another way wrought their Deliverance Horred Gardner is the next who being the Mother of many Children and an Inhabitant of Newport in Rhoad Island came with her Babe sucking at her Breast from thence to Weymouth a Town in your Colony where having finished what she had to do and her Testimony from the Lord unto which the Witness of God Answered in the People she was hurried by the Baser sort to Boston before your Governour John Endicet who after he had entertained her with much abusive Language and the Girl that came with her to help bear her Child he committed them both to Piron and Ordered them to be whipt a young Woman and a Mother with an Infant at her Breast with Ten Lashes a piece which was cruelly layd on heir Naked bodies with a Three-fold-knotted Whip of Cords and then were continued for the space of Fourteen days longer in Prison from their Friends who could not Visit them The Woman came a very sore Journey and according to Man hardly accomplishable through such a Wilderness of above Sixty Miles as it is between Rhoad Island and Boston as did Sarah Gibbens and Dorothy Waugh through the same in Storms of Frost and Snow wherein they lodged Night and Day and came to Salem whitherto through all those hardships and wadeings over Rivers and Impossibilities as to Men the Lord brought them who moved them to go thither and from thence to you who chearfully underwent it for his and his Seeds sake and worse from you who had Famish't them for want of Bread but the Lord preserved them and kept them from sinking under your Cruelties and Scourgings Praising the Lord at the Post after their Scourgings was over to the astonishment of the People as he did Horrid Gardner and the Girle as aforesaid and the Tender Babe who through the Sufferings of its Mother and her being kept up after the Martyring of their bodies might have died but you had no Consideration of this or of them though the Mother had of you Who after the savage inhumane and bloody Execution on her of your Cruelty aforesaid kneeled down and Prayed The Lord to forgive you which so reached upon a Woman that stood by and wrought upon her that she gave Glory to God and said That surely she could not have done that thing if it had not been by the Spirit of the Lord. After these comes Thomas Harris from Rhoad Island into your Colony who Declaring against your Pride and Oppression as he could have Liberty to speak in your Meeting Place at Boston after the Priest had Ended and Warning the People of the Dreadful Terrible Day of the Lord God which was coming upon that Town and Countrey Much unlike to Niniveh he was Pulled down and out of your Meeting and a hand was put on his Mouth to keep him from speaking farther and he haled by the hair of his head and had before your Governor and Deputy and many People with several Magistrates and committed to Prison without Warrant or Mittimus that he saw and there shut up in a close Roome and none suffered to come at him nor him to have Provisions for his Money and the next day Whipt without shewing him any Law that he had broken though he desired it of the Goaler with Ten Cruel stripes with such a whip as aforesaid to the sore cutting of his Flesh and bruising of his Body and then shut up again for Eleven daies more Five of which he was kept without Bread for your Jaylor would not suffer him to have any for his Money and threatned One of the other Prisoners very much for bringing him a little Water the
So he shut them up in a close Room where they were kept without any Food that he knew off for he thought to starve them if they would not do his Work and so Eat for the space of Eight dayes after which his Wise came fearing what might become of them and tendred them Milk or what they would for their Money So that from that time Friends were suffered to put into them at the Window what they needed So through hard suffering they brake your Law and his Cruelty Sometime after this John Rous aforesaid was commanded of the Lord to go to Boston and thither came the 25th of the sixth Month 1658. where he honestly discovered himself to the Man of the House whereto he came after he had set up his Horse what he was that so he might not suffer through an Ignorant Entertaining of him who shortly after fetch'd the Marshal who brought him to your Governor who after an Impertinent Examination committed him to Prison So on the Seventh of the Seventh Month 1658. they Three viz. Christopher Holder John Copeland and John Rous all single young men were had before you and because they had been before You once before and suffered your Law which should have clear'd them from further suffering for by the Law of England a man having suffered the Penalty is clear as if he had not transgressed the Law after a first and second time being at your Court viz. on the Tenth of the Seventh Month aforesaid wherein your Governor and Deputy Governor shewed their Rancour and Unreasonableness of spirit The said Denison saying We are the stronger and so look to your selves which was a base word he often used and Master Rous for so I may call you having heard of your Father that he is a Gentleman yet ye cut off the Gentlemans son's Ear and threatning to Gag them if they would not be silent when they were speaking for themselves in such a Case as the loss of a Member and such a one as an Ear and so to be marked as Rogues which all Law allows viz. to speak for themselves and Denying their Appeal to England which they solemnly made after that the Governor had said unto them It is the Sentence of the Court That you Three have each of you his Right Ear cut off by the Hangman I say after the Sentence Ye hastened the Execution and the Jaylor to that purpose and on the Sixteenth of the said Month sent Your Marshal's Deputy who came with a Company of Blood-thirsty men such as sitted his turn and serv'd his end to the Prison on the Day aforesaid and shutting of the Door whereas the Executions of Justice ought to be Publick but so it was not with Yours nor for the space of Two years and a half before were any of Your Executions so done to those People He caused the Right Ear the Left it seems would not serve of the said Christopher Holder John Copeland and John Rous to be cut off as aforesaid which being done the said Servants of the Lord whose Ears you had caused so to be cut off said They that do it Ignorantly We desire the Lord from our hearts to forgive them but for them that do it Maliciously Let our Blood be on their Heads and such shall know in the Day of Account that every one of these Drops of Our Blood shall be as heavy upon them as a Milstone And your Marshal with those that came with him slunk away as a Dog that is discovered sucking the Blood of a Lamb Who also was so cowardly and the sence of Guilt so upon him that when the Execution began on Christopher Holder who was the first whose Ear was cut he turned from it till John Rous said Nay Turn about and see it done as was his Order The same day that these were the last time had before You Lawrence Southick Cassandra his Wife and Josiah their Son were had before you also whom ye thought to have proceeded with as with the Others viz. the Two Men for with the Women you did by Cruel Whipping according to your Law but your Law was short as to them Which was for every One that came into your Jurisdiction the second time such should have their Right Ear cut off Ye cannot give a Member to any and yet can in your wills destroy for which God will blot your Names out of the Book of Life it is Eternal and you shall witness it So take your Sentence which shall assuredly come upon you as you have done the thing for ye did it wickedly the Lord hath spoken it So you will find it sad cutting off Ears and dealing thus Cruelly as you have by the Innocent whose Cry the Lord hath heard and the Cry of their Blood and Sufferings and He is near to Avenge it But for those that were of the Jurisdiction it provided not so they escaped the loss of that Member but not your other Cruelty for you still kept them in the House of Correction notwithstanding they were clear of your Law and had suffered wrongfully what they had suffered before upon account of your last Law which was That every such Person and Persons that is to say such as ye call Quakers arising among your selves and professing any of their Pernicious wayes as ye reproach but prove not by speaking writing and by meeting on the Lords Day or at any other time a sore Punishment for a Man to dye for meeting with the People of the Lord to wait upon Him yet this in the consequence is your Law for this characterizeth him to be such a One as ye call a Quaker and being a Quaker he must be whipt and then depart the Jurisdiction and if return suffer as in the Case of Strangers viz. be put to Death See whether the Earth ever had the like since the Sun shone upon it It s too long to inculcate Every Particular the Reader may in his own Understanding and the Lord God of Heaven and Earth will do it upon your Consciences ye most unreasonable of Men and the most Brutish of the Nations whom the Lord God will cut off and make you an Example to all that hereafter shall dare to do such things against the Lord God of Heaven and Earth who gives to all Life and Breath and Moving and against those that meet together to wait on Him as He hath said it so He will do it and this shall come to pass the Lord hath spoken it shall incur the Penalty ensuing viz. Every Person so meeting shall pay to the Country Ten shillings and every One speaking in such Meeting Five pounds a piece And in case any such Person hath been punished by Scourging ye speak broad that ye may frighten but the Hand of the Lord will come as large upon you as ye have spoken or Whiyping the first time according to the former Laws which was the Case of these Three shall
your selves He answered They that honoured those that God had set over them honoured God They answered It was true but that it was in Obediente to the Law of God that they had suffered as they had and further asked You whether it were that for that Fault they were committed to Prison before the Law had a being that they were Banished or when was it But ye were silent One of them also desired of the Governor that he would be pleased now to Declare before the People the Real and True Causes as in Truth they were of all Your thus Proceedings against them He answered It was for Contemning Authority in not coming to the Ordinances of God see the Priest in the Bottom to keep up his Audience and Authority For as for the Apostles of Christ they used no such thing but to draw men by reaching to that of God in every mans Conscience thereby to lead them and not by the Outward Sword which is the Weapon of Antichrist But the Weapons of our warfare said Paul are not Carnal Prisons Whipps Cutting off Ears Fines Famishings Stocks Burnings Beatings Banishment Death but mighty through the Spirit So Ye shew where ye are and they what they are upon and whose Kingdom they seek and what they build up and whose they are who seek to Compel that which is the Seat of God viz. the Conscience the Dominion of God which He onely can reach by the Sword of man And that they had kept Meetings of their Own It was Answered that for all this Your Law had taken hold of them That they stood not out against the Authority of the Countrey in not submitting to their Laws That then very lately they had taken from them about Fourscore Pound on that Account which they since find to be Upwards of One hundred Your Governor said They had Rebelled against the Authority of the Countrey in not Departing according to their Order who as they told them had no otherwhere to go and had Wives and Children and Families and Estates to look after and were Conscious of nothing that they had done that was VVorthy of Death or of Banishment or of Bonds or of any of the things which they had Suffered M. General Denison told them and see his Command and what a Man he is to fight with them that do not Resist should an Enemy indeed come to put him to it he and several others it s very like would hardly be so forwards they have been hardly found overforward at that work viz. That they stood out against the Authority of the Country in not submitting to their Laws but upon what are they grounded That he should not go about to speak much concerning the Error of their Judgements who convinced them of none nor could ever he or you and yet see how ye make them suffer but as he had before told them That they and you were not able well to live together what an Athiestical Speech is here as if there were no God that made the VVorld and placed Man in it to dwell upon all the face of the Earth as well one as another and made the Conscience of Man for himself or that would require of Man an Account of what he did to his fellow Creature who because he had Power in his hand would not suffer another whom God had made to live by him So No Man should live by another on the face of the Earth where the other was the stronger and where would this end but in the rooting out Mankind from off the face of the Earth as it believes there is No God and that at present the Power was in your hand but how long may it be can ye tell Could not the Bishops have said so yet they turned not you out as I have said nor do they keep ye out and therefore the strongest must fend off Than which what can be said more wicked or what a more destructive Principle and a more dangerous can there be in the World Yet this hath been his word in all Courts and this is the Principle on which ye go Because Ye have Rower in your hands to whom the Wo is Who devise Iniquity and work Evil upon your Beds and when the Morning is light ye practise it because it is in the power of your hand So see your Portion and your Judgment from the Mouth of the Lord. Then ye put them forth a little while and called them in again and pronounc'd their Sentence of Banishment upon Pain of Death and constrained them to and who departed as aforesaid Their Sentence was dated May 11. 1659. without a Legal Conviction of one Principle or Practice that was contrary to Law but because they were such as were called Quakers And this is New-England and the Justice of the Court of that part of it as is called the Bay of Massachusets Yet ye were not satisfied with what ye had done to Lawrence and Cassandra and Josiah Southick but as I have touched you must be dealing with the rest of the Family and they having viz. the Old man and woman that were Friends of Truth to wit Daniel and Provided the Courts at Ipswitch and at Salem fined them Ten pounds for not coming to your Meetings but they having no Visible Estate so as you could find to lay hold upon to satisfie it according to your Law and your Resolution in the Case being desired Ye Ordered them to be sold for the Payment thereof Your Order runs thus Whereas Daniel Southick and Provided Southick Son and Daughter of Lawrence Southick have been fined by the Courts at Salem and Ipswitch pretending they have no Estates Resolving not to work that is to the Treasurer to answer the Fines It seems you had rather have moist Meat or Money to buy it or to answer your other Lusts and you will sell the Innocent But you will have it rather than give Dry Blows where there is nothing to be had as those did who sold the Righteous for Silver and the Poor for a Pair of Shoes that pant after the Dust of the Earth on the head of the Poor and turn aside the way of the Meek and lay themselves down upon Cloathes laid to pledge on Every Altar and drink the VVine of the Condemned in the house of their god Because of which the Lord said by the Prophet Amos He would not turn away the Punishment thereof even from Israel where these things were found Nor will he from You but the flight should perish from the Swift and the Strong should not strengthen his force neither should the Mighty deliver himself Neither should he that handled the Bow and he that is swift of foot deliver himself neither should he that rideth the Horse deliver himself and he that is couragious among the Mighty should flee away naked in that day So saith the Lord of You as he did unto them and it shall come to pass So read
Dier to Death when she came again into your Jurisdiction after your Reprieve and when she was as near the Execution as the turning off the Ladder she being ready and having signified to your Executioner that he might do it when he would So Putting her twice to Die a Cruelty beyond Once putting to Death A Comely grave Woman and of a Goodly Personage and well bred as among men and one of a Good Report having an Husband of an Estate fearing the Lord and a Mother of Children Did ye Pitty Did ye Spare Had ye Compassion Were Bowels in you Ye Cruel Murtherers Was it an Inconsiderable Intercession that moved ye to Reprieve her Or was it not your own Deceit to bring the People back to you upon a seeming shew of Mercy upon Pretence of Bowels moving at or taking advantage of an Inconsiderable Intercession whom your Bloodiness had turned from you and made them to abhor you Let the Witness of God in you be heard to speak for I am sure it will and will be heard in you one day when it shall arise in you as to this very thing a Worm that shall never die and a fire that shall never go out And this your Cruelty speaks it against you and the Lord God Eternal hath tried you by this and your Bloody Laws and snapt them asunder by a Woman and Triumphed over them and you again and again who by his Eternal Arm was made twice to look Death in the Face and overcame rejoycing to die in the Will of God and finishing her Course her Testimony in the face of ye All Trampling upon you and your Laws and your Halter and your Gallows and your Priests and is sat down at the Right hand of God Ye bloody Butchers Ye Monsters of Men Ye Cruel Murderers whom nothing satissies but the Blood of the Innocent Besides did not John Wintrope the Governor of the Jurisdiction of Cannecticote labour with you that ye would not put them to Death and did he not say unto you That he would beg it of you on his bare knees that ye would not do it And did not Colonel Temple go to your Court and tell ye That if according to your Declaration ye desired their Lives absent rather than their Deaths present He would beg them of you and Carry them away at his own Charge and give them a House to live in and Corn to feed on and Land for them and their heirs to Plant on that so once within a Year they should be able to provide for themselves and if any of them should come amongst ye again he would again fetch them on his own Charge And was not this Motion of his well of liked by the Magistrates except Two or Three and did not they propound it to the Deputies the next day but did not the Deputies and those Magistrates Over-Vote it the next day and Ordered they not present Execution to be done upon them that afternoon assoon as your Worship was ended which was your Thursdays Lecture And so did ye not put them to Death and Murder them as aforesaid And yet nowsee how ye come and smooth over the Matter like the Harlot mentioned by Solomon as if ye had done no Evil O ye Impudent hypocrites As if it were far from you to desire their Deaths or that you did not desire it but rather their Lives And that such Clemency and Mercy lodged in you and such Compassion and Bowels that you took notice of the least opportunity that might give ye the occasion to make it manifest And that ye did it upon an Inconsiderable Intercession viz. Mary Dier whom notwithstanding these Considerable Intercessions of such Considerable Men among ye and this other Inconsiderable One as ye tearm it which was of her Son and that is something considerable and more than ye would make of it for a Child is near and its Intercession of a prevailing nature ye put her as I may so say the second time to Death And yet see how ye bring this when ye have done all as a Demonstration which ye say but oh how Impudently will manifestly Evince that ye desired heir Lives absent rather than their Deaths present when as ye put them to Death yea this very Woman your Instances notwithstanding the several Intercessions aforesaid which proved Inconsiderable And then ye say Declaration and Answer Although the Justice of our Proceedings against William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson and Mary Dier supported by the Authority of this Court the Laws of this Countrey and the Law of God which are All Lies for you have no such Authority nor can your Laws support where Authority you have none and the Law of God is against you for it puts not to Death the Innocent or gives ye Power so to do in Matters of Religion which are from Man's Cognizance and in which he hath not to do may rather perswade us to expect Encouragement from such as you are and who are of your Spirit but no other and Commendation from all Prudent and Pious men who those who are truly so will do the Contrary than Convince us of any necessity to Apologize yet why do ye do it seeing that the very Name of an Apologie marrs your Justice for the same yet forasmuch as men of weaker Parts out of Pitty and Commiseration a commendable and Christian Virtue why then have ye not followed it How come ye to Condemn it in an Apologie and yet ye set it above ye as Apologizing to it yet easily abused and susceptible of sinister and dangerous Impressions and yet a Christan Virtue and a Commendable Can Virtue be mixt is it susceptible of sinister and dangerous Impressions for want of a full Information may be less had been better for this satisfies not may be less satisfied what Justice is that which reacheth not that of God in the Conscience which should be the full Information to witness for you Which your Justice wanting your full Information signifies nothing and which you wanting you come to give full Information and men of perverser Principles so must be all those who Joyn not with you to Calumniate us Truth is no slander and render us as Bloody Persecutors who certainly are such to satisfie the one which will never be and stop the Mouths of the other which can he never for it 's the witness of Truth We thought sit to Declare That about Three years since Divers Persons professing themselves Quakers c. as in the Beginning which I have already answered and do make an End with your Beginning in the End And so have finished my Answer to your Declaration Having thus gone through your Declaration and Related the Sufferings of Friends as they have come under the several heads thereof and as occasion hath been given me by your said Declaration I shall now proceed to what was done in the other Colonies through your Example and what since Friends have suffered in your Own and so
before a Magistrate to give an Account of their business Some of the Quakers in Rhoad Island came to bring them Goods to trade with them and that for far Reasonabler terms than the Professing and Oppressing Merchants of the Country but that will not be suffered So that unless the Lord step in to their help and assistance in some way beyond Man's Conceiving their Case is sad and to be pittied and truly it moves bowels of Compassion in all sorts except those in place who carry with a high hand towards them Through Mercy we have yet among us worthy Mr. Dunstar whom the Lord hath made boldly to bear Testimony against the spirit of Persecution Our Bench now is Tho. Prince Governor Mr. Collier Capt. Willet Capt. Winslow Mr. Alden Lieut. Southworth W. Bradford Tho. Hinckley Mr. Collier last June would not sit on the Bench if I sat there and now will not sit the next Year unless he may have Thirty pounds sit by him Our Court and Deputies last June made Capt. Winslow a Major Surely we are all Mercenary Souldiers that must have a Major imposed upon us Doubtless the next Court they may choose us a Governor and Assistants also A Freeman shall need to do nothing but bear such Burdens as are laid upon him Mr. Alden hath deceived the Expectations of many and indeed lost the Affections of such as I judge were his Cordial Christian Friends who is very active in such wayes as I pray God may not be charged on him to be Oppressions of a high nature Thus far the Letter It was written by James Cudworth in the Tenth Month 1658. What he was as to them the thing mentions what as to Tenderness also in reference to Conscience-Persecution which he could not do he could not persecute for which and for Entertaining some of them a Night or two and giving them Provisions during that time against which there was no Law as aforesaid he was turned out I shall not need much further to particularize only a little I shall mention of the Occasion which was the coming of W. Brend aforesaid on whom you exercised your Noted Cruelty and John Copeland into a Plantation in that Patent called Scituate and being entertained by this friendly man and for the ends therein exprest by himself in the Winter season which you know is very cold and hard to travel in and even Cruelty it self if I may so speak would be gentle to the most inconsiderable the vilest of men in such times as those that they might not perish One came with a Warrant which he had fetcht several Miles in a Cold Night from the said Major VVinslow something was in the matter he was so promoted and with others pulled them out of the House and Sarah Gibbens also whom your Cruelty to her gives me cause to remember not having respect unto the Season that so his will he might have and for that purpose pretermitted the two Magistrates that were in the Town and passed to the said VVinslow for that purpose One of which Magistrates out of Tenderness when he saw the Warrant said Mr. Envy had procured that and in lieu thereof gave the Strangers this Protection in these words These are therefore to any that may interrupt these Two men in their Passage that ye let them passe quietly on their way they offering no wrong to any Timothy Hatherlie And now I am thus come unto Particulars I must lay unto your Charge for through your Example and Encouragement it was that these things were done the further suffering of the Innocent in the Particular as you have heard something of it in the General and that as to Cruel Whippings Scourgings as well as to Fines Imprisonment and Banishment chusing rather to observe the order of time when the things were done than the distinction of Punishments First then These very Two viz. W. Brend and John Copeland whom the said tender Gray-headed Hatherly protected from Wrong instead of doing it as aforesaid coming thorow the Town of Plimmouth in order to their Passage in which they were protected as aforesaid were pursued by Lieut. Southworth and brought before his Fellow-Magistrates who because they could not promise for they waited in the Will of God in which all Promises are to be made that they might know what to do in Forty Eight hours to depart the Colony the weather being also very unseasonable and wet in the Winter season caused them both to be whipt with Rods of Twigs VV. Brend a man of years with Ten Lashes in which Four Rods were broken and John Copeland with Twenty two backwards and forwards on Breast and Back and Arms and that with such Fury that as it drew the Blood on all so it wore out Six Rods in the laying of it on and this without Law and in the bitter wet cold snowy Winter season being the Ninth of the Twelfth Month 1657. and in the Snow and Rain Out of their Coasts in which they would have had them to depart through a Vast Wilderness of Sixty Miles in which were many Rivers where the VVeather was so thick and the VVilderness so close that they could not see their way and because they did not so to the apparent hazard of their Lives as many did confess should they have departed therefore dealt they with them as aforesaid and Thomas VVillet Tho. Southworth and VVill. Collier saw the Execution which so struck on the standers-by that one Edward Perry in the presence of the Magistrates gave Testimony and said That he was there an Eye-witness that day of the Sufferings of the People of the Lord For which Will. Collier called him their Fool No marvel that James Cudworth so wrote as aforesaid of their Cruel VVhippings and that it preached more than a Sermon though it cost Dear those Servants of the Lord. Thus they began and so they proceeded and having none before they now proceed to make Laws after that they have done the Executions This is the Justice and Law of Plimmouth Patent which Mischief makes and Blood acts of which many of the Servants of the Lord have born the smart on their Bodies but you must in your Spirits the Indignation of the Lord if not in Soul and Body too which will on you and them certainly fall and divide you your Portion with Hypocrites and Sinners And the time is near wherein the Lord will do it and fulfil the VVord which he hath spoken by me and Avenge the Blood and Sufferings of his Servants and Plead their Cause and Execute Judgment for them upon You and that in the sight of the Heathen who because of it shall say Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous Verily there is a God that judgeth in the Earth With this they are not satisfied but as Men in a Fire the more they drink the more they thirst for the Fire being stronger than the Drink turns that into its own nature So
Order sent on horseback by your Deputy Governor Richard Bellingham to have him thither and thither he was had and there Committed and his Wife with him after she was Delivered and was come thither and both of them ye had before you after ye had Condemned Mary Dier the second time to Death even that very Day and in the time that ye had Mary Dier to the Execution and in which she was Executed ye had them both before ye again to see if the terror that might have been in such a thing could have frighted them But the Power of the Lord in them was above you all and they feared not your Fears nor were afraid of your Threats but boldly stood it out with you in his Eternal Power as did also Mary Dier first and last as I have Declared and bad you do it when ye told them of the thing that is to say of putting of them to Death thinking to fear them but yet ye could not do it though fain ye would and your Desire was so to do and your Wills for which you shall Answer as if ye had shed their Blood for it was in your heart so to do and there ye Murdred them but you feared the Consequence they coming to Sojourn among you as Free-born English and you denying of them their birth-right and instead of admitting them to live amongst ye which you could not deny they having not done any thing whereby to cut them off from such their Priviledge having Imprisoned them and Banish'd them upon Pain of Death as aforesaid and in that Barbarous manner with the greatest hard-heartedness halled him from his Wife when she was in Travel in Order to put him to Death and which might have cost her in that condition according to men her Life also and of the Little One with which she was in Travel to bring it into the World Such Inhumanities as these and Cruel Workings England hath not heard of to have been before done in any of her Jurisdictions for to have destroyed them all ye thought Father Mother and Infant at once but could not by this way nor dared by the other because of your Own Necks should ye have done it So ye set them at Liberty who over all your heads Departed your Jurisdiction in the Will of God having tried you to trie the rest and to Plimmouth Patent they went where VVinlock Christison had been Imprisoned and Suffered twenty seven cruel Stripes on his naked body at one time laid on with Deliberation so was the word of the Magistrates who stood to see it in the Cold Winter season who bad the Jaylor so to do and to lay it on hard who laid it on as hard as he could and then Rob'd him of his Wastcoate though in that Cold time of the year he was to pass through hardship in going through a Wilderness and of his Bible which the Jaylor took for Fees Who came about Midnight much in Drink the night before and had them away though his Demand was but five Shillings So Depriving him of the Scriptures as your Jaylor did some of those that came to you of which I have spoken and then turned him out in the Morning in the Cold having not Cloathes sufficient left him by you to keep him from it after ye had kept him without food from the time of his said Cruel Whipping to his said turning out as he was five Days upon his first Commitment not suffering him to have any for his Money nor letting others to supply him but stopping up the very holes to hinder any supply the Jaylor saying when he stopt them up that at such places he might be supplied with Provisions and keeping it so until he asked them VVhether they meant to Starve him And the Power of the Lord was in it and constrained them to allow him Provisions of three Pence a day for five weeks such as the Jaylor would give him who took away his Waste-coat and Bible as aforesaid as Blood-thirsty Barloe rob'd him of his two other Coats and Hat and bag of Linen worth upwards of four pounds when he Apprehenden him at Sandwitch a little after he came thither from your Prison in Boston after ye had Banish'd him upon Pain of Death and kept him fourteen Weeks and two Days there in the coldest time of the Winter season and committed his two Friends of Salem that came with him to Boston And thus was he Whipt and thus was he Rob'd and thus was he turned out after that Tho. Prince the Governor and Magistrates had caused him to be tied Neck and Heels for speaking for himself in the Court most Cruel Tyranny who denied him Satisfaction for his Goods Robb'd by Barloe as aforesaid when he was had to the Whipping Post and with much adoe had obtained so much Moderation of the Governour as to hear him thereabouts such was their Rage in Whipping of him who said in Answer That he must first pay for his Preaching this is the Justice of the men of Plimmouth Patent in place to do Justice Theeves and Robbers and Abettors of such In stead of causing Satisfaction to be made and causing the Innocent cruelly to suffer who demand Satisfaction even by the hand of them who Commited it on them which God will Reward who is near to render unto them according to their Deeds and all this matter was but for coming into their Jurisdiction when he was banished out of yours Was ever the like hardheartedness heard of or Barbarous Cruelty I say Joseph Nicholson and his Wife being thus turned out of your Jurisdiction and denied to Sojourn there and dealt with as aforesaid were to demand it of Plimmouth Patent This another Habitation of Cruelty and Persecuting the Just and thither they came and Demanded to Sojourn in that Jurisdiction but neither there could they be admitted the same Spirit ruling in Plimmouth Patent as in Boston and so the Magistrates caused them to understand when they told them That if they had turned them away at Boston they would have nothing to do with them how exactly do they Write after your Coppy And his Wife had much to do with them and they threatened to Whip her if they had ever a Cage and send her away and One of them said That if she had not been a Witch she could not have known that he that was with his son was a Priest whom by the Spirit of the Lord she knew to be such and so spake to him thus doth the blind World judge of the Revelation of the Spirit by which the Prophet Ahijah knew when the Wife of Jeroboam came in disguise to him and he said Come in thou Wife of Jeroboam why feignest thou thy self to be another And by which the Prophets knew and foretold things to come and Jeroboam might have said had not he been a Witch he could not have told that it was his Wife when she came to him so disguised on the very