bishop of Canterbury, in 1670, their meeting-houses were pulled down; and when they gathered for worship beside the ruins they were beaten over the head by soldiers and dispersed. In this way many were killed outright or disabled for life. Con

Those who first appeared in New England and endured persecution there were fanatical and aggressive, and were not true representatives of the sect in England. They were among the earliest of the disciples of Fox, whose enthusiasm led their judg

ment; and some of them were absolutely lunatics and utterly unlike the sober-minded, mildmannered members of that society to day. They ran into the wildest extravagances of speech; openly reviling magistrates and ministers of the Gospel with intemperate language; overriding the rights of all others in maintaining their own; making the most exalted pretensions to the exclusive possession of the gifts of the Holy Spirit; scorned all respect for human laws; mocked the institutions of the country; and two or three fanatical

pearing without clothing in the churches and in the streets, as emblems of the "unclothed souls of the people"; while others, with loud voices, proclaimed that the wrath of the Almighty was about to fall like destructive lightning upon Boston and Salem. This conduct, and these indecencies, caused the passage of severe laws in Massachusetts against the Quakers.

stables and informers broke into their young women outraged decency by aphouses. The value of their property destroyed before the accession of William and Mary (1689) was estimated at $5,000,000. Besides this, they were fined to the amount of over $80,000, and their goods were continually seized because they refused to pay tithes, bear arms, or enroll themselves in the military force of the country. "The purity of their lives, the patience with which they endured insult and persecution (never returning evil for evil), their zeal, their devotedness, and their love for each other often compelled the admiration even of magistrates whose orders oppressed them."

The first of the sect who appeared there were Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, who arrived at Boston from Barbadoes in September (N. S.), 1656. Their trunks were searched, and their books were burned To escape persecution, many of them by the common hangman before they emigrated to the Continent, and some to were allowed to land. Cast into prison, the West Indies and North America. In their persons were stripped in a search for the latter places they found persecutors. body-marks of witches. None were found,

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and a more Christian spirit prevailed. In Virginia, laws almost as severe as those in Massachusetts were enacted against the Quakers. In Maryland, also, where religious toleration was professed, they were punished as vagabonds" who persuaded people not to perform required public duties. In Rhode Island they were not interfered with, and those who sought martyrdom did not go there. Some of them who did so disgusted Roger Williams that he tried to argue them out of the colony.

and they, being mild-mannered women, and innocent, were soon released and expelled from Massachusetts as "heretics." Nine other men and women who came from London were similarly treated. Others sought martyrdom" in New England and found it. Some reviled, scolded, and denounced the authorities in Church and State, railing at the functionaries from windows as they passed by. More and more severe were the laws passed against the Quakers. They were banished on pain of death. Three of them who returned were led to the scaffold-two young men and Mary Dyer, widow of the secretary of state of Rhode Island. The young men were hanged; Mary was reprieved and sent back to Rhode Island. The next spring she returned to Boston, defied the laws, and was hanged. The severity of the laws caused a revulsion in public feeling. True Friends who came stoutly maintained their course with prudence, and were regarded by thoughtful persons them. as real martyrs for conscience' sake. A Governor Stuyvesant was a strict demand for the repeal of the bloody enact- churchman, and guarded, as far as posments caused their repeal in 1661, when sible, the purity of the ritual and docthe fanaticism of both parties subsided trines of the Reformed Dutch Church in

In September, 1656, the authorities of Massachusetts addressed to President Arnold, of Rhode Island, an urgent letter, protesting against the toleration of Quakers allowed there, and intimating that, unless it was discontinued, it would be resented by total non-intercourse. There was then very little sympathy felt for the Quakers in Rhode Island, but the authorities refused to persecute them, and Coddington and others afterwards joined

The

New Netherland. He compelled the Lu- a banished Quaker, who appeared before therans to conform, and did not allow Governor Endicott with his hat on. other sects to take root there. In 1657 incensed governor was about to take the a ship arrived at New Amsterdam, having usual brutal steps to send him to prison, on board several of "the accursed sect after ordering an officer to remove Shatcalled Quakers." They had been banish- tuck's hat, when the latter handed the ed from Boston, and were on their way magistrate the order from the throne. from Barbadoes to Rhode Island, "where Endicott was thunderstruck. He handed all kinds of scum dwell," wrote Dominie back Shattuck's hat and removed his own Megapolenses," for it is nothing else than in deference to the presence of the King's a sink of New England." Among the messenger. He read the papers, and, diFriends were Dorothy Waugh and Mary recting Shattuck to withdraw, simply reWitherhead. They went from street to marked, "We shall obey his Majesty's street in New Amsterdam, preaching their commands." A hurried conference was new doctrine to the gathered people. Stuy- held with the other magistrates and minvesant ordered the women to be seized isters. They dared not send the accused and cast into prison, where, for eight days, persons to England, for they would be they were imprisoned in dirty, vermin- swift witnesses against the authorities of infested cells, with their hands tied be- Massachusetts; so they ordered William hind them, when they were sent on board Sutton, keeper of the Boston jail, to set the ship in which they came, to be trans- all the Quakers free. So ended their ported to Rhode Island. Robert Hodgson, severe persecution in New England; but who determined to remain in New Nether- the magistrates continued for some time land, took up his abode at Hempstead, to whip Quaker men and women, half where a few Quakers were quietly settled. naked, through the streets of Boston and There he held a meeting, and Stuyvesant Salem, until peremptorily forbidden to do ordered him to his prison at New Amster- so by the King. dam. Tied to the tail of a cart wherein sat two young women, offenders like himself, he was driven by a band of soldiers during the night through the woods to the city, where he was imprisoned in "a filthy jail," under sentence of such confinement for two years, to pay a heavy fine, and to have his days spent in hard labor, chained to a wheel-barrow with a negro, who lashed him with a heavy tarred rope. He was subjected to other cruel treatment at the hands of the governor, until the Dutch people, as well as the English, cried "Shame!" There were no other persecutions of the Friends in New Netherland after Hodgson's release.

After Massachusetts had suspended its laws against Quakers, Parliament made a law (1662) which provided that every five Quakers, meeting for religious worship, should be fined, for the first offence, $25; for the second offence, $50; and for the third offence to abjure the realm on oath, or be transported to the American colonies. Many refused to take the oath, and were transported. By an act of the Virginia legislature, passed in 1662, every master of a vessel who should import a Quaker, unless such as had been shipped from England under the above act, was subjected to a fine of 5,000 lbs. of tobacco for the first offence. Severe laws against other sectaries were passed in Virginia, and many of the Non-conformists in that colony, while Berkeley ruled, fled deep into the wilderness to avoid persecu tion.

The executions of Mary Dyer in 1660 and William Leddra in 1661, both in Boston, caused an amazing addition to the number of converts to Quakerism. The same year monthly meetings were established in several places in New Eng- Because the Friends refused to perform land, and not long afterwards quarter- military duty or take an oath in Maryland ly meetings were organized. On hearing they were subject to fines and imprisonof the death of Leddra, Charles II. sent ment, but were not persecuted there on acan order to Endicott to stop the perse- count of their religious views. When, in cutions and to send all accused persons 1676, George Fox was in Maryland, his to England for trial. This order was preaching was not hindered. He might sent by the hand of Samuel Shattuck, be seen on the shores of the Chesapeake,

preaching at the evening twilight, when the emigrants had come. The name was the labors of the day were over, to a multi- corrupted to Burlington, which it still tude of people, comprising members of the bears. There the passengers of the Kent legislature and other distinguished men settled, and were soon joined by many of the province,

yeomen, and large groups of Indians, with chiefs and sachems, their wives and children, all led by their emperor.

Fenwick, one of the purchasers of west Jersey, made the first settlement of members of his sect at Salem. Liberal offers were made to Friends in England if they would settle in New Jersey, where they would be free from persecution, and in 1677 several hundred came over. In March a company of 230 came in the ship Kent. Before they sailed King Charles gave them his blessing. The Kent reached New York in August, with commissioners to manage public affairs in New Jersey. The ar

rival was reported to Andros, who was others. The village prospered, and other governor of New York, and claimed polit- settlements were made in its vicinity. ical jurisdiction over the Jerseys. Fen- Nearly all the settlers in west Jersey wick, who denied the jurisdiction of were members of the Society of Friends, the Duke of York in the collection or Quakers. One of the earliest erected of customs duties, was then in custody buildings for the public worship of at New York, but was allowed to depart with the other Friends, on his own recognizance to answer in the autumn. On Aug. 16 the Kent arrived at New Castle, but it was three months before a permanent place was settled upon. From the founding of the government That place was on the Delaware River, of Pennsylvania the rule of the colony and was first named Beverly. Afterwards was held by the Quakers, they being more it was called Bridlington, after a parish numerous than others. When wars with in Yorkshire, England, whence many of the French and Indians afflicted the colo

Friends in New Jersey was at Crosswicks, about half-way between Allentown and the Delaware River. Before the Revolution they built a spacious meeting-house there of imported brick.

the amount was intrusted to a committee of seven, of whom a majority were members of the Assembly; and these became the managers of the war, now formally declared, against the Delawares and Shawnees. So the golden chain of friendship which bound the Indians to William Penn was first broken. This was the first time the Quakers were driven into an open participation in war. Some of the more conscientious resigned their seats in the Assembly, and others declined a re-election. So it was that, in 1755, the rule of the Quakers in the administration of public affairs in Pennsylvania came to an end.

The "Testimony" of Friends, or Quakers, at their yearly meeting in Philadelphia in May, 1775, against the movements of the American patriots attracted special attention to that body. The papers and records of their yearly meeting in New Jersey, captured by Sullivan in his expedition against the loyalist regiments on Staten Island, gave Congress the first proof of

ments.

The proprietary party success- the general disaffection of the society. fully stirred up the people. After a sharp The Congress recommended the executives struggle, the Assembly, in consideration of the several colonies or States to watch of a voluntary subscription of £5,000 by the proprietaries, consented to levy a tax of £50,000, from which the estates of the latter were exempted. The expenditure of

their movements; and the executive council of Pennsylvania were earnestly exhorted to arrest and secure the persons of eleven of the leading men of that so