The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By Himself
by Thomas Ellwood · English · Gutenberg #6925 · 412,776 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By Himself
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By Himself
Author: Thomas Ellwood
Author of introduction, etc.: Henry Morley
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6925]
Most recently updated: August 2, 2014
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6925
Credits: Transcribed from the 1885 George Routledge and Sons edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF THOMAS ELLWOOD WRITTEN BY HIMSELF ***
Transcribed from the 1885 George Routledge and Sons edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
THE HISTORY
OF
THOMAS ELLWOOD
* * * * *
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
* * * * *
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY_
LL.D., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
* * * * *
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
NEW YORK: 9 LAFAVETTE PLACE
1885
INTRODUCTION.
THE life of the simple Quaker, Thomas Ellwood, to whom the pomps and
shows of earth were nowhere so vain as in association with the spiritual
life of man, may serve as companion to another volume in this Library,
the “Life of Wolsey” by George Cavendish, who, as a gentleman of the
great prelate’s household, made part of his pomp, but had heart to love
him in his pride and in his fall. “The History of Thomas Ellwood,
written by Himself,” is interesting for the frankness with which it makes
Thomas Ellwood himself known to us; and again, for the same frank
simplicity that brings us nearer than books usually bring us to a living
knowledge of some features of a bygone time; and yet again, because it
helps us a little to come near to Milton in his daily life. He would be
a good novelist who could invent as pleasant a book as this unaffected
record of a quiet life touched by great influences in eventful times.
Thomas Ellwood, who was born in 1639, in the reign of Charles the First,
carried the story of his life in this book to the year 1683, when he was
forty-four years old. He outlived the days of trouble here recorded,
enjoyed many years of peace, and died, near the end of Queen Anne’s
reign, aged 74, on the first of March 1713, in his house at Hunger Hill,
by Amersham. He was eleven years younger than John Bunyan, and years
younger than George Fox, the founder of that faithful band of worshippers
known as the Society of Friends. They turned from all forms and
ceremonies that involved untruth or insincerity, now the temple of God in
man’s body, and, as Saint Paul said the Corinthians, “Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you,” they
sought to bring Christ into their hearts, and speak and act as if Christ
was within governing their words and actions. They would have no formal
prayers, no formal preaching, but sought to speak with each other as the
Spirit prompted, soul to soul. They would not, when our plural pronoun
“you” was still only plural, speak to one man as if he were two or more.
They swore not at all; but their “Yea” and “Nay” were known to be more
binding than the oaths of many of their persecutors. And as they would
not go through the required form of swearing allegiance to the Government
whenever called upon to do so, they were continually liable to penalties
of imprisonment when imprisonment too often meant jail fever, misery, and
death. George Fox began his teaching when Ellwood was eight years old.
Ellwood was ten years old when Fox was first imprisoned at Nottingham,
and the offences of his followers against established forms led, as he
says, to “great rage, blows, punchings, beatings, and imprisonments.” Of
what this rage meant, and of the spirit in which it was endured, we learn
much from the History of Thomas Ellwood.
Isaac Penington, whose influence upon young Ellwood’s mind is often
referred to in this book, was born in the year of Shakespeare’s death,
and had joined the Society of Friends in 1658, when his own age was
forty-two and Ellwood’s was nineteen. He was the son of Alderman Isaac
Penington, a Puritan member for the City of London, who announced, at a
time in the year 1640 when the Parliament was in sore need of money, that
his constituents had subscribed £21,000 to a loan, which the members of
the House then raised to £90,000, by rising, one after another, to give
their personal bonds each for a thousand pounds. Isaac Penington the
son, whom Ellwood loved as a friend and reverenced as a father, became a
foremost worker and writer in the Society of Friends. In a note upon
him, written after his death, Thomas Ellwood said that “in his family he
was a true pattern of goodness and piety; to his wife he was a most
affectionate husband; to his children, a loving and tender father; to his
servants, a mild and gentle master; to his friends, a firm and fast
friend; to the poor, compassionate and open-hearted; and to all,
courteous and kind?” In 1661 he was committed to Aylesbury gaol for
worshipping God in his own house (holding a conventicle), “where,” says
Ellwood in that little testimony which he wrote after his friend’s death,
“for seventeen weeks, great part of it in winter, he was kept in a cold
and very incommodious room, without a chimney; from which hard usage his
tender body contracted so great and violent a distemper that, for several
weeks after, he was not able to turn himself in bed.” “His second
imprisonment,” says Ellwood, “was in the year 1664, being taken out of a
meeting, when he with others were peaceably waiting on the Lord, and sent
to Aylesbury gaol, where he again remained a prisoner between seventeen
and eighteen weeks.
“His third imprisonment was in the year 1665, being taken up, with many
others, in the open street of Amersham, as they were carrying and
accompanying the body of a deceased Friend to the grave. From hence he
was sent again to Aylesbury gaol; but this commitment being in order to
banishment, was but for a month, or thereabouts.
“His fourth imprisonment was in the same year 1665, about a month after
his releasement from the former. Hitherto his commitment had been by the
civil magistrates; but now, that he might experience the severity of
each, he fell into the military hands. A rude soldier, without any other
warrant than what he carried in his scabbard, came to his house, and told
him he came to fetch him before Sir Philip Palmer, one of the
deputy-lieutenants of the county. He meekly went, and was by him sent
with a guard of soldiers to Aylesbury gaol, with a kind of mittimus,
importing ‘That the gaoler should receive and keep him in safe custody
during the pleasure of the Earl of Bridgewater,’ who had, it seems,
conceived so great, as well as unjust, displeasure against this innocent
man, that, although (it being the sickness year) the plague was suspected
to be in the gaol, he would not be prevailed with only to permit Isaac
Penington to be removed to another house in the town, and there kept
prisoner until the gaol was clear. Afterwards, a prisoner dying in the
gaol of the plague, the gaoler’s wife, her husband being absent, gave
leave to Isaac Penington to remove to another house, where he was shut up
for six weeks; after which, by the procurement of the Earl of Ancram, a
release was sent from the said Philip Palmer, by which he was discharged,
after he had suffered imprisonment three-quarters of a year, with
apparent hazard of his life, and that for no offence.”
This was not the end of the troubles of Ellwood’s patron and friend. He
had been home only three weeks when “the said Philip Palmer” seized him
again, dragged him out of bed, sent him, without any cause shown, to
Aylesbury gaol, and kept him a year and a half prisoner “in rooms so
cold, damp, and unhealthy, that it went very near to cost him his life,
and procured him so great a distemper that he lay weak of it several
months. At length a relation of his wife, by an _habeas corpus_, removed
him to the King’s Bench bar, where (with the wonder of the court that a
man should he so long imprisoned for nothing) he was at last released in
the year 1668.” “Paradise Lost” had appeared in the year before. Yet a
sixth imprisonment followed in 1670, when Penington, visiting some
Friends in Reading gaol, was seized and carried before Sir William
Armorer, a justice of the peace, who sent him back to share their
sufferings. Penington died in 1679.
Of Thomas Ellwood’s experience as reader to Milton, and of Milton’s
regard for the gentle Quaker, the book tells its own tale. I will only
add one comment upon an often-quoted incident that it contains. When
Milton gave his young friend—then twenty-six years old—the manuscript of
“Paradise Lost” to read, his desire could only have been to learn what
comprehension of his purpose there would be in a young man sincerely
religious, as intelligent as most, and with a taste for verse, though not
much of a poet. The observation Ellwood made, of which he is proud
because of its consequence, might well cause Milton to be silent for a
little while, and then change the conversation. It showed that the whole
aim of the poem had been missed. Its crown is in the story of
redemption, Paradise Found, the better Eden, the “Paradise within thee,
happier far.” Milton had applied his test, and learnt—what every great
poet has to learn—that he must trust more to the vague impression of
truth, beauty, and high thought, that can be made upon thousands of
right-hearted men and women, than to the clear, full understanding of his
work. The noblest aims of the true artist can make themselves felt by
all, though understood by few. Few know the secrets of the sunshine,
although all draw new life from the sun. When Milton—who, with his
habitual gentleness, never allowed Ellwood to suspect that he had missed
the whole purpose of “Paradise Lost”—showed him “Paradise Regained,” and
made him happy by telling him that he caused it to be written; he showed
him a poem that expanded the closing thought of “Paradise Lost” into an
image of the Paradise within, that is to be obtained only by an imitation
of Christ under all forms of our temptation.
Of Ellwood’s life after the year in which he ends his own account of it,
let it suffice to say, that he wrote earnest, gentle books in support of
his opinions and against the persecution of them. He lived retired until
the year 1688, and occupied himself with an attempt at a _Davideis_, a
Life of David in verse. He had not then seen Cowley’s. Ellwood carried
on his verses to the end of David’s life, and published them in 1712.
When George Fox died, in 1690, Thomas Ellwood transcribed his journal for
the press, and printed it next year in folio, prefixing an account of
Fox. He was engaged afterwards in controversy with George Keith, a
seceder from the Friends. His intellectual activity continued unabated
to the end. In 1709 he suffered distraint for tithes; goods to the value
of £24 10s. being taken for a due of about £14, after which the
distrainers “brought him still in debt, and wanted more.”
Ellwood’s life was healthy, except that he was asthmatic towards the end.
His wife died five years before him. Of her, J. Wyeth, citizen of
London, who was the editor of “Ellwood’s History of his Life,” and wrote
its sequel, says that she was “a solid, weighty woman.” But the context
shows that he means those adjectives to be read in a spiritual sense.
“The liberal soul shall be made fat,” says Solomon.
H. M.
_November_ 1885.
THE
HISTORY OF THOMAS ELLWOOD.
_WRITTEN BY HIMSELF_.
ALTHOUGH my station, not being so eminent either in the church of Christ
or in the world as others who have moved in higher orbs, may not afford
such considerable remarks as theirs, yet inasmuch as in the course of my
travels through this vale of tears I have passed through various and some
uncommon exercises, which the Lord hath been graciously pleased to
support me under and conduct me through, I hold it a matter excusable at
least, if not commendable, to give the world some little account of my
life, that in recounting the many deliverances and preservations which
the Lord hath vouchsafed to work for me, both I, by a grateful
acknowledgment thereof and return of thanksgivings unto him therefor, may
in some measure set forth His abundant goodness to me, and others, whose
lot it may be to tread the same path and fall into the same or like
exercises, may be encouraged to persevere in the way of holiness, and
with full assurance of mind to trust in the Lord, whatsoever trials may
befall them.
To begin therefore with mine own beginning, I was born in the year of our
Lord 1639, about the beginning of the eighth month, so far as I have been
able to inform myself, for the parish register, which relates to the time
not of birth but of baptism, as they call it, is not to be relied on.
The place of my birth was a little country town called Crowell, situate
in the upper side of Oxfordshire, three miles eastward from Thame, the
nearest market town.
My father’s name was Walter Ellwood, and my mother’s maiden name was
Elizabeth Potman, both well descended, but of declining families. So
that what my father possessed (which was a pretty estate in lands, and
more as I have heard in moneys) he received, as he had done his name
Walter, from his grandfather Walter Gray, whose daughter and only child
was his mother.
In my very infancy, when I was but about two years old, I was carried to
London; for the civil war between King and Parliament breaking then
forth, my father, who favoured the Parliament side, though he took not
arms, not holding himself safe at his country habitation, which lay too
near some garrisons of the King’s, betook himself to London, that city
then holding for the Parliament.
There was I bred up, though not without much difficulty, the city air not
agreeing with my tender constitution, and there continued until Oxford
was surrendered, and the war in appearance ended.
In this time my parents contracted an acquaintance and intimate
friendship with the Lady Springett, who being then the widow of Sir
William Springett, who died in the Parliament service, was afterwards the
wife of Isaac Penington, eldest son of Alderman Penington, of London.
And this friendship devolving from the parents to the children, I became
an early and particular playfellow to her daughter Gulielma; being
admitted, as such, to ride with her in her little coach, drawn by her
footman about Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
I mention this in this place because the continuation of that
acquaintance and friendship, having been an occasional means of my being
afterwards brought to the knowledge of the blessed TRUTH, I shall have
frequent cause, in the course of the following discourse, to make
honourable mention of that family, to which I am under so many and great
obligations.
Soon after the surrender of Oxford my father returned to his estate at
Crowell, which by that time he might have need enough to look after,
having spent, I suppose, the greatest part of the moneys which had been
left him by his grandfather in maintaining himself and his family at a
high rate in London.
My elder brother (for I had one brother and two sisters, all elder than
myself) was, while we lived in London, boarded at a private school, in
the house of one Francis Atkinson, at a place called Hadley, near Barnet,
in Hertfordshire, where he had made some good proficiency in the Latin
and French tongues. But after we had left the city, and were re-settled
in the country, he was taken from that private school and sent to the
free school at Thame, in Oxfordshire.
Thither also was I sent as soon as my tender age would permit; for I was
indeed but young when I went, and yet seemed younger than I was, by
reason of my low and little stature. For it was held for some years a
doubtful point whether I should not have proved a dwarf. But after I was
arrived at the fifteenth year of my age, or thereabouts, I began to shoot
up, and gave not up growing till I had attained the middle size and
stature of men.
At this school, which at that time was in good reputation, I profited
apace, having then a natural propensity to learning; so that at the first
reading over of my lesson I commonly made myself master of it; and yet,
which is strange to think of, few boys in the school wore out more birch
than I. For though I was never, that I remember, whipped upon the score
of not having my lesson ready, or of not saying it well, yet being a
little busy boy, full of spirit, of a working head and active hand, I
could not easily conform myself to the grave and sober rules and, as I
then thought, severe orders of the school, but was often playing one
waggish prank or other among my fellow-scholars, which subjected me to
correction, so that I have come under the discipline of the rod twice in
a forenoon; which yet brake no bones.
Had I been continued at this school, and in due time preferred to a
higher, I might in likelihood have been a scholar, for I was observed to
have a genius apt to learn. But my father having, so soon as the
republican government began to settle, accepted the office of a justice
of the peace (which was no way beneficial, but merely honorary, and every
way expensive), and put himself into a port and course of living
agreeably thereunto, and having also removed my brother from Thame school
to Merton College in Oxford, and entered him there in the highest and
most chargeable condition of a Fellow Commoner, he found it needful to
retrench his expenses elsewhere, the hurt of which fell upon me. For he
thereupon took me from school, to save the charge of maintaining me
there; which was somewhat like plucking green fruit from the tree, and
laying it by before it was come to its due ripeness, which will
thenceforth shrink and wither, and lose that little juice and relish
which it began to have.
Even so it fared with me. For being taken home when I was but young, and
before I was well settled in my studies (though I had made a good
progress in the Latin tongue, and was entered in the Greek) being left
too much to myself, to ply or play with my books, or without them, as I
pleased, I soon shook hands with my books by shaking my books out of my
hands, and laying them by degrees quite aside, and addicted myself to
such youthful sports and pleasures as the place afforded and my condition
could reach unto.
By this means, in a little time I began to lose that little learning I
had acquired at school, and by a continued disuse of my books became at
length so utterly a stranger to learning, that I could not have read, far
less have understood, a sentence in Latin: which I was so sensible of
that I warily avoided reading to others, even in an English book, lest,
if I should meet with a Latin word, I should shame myself by
mispronouncing it.
Thus I went on, taking my swing in such vain courses as were accounted
harmless recreations, entertaining my companions and familiar
acquaintance with pleasant discourses in our conversations, by the mere
force of mother-wit and natural parts, without the help of school
cultivation; and was accounted good company too.
But I always sorted myself with persons of ingenuity, temperance, and
sobriety; for I loathed scurrilities in conversation, and had a natural
aversion to immoderate drinking. So that in the time of my greatest
vanity I was preserved from profaneness and the grosser evils of the
world, which rendered me acceptable to persons of the best note in that
country then. I often waited on the Lord Wenman at his house, Thame
Park, about two miles from Crowell, where I lived; to whose favour I held
myself entitled in a twofold respect, both as my mother was nearly
related to his lady, and as he had been pleased to bestow his name upon
me, when he made large promises for me at the font. He was a person of
great honour and virtue, and always gave me a kind reception at his
table, how often soever I came. And I have cause to think I should have
received from this lord some advantageous preferment in this world, as
soon as he had found me capable of it (though betwixt him and my father
there was not then so good an understanding as might have been wished),
had I not been, in a little time after, called into the service of the
best and highest Lord, and thereby lost the favour of all my friends,
relations, and acquaintance of this world. To the account of which most
happy exchange I hasten, and therefore willingly pass over many
particularities of my youthful life. Yet one passage I am willing to
mention, for the effect it had upon me afterwards, which was thus.
My father being then in the Commission of the Peace, and going to a Petty
Sessions at Watlington, I waited on him thither. And when we came near
the town, the coachman, seeing a nearer and easier way (than the common
road) through a corn-field, and that it was wide enough for the wheels to
run without damaging the corn, turned down there; which being observed by
a husbandman who was at plough not far off, he ran to us, and stopping
the coach, poured forth a mouthful of complaints, in none of the best
language, for driving over the corn. My father mildly answered him,
“That if there was an offence committed, he must rather impute it to his
servant than himself, since he neither directed him to drive that way,
nor knew which way he drove.” Yet added, “That he was going to such an
inn at the town, whither if he came he would make him full satisfaction
for whatsoever damage he had sustained thereby.” And so on we went, the
man venting his discontent, as he went back, in angry accents. At the
town, upon inquiry, we understood that it was a way often used, and
without damage, being broad enough; but that it was not the common road,
which yet lay not far from it, and was also good enough; wherefore my
father bid his man drive home that way.
It was late in the evening when we returned, and very dark; and this
quarrelsome man, who had troubled himself and us in the morning, having
gotten another lusty fellow like himself to assist him, waylaid us in the
night, expecting we would return the same way we came. But when they
found we did not, but took the common way, they, angry that they were
disappointed, and loth to lose their purpose (which was to put an abuse
upon us), coasted over to us in the dark, and laying hold on the horses’
bridles, stopped them from going on. My father, asking his man what the
reason was that he went not on, was answered, “That there were two men at
the horses’ heads, who held them back, and would not suffer them to go
forward.” Whereupon my father, opening the boot, stepped out, and I
followed close at his heels. Going up to the place where the men stood,
he demanded of them the meaning of this assault. They said, “We were
upon the corn.” We knew by the route we were not on the corn, but in the
common way, and told them so; but they told us, “They were resolved they
would not let us go on any farther, but would make us go back again.” My
father endeavoured by gentle reasoning to persuade them to forbear, and
not run themselves farther into the danger of the law, which they were
run too far into already; but they rather derided him for it. Seeing
therefore fair means would not work upon them, he spake more roughly to
them, charging them to deliver their clubs (for each of them had a great
club in his hand, somewhat like those which are called quarter-staves):
they thereupon, laughing, told him, “They did not bring them thither for
that end.” Thereupon my father, turning his head to me, said, “Tom,
disarm them.”
I stood ready at his elbow, waiting only for the word of command. For
being naturally of a bold spirit, full then of youthful heat, and that,
too, heightened by the sense I had, not only of the abuse, but insolent
behaviour of those rude fellows, my blood began to boil, and my fingers
itched, as the saying is, to be dealing with them. Wherefore, stepping
boldly forward to lay hold on the staff of him that was nearest to me, I
said, “Sirrah, deliver your weapon.” He thereupon raised his club, which
was big enough to have knocked down an ox, intending no doubt to have
knocked me down with it, as probably he would have done, had I not, in
the twinkling of an eye, whipped out my rapier, and made a pass upon him.
I could not have failed running of him through up to the hilt had he
stood his ground, but the sudden and unexpected sight of my bright blade
glittering in the dark night, did so amaze and terrify the man, that,
slipping aside, he avoided my thrust, and letting his staff sink, betook
himself to his heels for safety; which his companion seeing, fled also.
I followed the former as fast as I could, but _timor addidit alas_ (fear
gave him wings), and made him swiftly fly; so that, although I was
accounted very nimble, yet the farther we ran the more ground he gained
on me; so that I could not overtake him, which made me think he took
shelter under some bush, which he knew where to find, though I did not.
Meanwhile, the coachman, who had sufficiently the outside of a man,
excused himself from intermeddling under pretence that he durst not leave
his horses, and so left me to shift for myself; and I was gone so far
beyond my knowledge, that I understood not which way I was to go, till by
halloing, and being halloed to again, I was directed where to find my
company.
We had easy means to have found out who these men were (the principal of
them having been in the daytime at the inn, and both quarrelled with the
coachman, and threatened to be even with him when he went back); but
since they came off no better in their attempt, my father thought it
better not to know them, than to oblige himself to a prosecution of them.
At that time, and for a good while after, I had no regret upon my mind
for what I had done, and designed to have done, in this case, but went on
in a sort of bravery, resolving to kill, if I could, any man that should
make the like attempt or put any affront on us; and for that reason
seldom went afterwards upon those public services without a loaded pistol
in my pocket. But when it pleased the Lord, in his infinite goodness, to
call me out of the spirit and ways of the world, and give me the
knowledge of his saving truth, whereby the actions of my fore-past life
were set in order before me, a sort of horror seized on me, when I
considered how near I had been to the staining of my hands with human
blood. And whensoever afterwards I went that way, and indeed as often
since as the matter has come into my remembrance, my soul has blessed the
Lord for my deliverance, and thanksgivings and praises have arisen in my
heart (as now at the relating of it, they do) to Him who preserved and
withheld me from shedding man’s blood. Which is the reason for which I
have given this account of that action, that others may be warned by it.
About this time my dear and honoured mother, who was indeed a woman of
singular worth and virtue, departed this life, having a little before
heard of the death of her eldest son, who (falling under the displeasure
of my father for refusing to resign his interest in an estate which my
father sold, and thereupon desiring that he might have leave to travel,
in hopes that time and absence might work a reconciliation) went into
Ireland with a person powerful there in those times, by whose means he
was quickly preferred to a place of trust and profit, but lived not long
to enjoy it.
I mentioned before, that during my father’s abode in London, in the time
of the civil wars, he contracted a friendship with the Lady Springett,
then a widow, and afterwards married to Isaac Penington, Esq., to
continue which he sometimes visited them at their country lodgings, as at
Datchet, and at Causham Lodge, near Reading. And having heard that they
were come to live upon their own estate at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire,
about fifteen miles from Crowell, he went one day to visit them there,
and to return at night, taking me with him.
But very much surprised we were when, being come thither, we first heard,
then found, they were become Quakers; a people we had no knowledge of,
and a name we had till then scarce heard of.
So great a change, from a free, debonair, and courtly sort of behaviour,
which we formerly had found them in, to so strict a gravity as they now
received us with did not a little amuse us, and disappoint our
expectation of such a pleasant visit as we used to have, and had now
promised ourselves. Nor could my father have any opportunity, by a
private conference with them, to understand the ground or occasion of
this change, there being some other strangers with them (related to Isaac
Penington), who came that morning from London to visit them also.
For my part I sought and at length found means to cast myself into the
company of the daughter, whom I found gathering some flowers in the
garden, attended by her maid, who was also a Quaker. But when I
addressed myself to her after my accustomed manner, with intention to
engage her in some discourse which might introduce conversation on the
footing of our former acquaintance, though she treated me with a
courteous mien, yet, as young as she was, the gravity of her look and
behaviour struck such an awe upon me, that I found myself not so much
master of myself as to pursue any further converse with her. Wherefore,
asking pardon for my boldness in having intruded myself into her private
walks, I withdrew, not without some disorder (as I thought at least) of
mind.
We stayed dinner, which was very handsome, and lacked nothing to
recommend it to me but the want of mirth and pleasant discourse, which we
could neither have with them, nor by reason of them, with one another
amongst ourselves; the weightiness that was upon their spirits and
countenances keeping down the lightness that would have been up in us.
We stayed, notwithstanding, till the rest of the company took leave of
them, and then we also, doing the same, returned, not greatly satisfied
with our journey, nor knowing what in particular to find fault with.
Yet this good effect that visit had upon my father, who was then in the
Commission of the Peace, that it disposed him to a more favourable
opinion of and carriage towards those people when they came in his way,
as not long after one of them did. For a young man, who lived in
Buckinghamshire, came on a first-day to the church (so called) at a town
called Chinner, a mile from Crowell, having, it seems, a pressure on his
mind to say something to the minister of that parish. He being an
acquaintance of mine, drew me sometimes to hear him, as it did then. The
young man stood in the aisle before the pulpit all the time of the
sermon, not speaking a word till the sermon and prayer after it were
ended, and then spoke a few words to the priest, of which all that I
could hear was, “That the prayer of the wicked is abomination to the
Lord, and that God heareth not sinners.”
Somewhat more, I think, he did say, which I could not distinctly hear for
the noise the people made; and more probably he would have said, had he
not been interrupted by the officers, who took him into custody, and led
him out in order to carry him before my father.
When I understood that, I hastened home, that I might give my father a
fair account of the matter before they came. I told him the young man
behaved himself quietly and peaceably, spoke not a word till the minister
had quite done his service, and that what he then spoke was but short,
and was delivered without passion or ill language. This I knew would
furnish my father with a fair ground whereon to discharge the man if he
would.
And accordingly when they came, and made a high complaint against the man
(who said little for himself), my father, having examined the officers
who brought him—what the words that he spoke were (which they did not
well agree in), and at what time he spoke them (which they all agreed to
be after the minister had done), and then, whether he gave the minister
any reviling language, or endeavoured to raise a tumult among the people
(which they could not charge him with); not finding that he had broken
the law, he counselled the young man to be careful that he did not make
or occasion any public disturbance, and so dismissed him; which I was
glad of.
Some time after this, my father, having gotten some further account of
the people called Quakers, and being desirous to be informed concerning
their principles, made another visit to Isaac Penington and his wife, at
their house called the Grange, in Peter’s Chalfont, and took both my
sisters and me with him.
It was in the tenth month, in the year 1659, that we went thither, where
we found a very kind reception, and tarried some days; one day at least
the longer, for that while we were there a meeting was appointed at a
place about a mile from thence, to which we were invited to go, and
willingly went.
It was held in a farmhouse called the Grove, which having formerly been a
gentleman’s seat, had a very large hall, and that well filled.
To this meeting came Edward Burrough, besides other preachers, as Thomas
Curtis and James Naylor, but none spoke there at that time but Edward
Burrough, next to whom, as it were under him, it was my lot to sit on a
stool by the side of a long table on which he sat, and I drank in his
words with desire; for they not only answered my understanding, but
warmed my heart with a certain heat, which I had not till then felt from
the ministry of any man.
When the meeting was ended our friends took us home with them again; and
after supper, the evenings being long, the servants of the family (who
were Quakers) were called in, and we all sat down in silence. But long
we had not so sat before Edward Burrough began to speak among us. And
although he spoke not long, yet what he said did touch, as I suppose, my
father’s (religious) copyhold, as the phrase is. And he having been from
his youth a professor, though not joined in that which is called close
communion with any one sort, and valuing himself upon the knowledge he
esteemed himself to have in the various notions of each profession,
thought he had now a fair opportunity to display his knowledge, and
thereupon began to make objections against what had been delivered.
The subject of the discourse was, “The universal free grace of God to all
mankind,” to which he opposed the Calvinistic tenet of particular and
personal predestination; in defence of which indefensible notion he found
himself more at a loss than he expected. Edward Burrough said not much
to him upon it, though what he said was close and cogent; but James
Naylor interposing, handled the subject with so much perspicuity and
clear demonstration, that his reasoning seemed to be irresistible; and so
I suppose my father found it, which made him willing to drop the
discourse.
As for Edward Burrough, he was a brisk young man, of a ready tongue, and
might have been, for aught I then knew, a scholar, which made me the less
to admire his way of reasoning. But what dropt from James Naylor had the
greater force upon me, because he looked but like a plain simple
countryman, having the appearance of a husbandman or a shepherd.
As my father was not able to maintain the argument on his side, so
neither did they seem willing to drive it to an extremity on their side;
but treating him in a soft and gentle manner, did after a while let fall
the discourse, and then we withdrew to our respective chambers.
The next morning we prepared to return home (that is, my father, my
younger sister, and myself, for my elder sister was gone before by the
stage-coach to London), and when, having taken our leaves of our friends,
we went forth, they, with Edward Burrough, accompanying us to the gate,
he there directed his speech in a few words to each of us severally,
according to the sense he had of our several conditions. And when we
were gone off, and they gone in again, they asking him what he thought of
us, he answered them, as they afterwards told me, to this effect: “As for
the old man, he is settled on his lees, and the young woman is light and
airy; but the young man is reached, and may do well if he does not lose
it.” And surely that which he said to me, or rather that spirit in which
he spoke it, took such fast hold on me, that I felt sadness and trouble
come over me, though I did not distinctly understand what I was troubled
for. I knew not what I ailed, but I knew I ailed something more than
ordinary, and my heart was very heavy.
I found it was not so with my father and sister, for as I rode after the
coach I could hear them talk pleasantly one to the other; but they could
not discern how it was with me, because I, riding on horseback, kept much
out of sight.
By the time we got home it was night; and the next day, being the first
day of the week, I went in the afternoon to hear the minister of Chinner,
and this was the last time I ever went to hear any of that function.
After the sermon I went with him to his house, and in a freedom of
discourse, which, from a certain intimacy that was between us, I commonly
used with him, told him where I had been, what company I had met with
there, and what observations I had made to myself thereupon. He seemed
to understand as little of them as I had done before, and civilly
abstained from casting any unhandsome reflections on them.
I had a desire to go to another meeting of the Quakers, and bade my
father’s man inquire if there was any in the country thereabouts. He
thereupon told me he had heard at Isaac Penington’s that there was to be
a meeting at High Wycombe on Thursday next.
Thither therefore I went, though it was seven miles from me; and that I
might be rather thought to go out a-coursing than to a meeting, I let my
greyhound run by my horse’s side.
When I came there, and had set up my horse at an inn, I was at a loss how
to find the house where the meeting was to be. I knew it not, and was
ashamed to ask after it; wherefore, having ordered the ostler to take
care of my dog, I went into the street and stood at the inn gate, musing
with myself what course to take. But I had not stood long ere I saw a
horseman riding along the street, whom I remembered I had seen before at
Isaac Penington’s, and he put up his horse at the same inn. Him
therefore I resolved to follow, supposing he was going to the meeting, as
indeed he was.
Being come to the house, which proved to be John Raunce’s, I saw the
people sitting together in an outer room; wherefore I stepped in and sat
down on the first void seat, the end of a bench just within the door,
having my sword by my side and black clothes on, which drew some eyes
upon me. It was not long ere one stood up and spoke, whom I was
afterwards well acquainted with; his name was Samuel Thornton, and what
he said was very suitable and of good service to me, for it reached home
as if it had been directed to me.
As soon as ever the meeting was ended and the people began to rise, I,
being next the door, stepped out quickly, and hastening to my inn, took
horse immediately homewards, and (so far as I remember) my having been
gone was not taken notice of by my father.
This latter meeting was like the clinching of a nail, confirming and
fastening in my mind those good principles which had sunk into me at the
former. My understanding began to open, and I felt some stirrings in my
breast, tending to the work of a new creation in me. The general trouble
and confusion of mind, which had for some days lain heavy upon me and
pressed me down, without a distinct discovery of the particular cause for
which it came, began now to wear off, and some glimmerings of light began
to break forth in me, which let me see my inward state and condition
towards God. The light, which before had shone in my darkness, and the
darkness could not comprehend it, began now to shine out of darkness, and
in some measure discovered to me what it was that had before clouded me
and brought that sadness and trouble upon me. And now I saw that
although I had been in a great degree preserved from the common
immoralities and gross pollutions of the world, yet the spirit of the
world had hitherto ruled in me, and led me into pride, flattery, vanity,
and superfluity, all which was naught. I found there were many plants
growing in me which were not of the heavenly Father’s planting, and that
all these, of whatever sort or kind they were, or how specious soever
they might appear, must be plucked up.
Now was all my former life ripped up, and my sins by degrees were set in
order before me. And though they looked not with so black a hue and so
deep a dye as those of the lewdest sort of people did, yet I found that
all sin (even that which had the fairest or finest show, as well as that
which was more coarse and foul) brought guilt, and with and for guilt,
condemnation on the soul that sinned. This I felt, and was greatly bowed
down under the sense thereof.
Now also did I receive a new law—an inward law superadded to the
outward—the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which wrought in
me against all evil, not only in deed and in word, but even in thought
also; so that everything was brought to judgment, and judgment passed
upon all. So that I could not any longer go on in my former ways and
course of life, for when I did, judgment took hold upon me for it.
Thus the Lord was graciously pleased to deal with me in somewhat like
manner as he had dealt with his people Israel of old when they had
transgressed his righteous law, whom by his prophet he called back,
required to put away the evil of their doings, bidding them first cease
to do evil, then learn to do well, before he would admit them to reason
with him, and before he would impart to them the effects of his free
mercy. (Isaiah i. 16, 17.)
I was now required by this inward and spiritual law (the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus) to put away the evil of my doings, and to
cease to do evil; and what in particular the evil was which I was
required to put away and to cease from, that measure of the divine light
which was now manifested in me discovered to me, and what the light made
manifest to be evil, judgment passed upon.
So that here began to be a way cast up before me for me to walk in—a
direct and plain way, so plain that a wayfaring man, how weak and simple
soever (though a fool to the wisdom and in the judgment of the world)
could not err while he continued to walk in it, the error coming in by
his going out of it. And this way with respect to me I saw was that
measure of divine light which was manifested in me, by which the evil of
my doings which I was to put away and to cease from was discovered to me.
By this divine light, then, I saw that though I had not the evil of the
common uncleanness, debauchery, profaneness, and pollutions of the world
to put away, because I had, through the great goodness of God and a civil
education, been preserved out of those grosser evils, yet I had many
other evils to put away and to cease from; some of which were not by the
world, which lies in wickedness (1 John v. 19), accounted evils; but by
the light of Christ were made manifest to me to be evils, and as such
condemned in me.
As particularly those fruits and effects of pride that discover
themselves in the vanity and superfluity of apparel; which I, as far as
my ability would extend to, took, alas! too much delight in. This evil
of my doings I was required to put away and cease from; and judgment lay
upon me till I did so. Wherefore, in obedience to the inward law, which
agreed with the outward (1 Tim. ii. 9; 1 Pet. iii. 3; 1 Tim. vi. 8; James
i. 21), I took off from my apparel those unnecessary trimmings of lace,
ribbons, and useless buttons, which had no real service, but were set on
only for that which was by mistake called ornament; and I ceased to wear
rings.
Again, the giving of flattering titles to men between whom and me there
was not any relation to which such titles could be pretended to belong.
This was an evil I had been much addicted to, and was accounted a ready
artist in; therefore this evil also was I required to put away and cease
from. So that thenceforward I durst not say, Sir, Master, My Lord, Madam
(or My Dame); or say Your Servant to any one to whom I did not stand in
the real relation of a servant, which I had never done to any.
Again, respect of persons, in uncovering the head and bowing the knee or
body in salutation, was a practice I had been much in the use of; and
this, being one of the vain customs of the world, introduced by the
spirit of the world, instead of the true honour which this is a false
representation of, and used in deceit as a token of respect by persons
one to another, who bear no real respect one to another; and besides,
this being a type and proper emblem of that divine honour which all ought
to pay to Almighty God, and which all of all sorts, who take upon them
the Christian name, appear in when they offer their prayers to Him, and
therefore should not be given to men;—I found this to be one of those
evils which I had been too long doing; therefore I was now required to
put it away and cease from it.
Again, the corrupt and unsound form of speaking in the plural number to a
single person, _you_ to one, instead of _thou_, contrary to the pure,
plain, and single language of truth, _thou_ to one, and _you_ to more
than one, which had always been used by God to men, and men to God, as
well as one to another, from the oldest record of time till corrupt men,
for corrupt ends, in later and corrupt times, to flatter, fawn, and work
upon the corrupt nature in men, brought in that false and senseless way
of speaking _you_ to one, which has since corrupted the modern languages,
and hath greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of
men;—this evil custom I had been as forward in as others, and this I was
now called out of and required to cease from.
These and many more evil customs which had sprung up in the night of
darkness and general apostacy from the truth and true religion, were now,
by the inshining of this pure ray of divine light in my conscience,
gradually discovered to me to be what I ought to cease from, shun, and
stand a witness against.
But so subtly and withal so powerfully did the enemy work upon the weak
part in me, as to persuade me that in these things I ought to make a
difference between my father and all other men; and that therefore,
though I did disuse these tokens of respect to others, yet I ought still
to use them towards him, as he was my father. And so far did this wile
of his prevail upon me, through a fear lest I should do amiss in
withdrawing any sort of respect or honour from my father which was due
unto him, that being thereby beguiled, I continued for a while to demean
myself in the same manner towards him, with respect both to language and
gesture, as I had always done before. And so long as I did so (standing
bare before him, and giving him the accustomed language) he did not
express—whatever he thought—any dislike of me.
But as to myself and the work begun in me, I found it was not enough for
me to cease to do evil, though that was a good and a great step. I had
another lesson before me, which was to learn to do well; which I could by
no means do till I had given up with full purpose of mind to cease from
doing evil.
And when I had done that, the enemy took advantage of my weakness to
mislead me again.
For whereas I ought to have waited in the light for direction and
guidance into and in the way of well-doing, and not to have moved till
the divine Spirit (a manifestation of which the Lord has been pleased to
give unto me for me to profit with or by), the enemy, transforming
himself into the appearance of an angel of light, offered himself in that
appearance to be my guide and leader into the performance of religious
exercises. And I not then knowing the wiles of Satan, and being eager to
be doing some acceptable service to God, too readily yielded myself to
the conduct of my enemy instead of my friend.
He thereupon, humouring the warmth and zeal of my spirit, put me upon
religious performances in my own will, in my own time, and in my own
strength; which in themselves were good, and would have been profitable
unto me and acceptable unto the Lord, if they had been performed in His
will, in His time, and in the ability which He gives. But being wrought
in the will of man and at the prompting of the evil one, no wonder that
it did me hurt instead of good.
I read abundantly in the Bible, and would set myself tasks in reading,
enjoining myself to read so many chapters, sometimes a whole book or long
epistle, at a time. And I thought that time well spent, though I was not
much the wiser for what I had read, reading it too cursorily, and without
the true Guide, the Holy Spirit, which alone could open the understanding
and give the true sense of what was read.
I prayed often, and drew out my prayers to a great length, and appointed
unto myself certain set times to pray at, and a certain number of prayers
to say in a day: we knew not meanwhile what true prayer was, which stands
not in words, though the words which are uttered in the movings of the
Holy Spirit are very available, but in the breathing of the soul to the
heavenly Father through the operation of the Holy Spirit, who maketh
intercession sometimes in words and sometimes with sighs and groans only,
which the Lord vouchsafes to hear and answer.
This will-worship, which all is that is performed in the will of man and
not in the movings of the Holy Spirit, was a great hurt to me, and
hindrance of my spiritual growth in the way of truth. But my heavenly
Father, who knew the sincerity of my soul to Him and the hearty desire I
had to serve Him, had compassion on me, and in due time was graciously
pleased to illuminate my understanding further, and to open in me an eye
to discern the false spirit, and its way of working from the true, and to
reject the former and cleave to the latter.
But though the enemy had by his subtlety gained such advantages over me,
yet I went on notwithstanding, and firmly persisted in my godly
resolution of ceasing from and denying those things which I was now
convinced in my conscience were evil. And on this account a great trial
came quickly on me; for the general Quarter Sessions for the Peace coming
on, my father, willing to excuse himself from a dirty journey, commanded
me to get up betimes and go to Oxford, and deliver in the recognisances
he had taken, and bring him an account what justices were on the bench,
and what principal pleas were before them; which he knew I knew how to
do, having often attended him on those services.
I, who knew how it stood with me better than he did, felt a weight come
over me as soon as he had spoken the word; for I presently saw it would
bring a very great exercise upon me. But having never resisted his will
in anything that was lawful, as this was, I attempted not to make any
excuse, but ordering a horse to be ready for me early in the morning, I
went to bed, having great strugglings in my breast.
For the enemy came in upon me like a flood, and set many difficulties
before me, swelling them up to the highest pitch, by representing them as
mountains which I should never be able to get over; and alas! that faith
which could remove such mountains, and cast them into the sea, was but
very small and weak in me.
He cast into my mind not only how I should behave myself in court and
dispatch the business I was sent about, but how I should demean myself
towards my acquaintance, of which I had many in that city, with whom I
was wont to be jolly; whereas now I could not put off my hat, nor bow to
any of them, nor give them their honorary titles (as they are called),
nor use the corrupt language of _you_ to any one of them, but must keep
to the plain and true language of _thou_ and _thee_.
Much of this nature revolved in my mind, thrown in by the enemy to
discourage and cast me down. And I had none to have recourse to for
counsel or help, but to the Lord alone; to whom therefore I poured forth
my supplications, with earnest cries and breathings of soul, that He, in
whom all power was, would enable me to go through this great exercise,
and keep me faithful to Himself therein. And after some time He was
pleased to compose my mind to stillness, and I went to rest.
Early next morning I got up, and found my spirit pretty calm and quiet,
yet not without a fear upon me lest I should slip and let fall the
testimony which I had to bear. And as I rode a frequent cry ran through
me to the Lord, in this wise: “Oh, my God, preserve me faithful, whatever
befalls me: suffer me not to be drawn into evil, how much scorn and
contempt soever may be cast upon me.”
Thus was my spirit exercised on the way almost continually; and when I
was come within a mile or two of the city, whom should I meet upon the
way coming from thence but Edward Burrough. I rode in a montero-cap (a
dress more used then than now), and so did he; and because the weather
was exceedingly sharp, we both had drawn our caps down, to shelter our
faces from the cold, and by that means neither of us knew the other, but
passed by without taking notice one of the other; till a few days after,
meeting again, and observing each other’s dress, we recollected where we
had so lately met. Then thought I with myself, oh, how glad should I
have been of a word of encouragement and counsel from him when I was
under that weighty exercise of mind! But the Lord saw it was not good
for me, that my reliance might be wholly upon Him, and not on man.
When I had set up my horse I went directly to the hall where the sessions
were held, where I had been but a very little while before a knot of my
old acquaintances, espying me, came to me. One of these was a scholar in
his gown, another a surgeon of that city (both my school-fellows and
fellow-boarders at Thame school), and the third a country gentleman with
whom I had long been very familiar.
When they were come up to me they all saluted me after the usual manner,
pulling off their hats and bowing, and saying, “Your humble servant,
sir,” expecting no doubt the like from me. But when they saw me stand
still, not moving my cap, nor bowing my knee in way of congee to them,
they were amazed, and looked first one upon another, then upon me, and
then one upon another again, for a while, without speaking a word.
At length the surgeon, a brisk young man, who stood nearest to me,
clapping his hand in a familiar way upon my shoulder, and smiling on me,
said, “What, Tom! a Quaker?” To which I readily and cheerfully answered,
“Yes, a Quaker.” And as the words passed out of my mouth I felt joy
spring in my heart; for I rejoiced that I had not been drawn out by them
into a compliance with them, and that I had strength and boldness given
me to confess myself to be one of that despised people.
They stayed not long with me nor said any more, that I remember to me;
but looking somewhat confusedly one upon another, after a while took
their leave of me, going off in the same ceremonious manner as they came
on.
After they were gone I walked a while about the hall, and went up nearer
to the court, to observe both what justices were on the bench and what
business they had before them. And I went in fear, not of what they
could or would have done to me if they should have taken notice of me,
but lest I should be surprised, and drawn unwarily into that which I was
to keep out of.
It was not long before the court adjourned to go to dinner, and that time
I took to go to the Clerk of the Peace at his house, whom I was well
acquainted with. So soon as I came into the room where he was he came
and met me, and saluted me after his manner; for he had a great respect
for my father and a kind regard for me. And though he was at first
somewhat startled at my carriage and language, yet he treated me very
civilly, without any reflection or show of lightness. I delivered him
the recognisances which my father had sent, and having done the business
I came upon, withdrew, and went to my inn to refresh myself, and then to
return home.
But when I was ready to take horse, looking out into the street, I saw
two or three justices standing just in the way where I was to ride. This
brought a fresh concern upon me. I knew if they saw me they would know
me; and I concluded, if they knew me, they would stop me and inquire
after my father, and I doubted how I should come off with them.
This doubting brought weakness on me, and that weakness led to
contrivance how I might avoid this trial. I knew the city pretty well,
and remembered there was a back way, which though somewhat about, would
bring me out of town without passing by those justices; yet loth I was to
go that way. Wherefore I stayed a pretty time, in hopes they would have
parted company, or removed to some other place out of my way. But when I
had waited until I was uneasy for losing so much time, having entered
into reasonings with flesh and blood, the weakness prevailed over me, and
away I went the back way, which brought trouble and grief upon my spirit
for having shunned the cross.
But the Lord looked on me with a tender eye, and seeing my heart was
right to Him, and that what I had done was merely through weakness and
fear of falling, and that I was sensible of my failing therein, and sorry
for it, He was graciously pleased to pass it by, and speak peace to me
again. So that before I got home, as when I went in the morning, my
heart was full of breathing prayer to the Lord, that He would vouchsafe
to be with me, and uphold and carry me through that day’s exercise; so
now at my return in the evening, my heart was full of thankful
acknowledgments and praises unto Him for His great goodness and favour to
me, in having thus far preserved and kept me from falling into anything
that might have brought dishonour to His holy name, which I had now taken
on me.
But notwithstanding that it was thus with me, and that I found peace and
acceptance with the Lord in some good degree, according to my obedience
to the convictions I had received by His holy Spirit in me, yet was not
the veil so done away, or fully rent, but that there still remained a
cloud upon my understanding with respect to my carriage towards my
father. And that notion which the enemy had brought into my mind, that I
ought to put such a difference between him and all others as that, on
account of the paternal relation, I should still deport myself towards
him, both in gesture and language, as I had always heretofore done, did
yet prevail with me. So that when I came home I went to my father
bareheaded, as I used to do, and gave him a particular account of the
business he had given me in command, in such manner that we, observing no
alteration in my carriage towards him, found no cause to take offence at
me.
I had felt for some time before an earnest desire of mind to go again to
Isaac Penington’s, and I began to question whether, when my father should
come (as I concluded ere long he would) to understand I inclined to
settle among the people called Quakers, he would permit me the command of
his horses, as before. Wherefore, in the morning when I went to Oxford I
gave directions to a servant of his to go that day to a gentleman of my
acquaintance, who I knew had a riding nag to put off either by sale or to
be kept for his work, and desired him, in my name, to send him to me;
which he did, and I found him in the stable when I came home.
On this nag I designed to ride next day to Isaac Penington’s, and in
order thereunto arose betimes and got myself ready for the journey; but
because I would pay all due respect to my father, and not go without his
consent, or knowledge at the least, I sent one up to him (for he was not
yet stirring) to acquaint him that I had a purpose to go to Isaac
Penington’s, and desired to know if he pleased to command me any service
to them. He sent me word he would speak with me before I went, and would
have me come up to him, which I did, and stood by his bedside.
Then, in a mild and gentle tone, he said: “I understand you have a mind
to go to Mr. Penington’s.” I answered, “I have so.”—“Why,” said he, “I
wonder why you should. You were there, you know, but a few days ago, and
unless you had business with them, don’t you think it will look oddly?”—I
said, “I thought not.”—“I doubt,” said he, “you’ll tire them with your
company, and make them think they shall be troubled with you.”—“If,”
replied I, “I find anything of that, I’ll make the shorter stay.”—“But,”
said he, “can you propose any sort of business with them, more than a
mere visit?”—“Yes,” said I, “I propose to myself not only to see them,
but to have some discourse with them.”—“Why,” said he, in a tone a little
harsher, “I hope you don’t incline to be of their way.”—“Truly,” answered
I, “I like them and their way very well, so far as I yet understand it;
and I am willing to go to them that I may understand it better.”
Thereupon he began to reckon up a beadroll of faults against the Quakers,
telling me they were a rude, unmannerly people, that would not give civil
respect or honour to their superiors, no not to magistrates; that they
held many dangerous principles; that they were an immodest shameless
people; and that one of them stripped himself stark naked, and went in
that unseemly manner about the streets, at fairs and on market days, in
great towns.
To all the other charges I answered only, “That perhaps they might be
either misreported or misunderstood, as the best of people had sometimes
been.” But to the last charge of going naked, a particular answer, by
way of instance, was just then brought into my mind and put into my
mouth, which I had not thought of before, and that was the example of
Isaiah, who went naked among the people for a long time (Isaiah xx. 4).
“Ay,” said my father, “but you must consider that he was a prophet of the
Lord, and had an express command from God to go so.”
“Yes, sir,” replied I, “I do consider that; but I consider also, that the
Jews, among whom he lived, did not own him for a prophet, nor believe
that he had such a command from God. And,” added I, “how know we but
that this Quaker may be a prophet too, and might be commanded to do as he
did, for some reason which we understand not?”
This put my father to a stand; so that, letting fall his charges against
the Quakers, he only said, “I would wish you not to go so soon, but take
a little time to consider of it; you may visit Mr. Penington
hereafter.”—“Nay, sir,” replied I, “pray don’t hinder my going now, for I
have so strong a desire to go that I do not well know how to forbear.”
And as I spoke those words, I withdrew gently to the chamber door, and
then hastening down stairs, went immediately to the stable, where finding
my horse ready bridled, I forthwith mounted, and went off, lest I should
receive a countermand.
This discourse with my father had cast me somewhat back in my journey,
and it being fifteen long miles thither, the ways bad, and my nag but
small, it was in the afternoon that I got thither. And understanding by
the servant that took my horse that there was then a meeting in the house
(as there was weekly on that day, which was the fourth day of the week,
though till then I understood it not), I hastened in, and knowing the
rooms, went directly to the little parlour, where I found a few friends
sitting together in silence, and I sat down among them well satisfied,
though without words.
When the meeting was ended, and those of the company who were strangers
withdrawn, I addressed myself to Isaac Penington and his wife, who
received me courteously; but not knowing what exercise I had been in, and
yet was under, nor having heard anything of me since I had been there
before in another garb, were not forward at first to lay sudden hands on
me, which I observed, and did not dislike. But as they came to see a
change in me, not in habit only, but in gesture, speech, and carriage,
and, which was more, in countenance also (for the exercise I had passed
through, and yet was under, had imprinted a visible character of gravity
upon my face), they were exceedingly kind and tender towards me.
There was then in the family a friend, whose name was Anne Curtis, the
wife of Thomas Curtis, of Reading, who was come upon a visit to them, and
particularly to see Mary Penington’s daughter Guli, who had been ill of
the small-pox since I had been there before. Betwixt Mary Penington and
this friend I observed some private discourse and whisperings, and I had
an apprehension that it was upon something that concerned me. Wherefore
I took the freedom to ask Mary Penington if my coming thither had
occasioned any inconvenience in the family. She asked me if I had had
the small-pox; I told her no. She then told me her daughter had newly
had them, and though she was well recovered of them, she had not as yet
been down amongst them, but intended to have come down and sat with them
in the parlour that evening, yet would rather forbear till another time,
than endanger me; and that that was the matter they had been discoursing
of. I assured her that I had always been, and then more especially was,
free from any apprehension of danger in that respect, and therefore
entreated that her daughter might come down. And although they were
somewhat unwilling to yield to it, in regard to me, yet my importunity
prevailed, and after supper she did come down and sit with us; and though
the marks of the distemper were fresh upon her, yet they made no
impression upon me, faith keeping out fear.
We spent much of the evening in retiredness of mind, our spirits being
weightily gathered inward, so that not much discourse passed among us;
neither they to me, nor I to them offered any occasion. Yet I had good
satisfaction in that stillness, feeling my spirit drawn near to the Lord,
and to them therein.
Before I went to bed they let me know that there was to be a meeting at
Wycombe next day, and that some of the family would go to it. I was very
glad of it, for I greatly desired to go to meetings, and this fell very
aptly, it being in my way home. Next morning Isaac Penington himself
went, having Anne Curtis with him, and I accompanied them.
At Wycombe we met with Edward Burrough, who came from Oxford thither that
day that I, going thither, met him on the way; and having both our
monter-caps on, we recollected that we had met, and passed by each other
on the road unknown.
This was a monthly meeting, consisting of friends chiefly, who gathered
to it from several parts of the country thereabouts, so that it was
pretty large, and was held in a fair room in Jeremiah Stevens’ house; the
room where I had been at a meeting before, in John Raunce’s house, being
too little to receive us.
A very good meeting was this in itself and to me. Edward Burrough’s
ministry came forth among us in life and power, and the assembly was
covered therewith. I also, according to my small capacity, had a share
therein; for I felt some of that divine power working my spirit into a
great tenderness, and not only confirming me in the course I had already
entered, and strengthening me to go on therein, but rending also the veil
somewhat further, and clearing my understanding in some other things
which I had not seen before. For the Lord was pleased to make His
discoveries to me by degrees, that the sight of too great a work, and too
many enemies to encounter with at once, might not discourage me and make
me faint.
When the meeting was ended, the friends of the town taking notice that I
was the man that had been at their meeting the week before, whom they
then did not know, some of them came and spoke lovingly to me, and would
have had me stay with them; but Edward Burrough going home with Isaac
Penington, he invited me to go back with him, which I willingly consented
to, for the love I had more particularly to Edward Burrough, through
whose ministry I had received the first awakening stroke, drew me to
desire his company; and so away we rode together.
But I was somewhat disappointed of my expectation, for I hoped he would
have given me both opportunity and encouragement to have opened myself to
him, and to have poured forth my complaints, fears, doubts, and
questionings into his bosom. But he, being sensible that I was truly
reached, and that the witness of God was raised and the work of God
rightly begun in me, chose to leave me to the guidance of the good Spirit
in myself (the Counsellor that could resolve all doubts), that I might
not have any dependence on man. Wherefore, although he was naturally of
an open and free temper and carriage, and was afterwards always very
familiar and affectionately kind to me, yet at this time he kept himself
somewhat reserved, and showed only common kindness to me.
Next day we parted, he for London, I for home, under a very great weight
and exercise upon my spirit. For I now saw, in and by the farther
openings of the Divine light in me, that the enemy, by his false
reasonings, had beguiled and misled me with respect to my carriage
towards my father. For I now clearly saw that the honour due to parents
did not consist in uncovering the head and bowing the body to them, but
in a ready obedience to their lawful commands, and in performing all
needful services unto them. Wherefore, as I was greatly troubled for
what I already had done in that case, though it was through ignorance, so
I plainly felt I could no longer continue therein without drawing upon
myself the guilt of wilful disobedience, which I well knew would draw
after it divine displeasure and judgment.
Hereupon the enemy assaulted me afresh, setting before me the danger I
should run myself into of provoking my father to use severity towards me;
and perhaps to be casting me utterly off. But over this temptation the
Lord, who I cried unto, supported me, and gave me faith to believe that
He would bear me through whatever might befall me on that account.
Wherefore I resolved, in the strength which He should give me to be
faithful to his requirings, whatever might come of it.
Thus labouring under various exercises on the way, I at length got home,
expecting I should have but a rough reception from my father. But when I
came home, I understood my father was from home; wherefore I sat down by
the fire in the kitchen, keeping my mind retired to the Lord, with
breathings of spirit to Him, that I might be preserved from falling.
After some time I heard the coach drive in, which put me into a little
fear, and a sort of shivering came over me. But by that time he was
alighted and come in I had pretty well recovered myself; and as soon as I
saw him I rose up and advanced a step or two towards him, with my head
covered, and said, “Isaac Penington and his wife remember their loves to
thee.”
He made a stop to hear what I said, and observing that I did not stand
bare, and that I used the word _thee_ to him, he, with a stern
countenance, and tone that spake high displeasure, only said, “I shall
talk with you, sir, another time;” and so hastening from me, went into
the parlour, and I saw him no more that night.
Though I foresaw there was a storm arising, the apprehension of which was
uneasy to me, yet the peace which I felt in my own breast raised in me a
return of thanksgiving to the Lord for His gracious supporting hand,
which had thus far carried me through this exercise; with humble cries in
spirit to Him that He would vouchsafe to stand by me in it to the end,
and uphold me, that I might not fall.
My spirit longed to be among friends, and to be at some meeting with them
on the first day, which now drew on, this being the sixth-day night.
Wherefore I purposed to go to Oxford on the morrow (which was the seventh
day of the week), having heard there was a meeting there. Accordingly,
having ordered my horse to be made ready betimes, I got up in the morning
and made myself ready also. Yet before I would go (that I might be as
observant to my father as possibly I could) I desired my sister to go up
to him in his chamber, and acquaint him that I had a mind to go to
Oxford, and desired to know if he pleased to command me any service
there. He bid her tell me he would not have me go till he had spoken
with me; and getting up immediately, he hastened down to me before he was
quite dressed.
As soon as he saw me standing with my hat on, his passion transporting
him, he fell upon me with both his fists, and having by that means
somewhat vented his anger, he plucked off my hat and threw it away. Then
stepping hastily out to the stable, and seeing my borrowed nag stand
ready saddled and bridled, he asked his man whence that horse came; who
telling him he fetched it from Mr. Such-an-one’s; “Then ride him
presently back,” said my father, “and tell Mr. — I desire he will never
lend my son a horse again unless he brings a note from me.”
The poor fellow, who loved me well, would fain have made excuses and
delays; but my father was positive in his command, and so urgent, that he
would not let him stay so much as to take his breakfast (though he had
five miles to ride), nor would he himself stir from the stable till he
had seen the man mounted and gone.
Then coming in, he went up into his chamber to make himself more fully
ready, thinking he had me safe enough now my horse was gone; for I took
so much delight in riding that I seldom went on foot.
But while he was dressing himself in his chamber I (who understood what
had been done), changing my boots for shoes, took another hat, and
acquainting my sister, who loved me very well, and whom I could confide
in, whither I meant to go, went out privately, and walked away to
Wycombe, having seven long miles thither, which yet seemed little and
easy to me, from the desire I had to be among friends.
As thus I travelled all alone, under a load of grief, from the sense I
had of the opposition and hardship I was to expect from my father, the
enemy took advantage to assault me again, casting a doubt into my mind
whether I had done well in thus coming away from my father without his
leave or knowledge.
I was quiet and peaceable in my spirit before this question was darted
into me; but after that, disturbance and trouble seized upon me, so that
I was at a stand what to do—whether to go forward or backward.
Fear of offending inclined me to go back, but desire of the meeting, and
to be with friends, pressed me to go forward.
I stood still awhile to consider and weigh as well as I could the matter.
I was sensibly satisfied that I had not left my father with any intention
of undutifulness or disrespect to him, but merely in obedience to that
drawing of spirit, which I was persuaded was of the Lord, to join with
his people in worshipping Him; and this made me easy.
But then the enemy, to make me uneasy again, objected, “But how could
that drawing be of the Lord which drew me to disobey my father?”
I considered thereupon the extent of paternal power, which I found was
not wholly arbitrary and unlimited, but had bounds set unto it; so that
as in civil matters it was restrained to things lawful, so in spiritual
and religious cases it had not a compulsory power over conscience, which
ought to be subject to the heavenly Father. And therefore, though
obedience to parents be enjoined to children, yet it is with this
limitation [_in the Lord_]: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for
this is right” (1 Pet. vi. 1).
This turned the scale for going forward, and so on I went. And yet I was
not wholly free from some fluctuations of mind, from the besettings of
the enemy. Wherefore, although I knew that outward signs did not
properly belong to the gospel dispensation, yet for my better assurance I
did, in fear and great humility, beseech the Lord that he would be
pleased so far to condescend to the weakness of his servant as to give me
a sign by which I might certainly know whether my way was right before
Him or not.
The sign which I asked was, “That if I had done wrong in coming as I did,
I might be rejected or but coldly received at the place I was going to;
but if this mine undertaking was right in His sight, He would give me
favour with them I went to, so that they should receive me with hearty
kindness and demonstrations of love.” Accordingly, when I came to John
Rance’s house (which, being so much a stranger to all, I chose to go to,
because I understood the meeting was commonly held there), they received
me with more than ordinary kindness, especially Frances Rance, John
Rance’s then wife, who was both a grave and motherly woman, and had a
hearty love to truth, and tenderness towards all that in sincerity sought
after it. And this so kind reception, confirming me in the belief that
my undertaking was approved of by the Lord, gave great satisfaction and
ease to my mind; and I was thankful to the Lord therefor.
Thus it fared with me there; but at home it fared otherwise with my
father. He, supposing I had betaken myself to my chamber when he took my
hat from me, made no inquiry after me till evening came; and then,
sitting by the fire and considering that the weather was very cold, he
said to my sister, who sat by him: “Go up to your brother’s chamber, and
call him down; it may be he will sit there else, in a sullen fit, till he
has caught cold.” “Alas! sir,” said she, “he is not in his chamber, nor
in the house neither.”
At that my farther, starting, said: “Why, where is he then?”—“I know not,
sir,” said she, “where he is; but I know that when he saw you had sent
away his horse he put on shoes, and went out on foot, and I have not seen
him since. And indeed, sir,” added she, “I don’t wonder at his going
away, considering how you used him.” This put my father into a great
fright doubting I was gone quite away; and so great a passion of grief
seized on him, that he forebore not to weep, and to cry out aloud, so
that the family heard him: “Oh, my son! I shall never see him more; for
he is of so bold and resolute a spirit that he will run himself into
danger, and so may be thrown into some gaol or other, where he may lie
and die before I can hear of him.” Then bidding her light him up to his
chamber, he went immediately to bed, where he lay restless and groaning,
and often bemoaning himself and me, for the greater part of the night.
Next morning my sister sent a man (whom for his love to me she knew she
could trust) to give me this account; and though by him she sent me also
fresh linen for my use, in case I should go farther or stay out longer,
yet she desired me to come home as soon as I could.
This account was very uneasy to me. I was much grieved that I had
occasioned so much grief to my father; and I would have returned that
evening after the meeting, but the Friends would not permit it, for the
meeting would in all likelihood end late, the days being short, and the
way was long and dirty. And besides, John Rance told me that he had
something on his mind to speak to my father, and that if I would stay
till the next day he would go down with me, hoping, perhaps, that while
my father was under this sorrow for me he might work some good upon him.
Hereupon concluding to stay till the morrow, I dismissed the man with the
things he brought, bidding him tell my sister I intended, God willing, to
return home to-morrow, and charging him not to let anybody else know that
he had seen me, or where he had been.
Next morning John Rance and I set out, and when we were come to the end
of the town we agreed that he should go before and knock at the great
gate, and I would come a little after, and go in by the back way. He did
so; and when a servant came to open the gate he asked if the Justice was
at home. She told him, Yes; and desiring him to come in and sit down in
the hall, went and acquainted her master that there was one who desired
to speak with him. He, supposing it was one that came for justice, went
readily into the hall to him; but he was not a little surprised when he
found it was a Quaker. Yet not knowing on what account he came, he
stayed to hear his business; but when he found it was about me he fell
somewhat sharply on him.
In this time I was come by the back way into the kitchen, and hearing my
father’s voice so loud, I began to doubt things wrought not well; but I
was soon assured of that. For my father having quickly enough of a
Quaker’s company, left John Rance in the hall, and came into the kitchen,
where he was more surprised to find me.
The sight of my hat upon my head made him presently forget that I was
that son of his whom he had so lately lamented as lost; and his passion
of grief turning into anger, he could not contain himself, but running
upon me with both his hands, first violently snatched off my hat and
threw it away, then giving me some buffets on my head, he said, “Sirrah,
get you up to your chamber.”
I forthwith went, he following me at the heels, and now and then giving
me a whirret on the ear, which, the way to my chamber lying through the
hall where John Rance was, he, poor man, might see and be sorry for (as I
doubt not but he was), but could not help me.
This was surely an unaccountable thing, that my father should but a day
before express so high a sorrow for me, as fearing he should never see me
any more, and yet now, so soon as he did see me, should fly upon me with
such violence, and that only because I did not put off my hat, which he
knew I did not put on in disrespect to him, but upon a religious
principle. But as this hat-honour (as it was accounted) was grown to be
a great idol, in those times more especially, so the Lord was pleased to
engage His servants in a steady testimony against it, what suffering
soever was brought upon them for it. And though some who have been
called into the Lord’s vineyard at later hours, and since the heat of
that day hath been much over, may be apt to account this testimony a
small thing to suffer so much upon, as some have done, not only to
beating, but to fines and long and hard imprisonments; yet they who, in
those times were faithfully exercised in and under it, durst not despise
the day of small things, as knowing that he who should do so would not be
thought worthy to be concerned in higher testimonies.
I had now lost one of my hats, and I had but one more. That therefore I
put on, but did not keep it long; for the next time my father saw it on
my head he tore it violently from me, and laid it up with the other, I
knew not where. Wherefore I put on my montero-cap, which was all I had
left to wear on my head, and it was but a very little while that I had
that to wear, for as soon as my father came where I was I lost that also.
And now I was forced to go bareheaded wherever I had occasion to go,
within doors and without.
This was in the eleventh month, called January, and the weather sharp; so
that I, who had been bred up more tenderly, took so great a cold in my
head that my face and head were much swollen, and my gums had on them
boils so sore that I could neither chew meat nor without difficulty
swallow liquids. It held long, and I underwent much pain, without much
pity except from my poor sister, who did what she could to give me ease;
and at length, by frequent applications of figs and stoned raisins
roasted, and laid to the boils as hot as I could bear them, they ripened
fit for lancing, and soon after sunk; then I had ease.
Now was I laid up as a kind of prisoner for the rest of the winter,
having no means to go forth among friends, nor they liberty to come to
me. Wherefore I spent the time much in my chamber in waiting on the
Lord, and in reading, mostly in the Bible.
But whenever I had occasion to speak to my father, though I had no hat
now to offend him, yet my language did as much; for I durst not say “you”
to him, but “thou” or “thee,” as the occasion required, and then would he
be sure to fall on me with his fists.
At one of these times, I remember, when he had beaten me in that manner,
he commanded me, as he commonly did at such times, to go to my chamber,
which I did, and he followed me to the bottom of the stairs. Being come
thither, he gave me a parting blow, and in a very angry tone said:
“Sirrah, if ever I hear you say ‘thou’ or ‘thee’ to me again, I’ll strike
your teeth down your throat.” I was greatly grieved to hear him say so.
And feeling a word rise in my heart unto him, I turned again, and calmly
said unto him: “Would it not be just if God should serve thee so, when
thou sayest Thou or Thee to Him?” Though his hand was up, I saw it sink
and his countenance fall, and he turned away and left me standing there.
But I, notwithstanding, went up into my chamber, and cried unto the Lord,
earnestly beseeching Him that He would be pleased to open my father’s
eyes, that he might see whom he fought against, and for what; and that He
would turn his heart.
After this I had a pretty time of rest and quiet from these disturbances,
my father not saying anything to me, nor giving me occasion to say
anything to him. But I was still under a kind of confinement, unless I
would have run about the country bareheaded like a madman, which I did
not see it was my place to do. For I found that, although to be abroad
and at liberty among my friends would have been more pleasant to me, yet
home was at present my proper place, a school in which I was to learn
with patience to bear the cross; and I willingly submitted to it. But
after some time a fresh storm, more fierce and sharp than any before,
arose and fell upon me; the occasion thereof was this: My father, having
been in his younger years, more especially while he lived in London, a
constant hearer of those who are called Puritan preachers, had stored up
a pretty stock of Scripture knowledge, did sometimes (not constantly, nor
very often) cause his family to come together on a first day in the
evening, and expound a chapter to them, and pray. His family now, as
well as his estate, was lessened; for my mother was dead, my brother
gone, and my elder sister at London; and having put off his husbandry, he
had put off with it most of his servants, so that he had now but one man-
and one maid-servant. It so fell out that on a first-day night he bade
my sister, who sat with him in the parlour, call in the servants to
prayer.
Whether this was done as a trial upon me or no, I know not, but a trial
it proved to me; for they, loving me very well and disliking my father’s
carriage to me, made no haste to go in, but stayed a second summons.
This so offended him that when at length they did go in, he, instead of
going to prayer, examined them why they came not in when they were first
called; and the answer they gave him being such as rather heightened than
abated his displeasure, he with an angry tone said: “Call in that fellow”
(meaning me, who was left alone in the kitchen), “for he is the cause of
all this.” They, as they were backward to go in themselves, so were not
forward to call me in, fearing the effect of my father’s displeasure
would fall upon me, as soon it did, for I, hearing what was said, and not
staying for the call, went in of myself. And as soon as I was come in,
my father discharged his displeasure on me in very sharp and bitter
expressions, which drew from me (in the grief of my heart, to see him so
transported with passion) these few words: “They that can pray with such
a spirit, let them; for my part, I cannot.” With that my father flew
upon me with both his fists, and not thinking that sufficient, stepped
hastily to the place where his cane stood, and catching that up, laid on
me, I thought, with all his strength. And I, being bareheaded, thought
his blows must needs have broken my skull had I not laid mine arm over my
head to defend it.
His man seeing this, and not able to contain himself, stepped in between
us, and laying hold on the cane, by strength of hand held it so fast,
that though he attempted not to take it away, yet he withheld my father
from striking with it, which did but enrage him the more. I disliked
this in the man, and bade him let go the cane and begone, which he
immediately did, and turning to be gone, had a blow on his shoulders for
his pains, which did not much hurt him.
But now my sister, fearing lest my father should fall upon me again,
besought him to forbear, adding: “Indeed, sir, if you strike him any
more, I will throw open the casement and cry out murder, for I am afraid
you will kill my brother.” This stopped his hand, and after some
threatening speeches he commanded me to get to my chamber which I did, as
I always did whenever he bade me.
Thither, soon after, my sister followed me, to see my arm and dress it,
for it was indeed very much bruised and swelled between the wrist and the
elbow, and in some places the skin was broken and beaten off. But though
it was very sore, and I felt for some time much pain in it, yet I had
peace and quietness in my mind, being more grieved for my father than for
myself, who I knew had hurt himself more than me.
This was, so far as I remember, the last time that ever my father called
his family to prayer; and this was also the last time that he ever fell,
so severely at least, upon me.
Soon after this my elder sister, who in all the time of these exercises
of mine had been at London, returned home, much troubled to find me a
Quaker, a name of reproach and great contempt then, and she, being at
London, had received, I suppose, the worst character of them. Yet though
she disliked the people, her affectionate regard for me made her rather
pity than despise me, and the more when she understood what hard usage I
had met with.
The rest of the winter I spent in a lonesome solitary life, having none
to converse with, none to unbosom myself unto, none to ask counsel of,
none to seek relief from, but the Lord alone, who yet was more than all.
And yet the company and society of faithful and judicious friends would,
I thought, have been very welcome as well as helpful to me in my
spiritual travail, in which I thought I made slow progress, my soul
breathing after further attainments, the sense of which drew from me the
following lines:
The winter tree
Resembles me,
Whose sap lies in its root:
The spring draws nigh;
As it, so I
Shall bud, I hope, and shoot.
At length it pleased the Lord to move Isaac Penington and his wife to
make a visit to my father, and see how it fared with me; and very welcome
they were to me, whatever they were to him; to whom I doubt not but they
would have been more welcome had it not been for me.
They tarried with us all night, and much discourse they had with my
father, both about the principles of truth in general, and me in
particular, which I was not privy to. But one thing I remember I
afterwards heard of, which was this:
When my father and I were at their house some months before, Mary
Penington, in some discourse between them, had told him how hardly her
husband’s father (Alderman Penington) had dealt with him about his hat;
which my father (little then thinking that it would, and so soon too, be
his own case) did very much censure the alderman for, wondering that so
wise a man as he was should take notice of such a trivial thing as the
putting off or keeping on a hat; and he spared not to blame him liberally
for it.
This gave her a handle to take hold of him by; and having had an ancient
acquaintance with him, and he having always had a high opinion of and
respect for her, she, who was a woman of great wisdom, of ready speech,
and of a well-resolved spirit, did press so close upon him with this home
argument, that he was utterly at a loss how to defend himself.
After dinner next day, when they were ready to take coach to return home,
she desired my father that, since my company was so little acceptable to
him, he would give me leave to go and spend some time with them, where I
should be sure to be welcome.
He was very unwilling I should go, and made many objections against it,
all which she answered and removed so clearly, that not finding what
excuse further to allege, he at length left it to me, and I soon turned
the scale for going.
We were come to the coach-side before this was concluded on, and I was
ready to step in, when one of my sisters privately put my father in mind
that I had never a hat on. That somewhat startled him, for he did not
think it fit I should go from home (and that so far and to stay abroad)
without a hat. Wherefore he whispered to her to fetch me a hat, and he
entertained them with some discourse in the meantime. But as soon as he
saw the hat coning he would not stay till it came, lest I should put it
on before him, but breaking off his discourse abruptly, took his leave of
them, and hastened in before the hat was brought to me.
I had not one penny of money about me, nor indeed elsewhere; for my
father, so soon as he saw that I would be a Quaker, took from me both
what money I had and everything of value, or that would have made money,
as some plate, buttons, rings, &c., pretending that he would keep them
for me till I came to myself again, lest I should destroy them.
But as I had no money, so being among my friends I had no need of any,
nor ever hankered after it; though once upon a particular occasion I had
liked to have wanted it. The case was this:
I had been at Reading, and set out from thence on the first day of the
week, in the morning, intending to reach (as in point of time I well
might) Isaac Penington’s, where the meeting was to be that day; but when
I came to Maidenhead, a thoroughfare town on the way, I was stopped by
the watch for riding on that day.
The watchman, laying hold on the bridle, told me I must go with him to
the constable; and accordingly I, making no resistance, suffered him to
lead my horse to the constable’s door. When we were come there the
constable told me I must go before the warden, who was the chief officer
of that town, and bade the watchman bring me on, himself walking before.
Being come to the warden’s door, the constable knocked, and desired to
speak with Mr. Warden. He thereupon quickly coming to the door the
constable said: “Sir, I have brought a man here to you whom the watch
took riding through the town.” The warden was a budge old man; and I
looked somewhat big too, having a good gelding under me, and a good
riding-coat on my back, both which my friend Isaac Penington had kindly
accommodated me with for that journey.
The warden therefore taking me to be (as the saying is) somebody, put off
his hat and made a low congee to me; but when he saw that I sat still,
and neither bowed to him nor moved my hat, he gave a start, and said to
the constable: “You said you had brought a man, but he don’t behave like
a man.”
I sat still upon my horse and said not a word, but kept my mind retired
to the Lord, waiting to see what this would come to.
The warden then began to examine me, asking me whence I came and whither
I was going; I told him I came from Reading and was going to Chalfont.
He asked me why I did travel on that day; I told him I did not know that
it would give any offence barely to ride or to walk on that day, so long
as I did not carry or drive any carriage or horses laden with burthens.
“Why,” said he, “if your business was urgent, did you not take a pass
from the mayor of Reading?”—“Because,” replied I, “I did not know nor
think I should have needed one.”—“Well,” said he, “I will not talk with
you now, because it is time to go to church, but I will examine you
further anon.” And turning to the constable, “Have him,” said he, “to an
inn, and bring him before me after dinner.”
The naming of an inn put me in mind that such public-houses were places
of expense, and I knew I had no money to defray it; wherefore I said to
the warden: “Before thou sendest me to an inn, which may occasion some
expense, I think it needful to acquaint thee that I have no money.”
At that the warden started again, and turning quickly upon me, said:
“How! no money! How can that be? You don’t look like a man that has no
money.”—“However I look,” said I, “I tell thee the truth, that I have no
money; and I tell it to forewarn thee, that thou mayest not bring any
charge upon the town.”—“I wonder,” said he, “what art you have got, that
you can travel without money; you can do more, I assure you, than I can.”
I making no answer, he went on and said: “Well, well! but if you have no
money, you have a good horse under you, and we can distrain him for the
charge.”—“But,” said I, “the horse is not mine.”—“No,” said he; “but you
have a good coat on your back, and that I hope is your own.”—“No,” said
I, “but it is not, for I borrowed both the horse and the coat.”
With that the warden, holding up his hands and smiling, said: “Bless me!
I never met with such a man as you are before. What! were you set out by
the parish?” Then turning to the constable, he said: “Have him to the
Greyhound, and bid the people be civil to him.” Accordingly, to the
Greyhound I was led, my horse set up, and I put into a large room, and
some account, I suppose, given of me to the people of the house.
This was new work to me, and what the issue of it would be I could not
foresee; but being left there alone, I sat down, and retired in spirit to
the Lord, in whom alone my strength and safety were, and begged support
of Him; even that He would be pleased to give me wisdom and words to
answer the warden when I should come to be examined again before him.
After some time, having pen, ink, and paper about me, I set myself to
write what I thought might be proper, if occasion served, to give the
warden; and while I was writing, the master of the house, being come home
from his worship, sent the tapster to me to invite me to dine with him.
I bid him tell his master that I had not any money to pay for my dinner.
He sent the man again to tell me I should be welcome to dine with him
though I had no money. I desired him to tell his master “that I was very
sensible of his civility and kindness in so courteously inviting me to
his table, but I had not freedom to eat of his meat unless I could have
paid for it.” So he went on with his dinner, and I with my writing.
But before I had finished what was on my mind to write, the constable
came again, bringing with him his fellow-constable. This was a brisk
genteel young man, a shopkeeper in the town, whose name was Cherry. They
saluted me very civilly, and told me they were come to have me before the
warden. This put an end to my writing, which I put into my pocket, and
went along with them.
Being come to the warden’s, he asked me again the same questions he had
asked me before; to which I gave him the like answers. Then he told me
the penalty I had incurred, which he said was either to pay so much money
or lie so many hours in the stocks, and asked me which I would choose; I
replied, “I shall not choose either. And,” said I, “I have told thee
already that I have no money; though if I had, I could not so far
acknowledge myself an offender as to pay any. But as to lying in the
stocks, I am in thy power, to do unto me what it shall please the Lord to
suffer thee.”
When he heard that he paused awhile, and then told me, “He considered
that I was but a young man, and might not perhaps understand the danger I
had brought myself into, and therefore he would not use the severity of
the law upon me; but, in hopes that I would be wiser hereafter, he would
pass by this offence and discharge me.”
Then putting on a countenance of the greatest gravity, he said to me:
“But, young man, I would have you know that you have not only broken the
law of the land, but the law of God also; and therefore you ought to ask
His forgiveness, for you have highly offended Him.”—“That,” said I, “I
would most willingly do if I were sensible that in this case I had
offended Him by breaking any law of His.”
“Why,” said he, “do you question that?”—“Yes truly,” said I; “for I do
not know that any law of God doth forbid me to ride on this day.”
“No!” said he: “that’s strange. Where, I wonder, was you bred? You can
read, can’t you?”—“Yes,” said I, “that I can.”—“Don’t you then read,”
said he, “the commandment, ‘Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work; but the seventh day is
the Sabbath of the Lord; in it thou shalt not do any work.’”—“Yes,”
replied I, “I have both read it often, and remember it very well. But
that command was given to the Jews, not to Christians; and this is not
that day, for that was the seventh day, but this is the first.”—“How,”
said he, “do you know the days of the week no better? You had need then
be better taught.”
Here the younger constable, whose name was Cherry, interposing, said:
“Mr. Warden, the gentleman is in the right as to that, for this is the
first day of the week, and not the seventh.”
This the old warden took in dudgeon, and looking severely on the
constable, said: “What! do you take upon you to teach me? I’ll have you
know I will not be taught by you.”—“As you please for that, sir,” said
the constable; “but I am sure you are mistaken in this point; for
Saturday I know is the seventh day, and you know yesterday was Saturday.”
This made the warden hot and testy, and put him almost out of all
patience, so that I feared it would have come to a downright quarrel
betwixt them, for both were confident and neither would yield; and so
earnestly were they engaged in the contest, that there was no room for me
to put in a word between them.
At length the old man, having talked himself out of wind, stood still
awhile as it were to take breath, and then bethinking himself of me, he
turned to me and said: “You are discharged, and may take your liberty to
go about your occasions.”—“But,” said I, “I desire my horse may be
discharged too, else I know not how to go.”—“Ay, ay,” said he, “you shall
have your horse;” and turning to the other constable, who had not
offended him, he said: “Go, see that his horse be delivered to him.”
Away thereupon went I with that constable, leaving the old warden and the
young constable to compose their difference as they could. Being come to
the inn, the constable called for my horse to be brought out; which done,
I immediately mounted, and began to set forward. But the hostler, not
knowing the condition of my pocket, said modestly to me: “Sir, don’t you
forget to pay for your horse’s standing?”—“No, truly,” said I, “I don’t
forget it; but I have no money to pay it with, and so I told the warden
before.”—“Well, hold your tongue,” said the constable to the hostler;
“I’ll see you paid.” Then opening the gate, they let me out, the
constable wishing me a good journey, and through the town I rode without
further molestation; though it was as much sabbath, I thought, when I
went out as it was when I came in.
A secret joy arose in me as I rode on the way, for that I had been
preserved from doing or saying anything which might give the adversaries
of truth advantage against it, or the friends of it; and praises sprang
in my thankful heart to the Lord, my preserver.
It added also not a little to my joy that I felt the Lord near unto me,
by his witness in my heart, to check and warn me; and my spirit was so
far subjected to him as readily to take warning, and stop at his check;
an instance of both that very morning I had.
For as I rode between Reading and Maidenhead I saw lying in my way the
scabbard of a hanger, which, having lost its hook, had slipped off, I
suppose, and dropped from the side of the wearer; and it had in it a pair
of knives, whose hafts being inlaid with silver, seemed to be of some
value. I alighted and took it up, and clapping it between my thigh and
the saddle, rode on a little way; but I quickly found it too heavy for
me, and the reprover in me soon began to check. The word arose in me,
“What hast thou to do with that? Doth it belong to thee?” I felt I had
done amiss in taking it; wherefore I turned back to the place where it
lay, and laid it down where I found it. And when afterwards I was
stopped and seized on at Maidenhead, I saw there was a Providence in not
bringing it with me; which, if it should have been found (as it needs
must) under my coat when I came to be unhorsed, might have raised some
evil suspicion or sinister thoughts concerning me.
The stop I met with at Maidenhead had spent me so much time that when I
came to Isaac Penington’s the meeting there was half over, which gave
them occasion after meeting to inquire of me if anything had befallen me
on the way which had caused me to come so late: whereupon I related to
them what exercise I had met with, and how the Lord had helped me through
it: which when they had heard, they rejoiced with me, and for my sake.
Great was the love and manifold the kindness which I received from these
my worthy friends, Isaac and Mary Penington, while I abode in their
family. They were indeed as affectionate parents and tender nurses to me
in this time of my religious childhood. For besides their weighty and
seasonable counsels and exemplary conversations, they furnished me with
means to go to the other meetings of Friends in that country, when the
meeting was not in their own house. And indeed, the time I stayed with
them was so well spent, that it not only yielded great satisfaction to my
mind but turned in good measure to my spiritual advantage in the truth.
But that I might not, on the one hand, bear too hard upon my friends, nor
on the other hand forget the house of thraldom, after I had staid with
them some six or seven weeks (from the time called Easter to the time
called Whitsuntide) I took my leave of them to depart home, intending to
walk to Wycombe in one day, and from thence home in another.
That day that I came home I did not see my father, nor until noon the
next day, when I went into the parlour, where he was, to take my usual
place at dinner.
As soon as I came in I observed by my father’s countenance that my hat
was still an offence to him; but when I was sat down, and before I had
eaten anything, he made me understand it more fully by saying to me, but
in a milder tone than he had formerly used to speak to me in, “If you
cannot content yourself to come to dinner without your hive on your head
(so he called my hat), pray rise, and go take your dinner somewhere
else.”
Upon these words I arose from the table, and leaving the room went into
the kitchen, where I stayed till the servants went to dinner, and then
sat down very contentedly with them. Yet I suppose my father might
intend that I should have gone into some other room, and there have eaten
by myself but I chose rather to eat with the servants, and did so from
thenceforward so long as he and I lived together. And from this time he
rather chose, as I thought, to avoid seeing me than to renew the quarrel
about my hat.
My sisters, meanwhile observing my weariness in words and behaviour, and
being satisfied, I suppose, that I acted upon a principle of religion and
conscience, carried themselves very kindly to me, and did what they could
to mitigate my father’s displeasure against me. So that I now enjoyed
much more quiet at home, and took more liberty to go abroad amongst my
friends, than I had done or could do before. And having informed myself
where any meetings of Friends were holden, within a reasonable distance
from me, I resorted to them.
At first I went to a town called Hoddenham, in Buckinghamshire, five
miles from my father’s, where, at the house of one Belson, a few who were
called Quakers did meet sometimes on a first day of the week; but I found
little satisfaction there. Afterwards, upon further inquiry, I
understood there was a settled meeting at a little village called Meadle,
about four long miles from me, in the house of one John White, which is
continued there still; and to that thenceforward I constantly went while
I abode in that country, and was able. Many a sore day’s travel have I
had thither and back again, being commonly in the winter time (how fair
soever the weather was overhead) wet up to the ankles at least; yet,
through the goodness of the Lord to me, I was preserved in health.
A little meeting also there was on the fourth day of the week at a town
called Bledlow (two miles from me), in the house of one Thomas Saunders,
who professed the truth; but his wife, whose name was Damaris, did
possess it (she being a woman of great sincerity and lively sense), and
to that meeting also I usually went.
But though I took this liberty for the service of God, that I might
worship Him in the assemblies of His people, yet did I not use it upon
other occasions, but spent my time on other days for the most part in my
chamber, in retiredness of mind, waiting on the Lord. And the Lord was
graciously pleased to visit me, by His quickening spirit and life, so
that I came to feel the operation of His power in my heart, working out
that which was contrary to His will, and giving me, in measure, dominion
over it.
And as my spirit was kept in due subjection to this divine power, I grew
into a nearer acquaintance with the Lord; and the Lord vouchsafed to
speak unto me in the inward of my soul, and to open my understanding in
His fear, to receive counsel from Him; so that I not only at some times
heard His voice, but could distinguish His voice from that of the enemy.
As thus I daily waited on the Lord a weighty and unusual exercise came
upon me, which bowed my spirit very low before the Lord. I had seen, in
the light of the Lord, the horrible guilt of those deceitful priests, of
divers sorts and denominations, who made a trade of preaching, and for
filthy lucre sake held the people always learning; yet so taught them as
that, by their teaching and ministry, they were never able to come to the
knowledge, much less to the acknowledgment, of the truth; for as they
themselves hated the light, because their own deeds were evil, so by
reviling, reproaching, and blaspheming the true light, wherewith every
man that cometh into the world is enlightened (John i. 9), they begat in
the people a disesteem of the light, and laboured as much as in them lay
to keep their hearers in the darkness, that they might not be turned to
the light in themselves, lest by the light they should discover the
wickedness of these their deceitful teachers, and turn from them.
Against this practice of these false teachers the zeal of the Lord had
flamed in my breast for some time; and now the burthen of the word of the
Lord against them fell heavily upon me, with command to proclaim his
controversy against them.
Fain would I have been excused from this service, which I judged too
heavy for me; wherefore I besought the Lord to take this weight from off
me, who was in every respect but young, and lay it upon some other of His
servants, of whom he had many, who were much more able and fit for it.
But the Lord would not be entreated, but continued the burden upon me
with greater weight; requiring obedience from me, and promising to assist
me therein. Whereupon I arose from my bed, and in the fear and dread of
the Lord committed to writing what He, in the motion of His divine
Spirit, dictated to me to write. When I had done it, though the
sharpness of the message therein delivered was hard to my nature to be
the publisher of, yet I found acceptance with the Lord in my obedience to
His will, and His peace filled my heart. As soon as I could I
communicated to my friends what I had written; and it was printed in the
year 1660, in one sheet of paper, under the title of “An Alarm to the
Priests; or, A Message from Heaven to Forewarn them,” &c.
Some time after the publishing of this paper, having occasion to go to
London, I went to visit George Fox the younger, who with another Friend
was then a prisoner in a messenger’s hands. I had never seen him, nor he
me before; yet this paper lying on the table before him, he, pointing to
it, asked me if I was the person that wrote it. I told him I was. “It’s
much,” said the other Friend, “that they bear it.” “It is,” replied he,
“their portion, and they must bear it.”
While I was then in London I went to a little meeting of Friends which
was then held in the house of one Humphrey Bache, a goldsmith, at the
sign of the Snail, in Tower Street. It was then a very troublesome time,
not from the government, but from the rabble of boys and rude people, who
upon the turn of the time (at the return of the King) took liberty to be
very abusive.
When the meeting ended, a pretty number of these unruly folk were got
together at the door, ready to receive the Friends as they came forth,
not only with evil words, but with blows; which I saw they bestowed
freely on some of them that were gone out before me, and expected I
should have my share of when I came amongst them. But, quite contrary to
my expectation, when I came out, they said one to another, “Let him
alone; don’t meddle with him; he is no Quaker, I’ll warrant you.”
This struck me, and was worse to me than if they had laid their fists on
me, as they did on others. I was troubled to think what the matter was,
or what these rude people saw in me that made them not take me for a
Quaker. And upon a close examination of myself, with respect to my habit
and deportment, I could not find anything to place it on, but that I had
then on my head a large montero-cap of black velvet, the skirt of which
being turned up in folds, looked, it seems, somewhat above the then
common garb of a Quaker; and this put me out of conceit with my cap.
I came at this time to London from Isaac Penington’s, and thither I went
again in my way home; and while I stayed there, amongst other Friends who
came thither, Thomas Loe, of Oxford, was one. A faithful and diligent
labourer he was in the work of the Lord, and an excellent ministerial
gift he had. And I, in my zeal for truth, being very desirous that my
neighbours might have the opportunity of hearing the gospel, the glad
tidings of salvation, livingly and powerfully preached among them,
entered into communication with him about it; offering to procure some
convenient place in the town where I lived for a meeting to be held, and
to invite my neighbours to it, if he could give me any ground to expect
his company at it. He told me he was not at his own command, but at the
Lord’s, and he knew not how He might dispose of him; but wished me, if I
found when I was come home that the thing continued with weight upon my
mind, and that I could get a fit place for a meeting, I would advertise
him of it by a few lines directed to him in Oxford, whither he was then
going, and he might then let me know how his freedom stood in that
matter.
When therefore I was come home, and had treated with a neighbour for a
place to have a meeting in, I wrote to my friend Thomas Loe, to acquaint
him that I had procured a place for a meeting, and would invite company
to it, if he would fix the time, and give me some ground to hope that he
would be at it.
This letter I sent by a neighbour to Thame to be given to a dyer of
Oxford, who constantly kept Thame market, with whom I was pretty well
acquainted, having sometimes formerly used him not only in his way of
trade, but to carry letters between my brother and me when he was a
student in that University, for which he was always paid; and had been so
careful in the delivery that our letters had always gone safe until now.
But this time (Providence so ordering, or at least for my trial
permitting it) this letter of mine, instead of being delivered according
to its direction, was seized and carried, as I was told, to the Lord
Faulkland, who was then called Lord Lieutenant of that county.
The occasion of this stopping of letters at that time was that mad prank
of those infatuated fifth-monarchy men, who from their meeting-house in
Coleman Street, London, breaking forth in arms, under the command of
their chieftain Venner, made an insurrection in the city, on pretence of
setting up the kingdom of Jesus, who, it is said, they expected would
come down from heaven to be their leader; so little understood they the
nature of his kingdom, though he himself had declared it was not of this
world.
The King, a little before his arrival in England, had by his declaration
from Breda given assurance of liberty to tender consciences, and that no
man should be disquieted or called in question for difference of opinion
in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom.
Upon this assurance dissenters of all sorts relied, and held themselves
secure. But now, by this frantic action of a few hot-brained men, the
King was by some holden discharged from his royal word and promise, in
his foregoing declaration publicly given. And hereupon letters were
intercepted and broken open, for discovery of suspected plots and designs
against the government; and not only dissenters meetings’ of all sorts,
without distinction, were disturbed, but very many were imprisoned in
most parts throughout the nation; and great search there was in all
countries for suspected persons, who, if not found at meetings, were
fetched in from their own houses.
The Lord Lieutenant (so called) of Oxfordshire had on this occasion taken
Thomas Loe and many others of our friends at a meeting, and sent them
prisoners to Oxford Castle, just before my letter was brought to his
hand, wherein I had invited Thomas Loe to a meeting; and he, putting the
worst construction upon it, as if I, a poor simple lad, had intended a
seditious meeting, in order to raise rebellion, ordered two of the
deputy-lieutenants who lived nearest to me to send a party of horse to
fetch me in.
Accordingly, while I wholly ignorant of what had passed at Oxford, was in
daily expectation of an agreeable answer to my letter, came a party of
horse one morning to my father’s gate, and asked for me.
It so fell out that my father was at that time from home, I think in
London; whereupon he that commanded the party alighted and came in. My
eldest sister, hearing the noise of soldiers, came hastily up into my
chamber, and told me there were soldiers below, who inquired for me. I
forthwith went down to them, and found the commander was a barber of
Thame, and one who had always been my barber till I was a Quaker. His
name was Whately, a bold brisk fellow.
I asked him what his business was with me: he told me I must go with him.
I demanded to see his warrant: he laid his hand on his sword, and said
that was his warrant. I told him though that was not a legal warrant,
yet I would not dispute it, but was ready to bear injuries. He told me
he could not help it; he was commanded to bring me forthwith before the
deputy-lieutenants, and therefore desired me to order a horse to be got
ready, because he was in haste. I let him know I had no horse of my own,
and would not meddle with any of my father’s horses, in his absence
especially; and that therefore, if he would have me with him, he must
carry me as he could.
He thereupon taking my sister aside, told her he found I was resolute,
and his orders were peremptory; wherefore he desired that she would give
order for a horse to be made ready for me, for otherwise he should be
forced to mount me behind a trooper, which would be very unsuitable for
me, and which he was very unwilling to do. She thereupon ordered a horse
to be got ready, upon which, when I had taken leave of my sisters, I
mounted, and went off, not knowing whither he intended to carry me.
He had orders, it seems, to take some others also in a neighbouring
village, whose names he had, but their houses he did not know.
Wherefore, as we rode he asked me if I knew such and such men (whom he
named) and where they lived; and when he understood that I knew them, he
desired me to show him their houses. “No,” said I, “I scorn to be an
informer against my neighbours, to bring them into trouble.” He
thereupon, riding to and fro, found by inquiry most of their houses; but,
as it happened, found none of them at home, at which I was glad.
At length he brought me to the house of one called Esquire Clark, of
Weston, by Thame, who, being afterwards knighted, was called Sir John
Clark; a jolly man, too much addicted to drinking in soberer times, but
was now grown more licentious that way, as the times did now more favour
debauchery. He and I had known one another for some years, though not
very intimately, having met sometimes at the Lord Wenman’s table.
This Clark was one of the deputy-lieutenants whom I was to be brought
before; and he had gotten another thither to join with him in tendering
me the oaths, whom I knew only by name and character; he was called
Esquire Knowls, of Grays, by Henley, and reputed a man of better morals
than the other.
I was brought into the hall, and kept there; and as Quakers were not so
common then as they now are (and indeed even yet, the more is the pity,
they are not common in that part of the country), I was made a spectacle
and gazing-stock to the family, and by divers I was diversely set upon.
Some spake to me courteously, with appearance of compassion; others
ruggedly, with evident tokens of wrath and scorn. But though I gave them
the hearing of what they said, which I could not well avoid, yet I said
little to them; but keeping my mind as well retired as I could, I
breathed to the Lord for help and strength from Him, to bear me up and
carry me through this trial, that I might not sink under it, or be
prevailed on by any means, fair or foul, to do anything that might
dishonour or displease my God.
At length came forth the justices themselves (for so they were, as well
as lieutenants), and after they had saluted me, they discoursed with me
pretty familiarly; and though Clark would sometimes be a little jocular
and waggish (which was somewhat natural to him), yet Knowls treated me
very civilly, not seeming to take any offence at my not standing bare
before him.
And when a young priest, who as I understood was chaplain in the family,
took upon him pragmatically to reprove me for standing with my hat on
before the magistrates, and snatched my hat from off my head, Knowls, in
a pleasant manner, corrected him, telling him that he mistook himself in
taking a cap for a hat (for mine was a montero-cap), and bade him give it
me again; which he (though unwillingly) doing, I forthwith put it on my
head again, and thenceforward none meddled with me about it.
Then they began to examine me, putting divers questions to me relating to
the present disturbances in the nation, occasioned by the late foolish
insurrection of those frantic fifth-monarchy men. To all which I readily
answered, according to the simplicity of my heart and innocency of my
hands, for I had neither done nor thought any evil against the
government.
But they endeavoured to affright me with threats of danger, telling me
(with inuendoes) that for all my pretence of innocency there was high
matter against me, which, if I would stand out, would be brought forth,
and that under my own hand. I knew not what they meant by this; but I
knew my innocency, and kept to it.
At length, when they saw I regarded not their threats in general, they
asked me if I knew one Thomas Loe, and had written of late to him. I
then remembered my letter, which till then I had not thought of, and
thereupon frankly told them that I did both know Thomas Loe and had
lately written to him; but that as I knew I had written no hurt, so I did
not fear any danger from that letter. They shook their heads, and said,
“It was dangerous to write letters to appoint meetings in such
troublesome times.”
They added, that by appointing a meeting, and endeavouring to gather a
concourse of people together, in such a juncture especially as this was,
I had rendered myself a dangerous person. And therefore they could do no
less than tender me the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, which
therefore they required me to take.
I told them if I could take any oath at all, I would take the oath of
allegiance, for I owed allegiance to the King; but I durst not take any
oath, because my Lord and Master Jesus Christ had commanded me not to
swear at all; and if I brake His command I should thereby both dishonour
and displease Him.
Hereupon they undertook to reason with me, and used many words to
persuade me that that command of Christ related only to common and
profane swearing, not to swearing before a magistrate. I heard them, and
saw the weakness of their arguing, but did not return them any answer;
for I found my present business was not to dispute, but to suffer; and
that it was not safe for me, in this my weak and childish state
especially, to enter into reasonings with sharp, quick, witty, and
learned men, lest I might thereby hurt both the cause of truth, which I
was to bear witness to, and myself; therefore I chose rather to be a
fool, and let them triumph over me, than by my weakness give them
advantage to triumph over the truth. And my spirit being closely
exercised in a deep travail towards the Lord, I earnestly begged of Him
that He would be pleased to keep me faithful to the testimony He had
committed to me, and not suffer me to be taken in any of the snares which
the enemy laid for me. And, blessed be His holy name, He heard my cries,
and preserved me out of them.
When the justices saw they could not bow me to their wills, they told me
they must send me to prison. I told them I was contented to suffer
whatsoever the Lord should suffer them to inflict upon me. Whereupon
they withdrew into the parlour, to consult together what to do with me,
leaving me meanwhile to be gazed on in the hall.
After a pretty long stay they came forth to me again with a great show of
kindness, telling me they were very unwilling to send me to gaol, but
would be as favourable to me as possibly they could, and that if I would
take the oaths, they would pass by all the other matter which they had
against me. I told them I knew they could not justly have anything
against me, for I had neither done nor intended anything against the
government, or against them. And as to the oaths, I assured them that my
refusing them was merely matter of conscience to me, and that I durst not
take any oath whatsoever, if it were to save my life.
When they heard this they left me again, and went and signed a mittimus
to send me to prison at Oxford, and charged one of the troopers that
brought me thither, who was one of the newly-raised militia troop, to
convey me safe to Oxford. But before we departed they called the trooper
aside, and gave him private instructions what he should do with me, which
I knew nothing of till I came thither, but expected I should go directly
to the castle.
It was almost dark when we took horse, and we had about nine or ten miles
to ride, the weather thick and cold (for it was about the beginning of
the twelfth month), and I had no boots, being snatched away from home on
a sudden, which made me not care to ride very fast. And my guard, who
was a tradesman in Thame, having confidence in me that I would not give
him the slip, jogged on without heeding how I followed him.
When I was gone about a mile on the way I overtook my father’s man, who,
without my knowledge, had followed me at a distance to Weston, and waited
there abroad in the stables till he understood by some of the servants
that I was to go to Oxford; and then ran before, resolving not to leave
me till he saw what they would do with me.
I would have had him return home, but he desired me not to send him back,
but let him run on until I came to Oxford. I considered that it was a
token of the fellow’s affectionate kindness to me, and that possibly I
might send my horse home by him; and thereupon stopping my horse I bid
him, if he would go on, get up behind me. He modestly refused, telling
me he could run as fast as I rode. But when I told him if he would not
ride he should not go forward, he, rather than leave me, leaped up behind
me, and on we went.
But he was not willing I should have gone at all. He had a great cudgel
in his hand, and a strong arm to use it; and being a stout fellow, he had
a great mind to fight the trooper, and rescue me. Wherefore he desired
me to turn my horse and ride off, and if the trooper offered to pursue,
leave him to deal with him.
I checked him sharply for that, and charged him to be quiet, and not
think hardly of the poor trooper, who could do no other nor less than he
did; and who, though he had an ill journey in going with me, carried
himself civilly to me. I told him also that I had no need to fly, for I
had done nothing that would bring guilt or fear upon me, neither did I go
with an ill-will; and this quieted the man. So on we went, but were so
far cast behind the trooper, that we had lost both sight and hearing of
him, and I was fain to mend my pace to get up to him again.
We came pretty late into Oxford on the seventh day of the week, which was
the market day; and, contrary to my expectation (which was to have been
carried to the castle), my trooper stopped in the High Street, and
calling at a shop asked for the master of the house, who coming to the
door, he delivered to him the mittimus, and with it a letter from the
deputy-lieutenants (or one of them), which when he had read he asked
where the prisoner was. Whereupon the soldier pointing to me, he desired
me to alight and come in, which when I did he received me civilly.
The trooper, being discharged of his prisoner, marched back, and my
father’s man, seeing me settled in better quarters than he expected,
mounted my horse and went off with him.
I did not presently understand the quality of my keeper, but I found him
a genteel courteous man, by trade a linen-draper; and, as I afterwards
understood, he was City Marshal, had a command in the county troop, and
was a person of good repute in the place; his name was—Galloway.
Whether I was committed to him out of regard to my father, that I might
not be thrust into a common gaol, or out of a politic design to keep me
from the conversation of my friends, in hopes that I might be drawn to
abandon this profession, which I had but lately taken up, I do not know.
But this I know, that though I wanted no civil treatment nor kind
accommodations where I was, yet after once I understood that many Friends
were prisoners in the castle, and amongst the rest Thomas Loe, I had much
rather have been among them there, with all the inconveniences they
underwent, than where I was with the best entertainment. But this was my
present lot, and therefore with this I endeavoured to be content.
It was quickly known in the city that a Quaker was brought in prisoner,
and committed to the Marshal. Whereupon (the men Friends being generally
prisoners already in the castle) some of the women Friends came to me to
inquire after me, and to visit me; as Silas Norton’s wife, and Thomas
Loe’s wife, who were sisters, and another woman Friend, who lived in the
same street where I was, whose husband was not a Quaker, but kindly
affected towards them, a baker by trade, and his name, as I remember, —
Ryland.
By some of these an account was soon given to the Friends who were
prisoners in the castle of my being taken up and brought prisoner to the
Marshal’s; whereupon it pleased the Lord to move on the heart of my dear
friend Thomas Loe to salute me with a tender and affectionate letter in
the following terms:
“MY BELOVED FRIEND,
“In the truth and love of the Lord Jesus, by which life and salvation
is revealed in the saints, is my dear love unto thee, and in much
tenderness do I salute thee. And, dear heart, a time of trial God
hath permitted to come upon us, to try our faith and love to Him; and
this will work for the good of them that through patience endure to
the end. And I believe God will be glorified through our sufferings,
and His name will be exalted in the patience and long-suffering of
His chosen. When I heard that thou wast called into this trial, with
the servants of the Most High, to give thy testimony to the truth of
what we have believed, it came into my heart to write unto thee, and
to greet thee with the embraces of the power of an endless life,
where our faith stands, and unity is felt with the saints for ever.
Well, my dear friend, let us live in the pure counsel of the Lord,
and dwell in His strength, which gives us power and sufficiency to
endure all things for His name’s sake; and then our crown and reward
will be with the Lord for ever, and the blessings of His heavenly
kingdom will be our portion. Oh, dear heart, let us give up all
freely into the will of God, that God may be glorified by us, and we
comforted together in the Lord Jesus; which is the desire of my soul,
who am thy dear and loving friend in the eternal truth,
“THOMAS LOE.
“We are more than forty here, who suffer innocently for the testimony
of a good conscience, because we cannot swear, and break Christ’s
commands; and we are all well, and the blessing and presence of God
is with us. Friends here salute thee. Farewell! The power and the
wisdom of the Lord God be with thee. Amen.”
Greatly was my spirit refreshed and my heart gladdened, at the reading of
this consoling letter from my friend; and my soul blessed the Lord for
His love and tender goodness to me in moving His servant to write thus
unto me.
But I had cause soon after to double and redouble my thankful
acknowledgment to the Lord my God, who put it into the heart of my dear
friend Isaac Penington also to visit me with some encouraging lines from
Aylesbury Gaol, where he was then a prisoner; and from whence (having
heard that I was carried prisoner to Oxford) he thus saluted me:—
“DEAR THOMAS,
“Great hath been the Lord’s goodness to thee in calling thee out of
that path of vanity and death wherein thou wast running towards
destruction; to give thee a living name, and an inheritance of life
among His people; which certainly will be the end of thy faith in Him
and obedience to Him. And let it not be a light thing in thine eyes
that He now accounteth thee worthy to suffer among His choice lambs,
that He might make thy crown weightier and thy inheritance the
fuller. Oh that that eye and heart may be kept open in thee which
knoweth the value of these things, and that thou mayst be kept close
to the feelings of the life, that thou mayst be fresh in thy spirit
in the midst of thy sufferings, and mayst reap the benefit of them;
finding that pared off thereby which hindereth the bubblings of the
everlasting springs, and maketh unfit for the breaking forth and
enjoyment of the pure power! This is the brief salutation of my dear
love to thee, which desireth thy strength and settlement in the
power, and the utter weakening of thee as to self. My dear love is
to thee, with dear Thomas Goodyare and the rest of imprisoned
Friends.
“I remain thine in the truth, to which the Lord my God preserve thee
single and faithful.
“I. PENINGTON.
“From Aylesbury Gaol,
the 14th of the 12th month, 1660.”
Though these epistolary visits in the love of God were very comfortable
and confirming to me, and my heart was thankful to the Lord for them, yet
I longed after personal conversation with Friends, and it was hard, I
thought, that there should be so many faithful servants of God so near
me, yet I should not be permitted to come at them, to enjoy their
company, and reap both the pleasure and benefit of their sweet society.
For although my Marshal-keeper was very kind to me, and allowed me the
liberty of his house, yet he was not willing I should be seen abroad; the
rather, perhaps, because he understood I had been pretty well known in
that city. Yet once the friendly baker got him to let me step over to
his house, and once (and but once) I prevailed with him to let me visit
my friends in the castle; but it was with these conditions, that I should
not go forth till it was dark, that I would muffle myself up in my cloak,
and that I would not stay out late: all which I punctually observed.
When I came thither, though there were many Friends prisoners, I scarce
knew one of them by face, except Thomas Loe, whom I had once seen at
Isaac Penington’s; nor did any of them know me, though they had generally
heard that such a young man as I was convinced of the truth, and come
among Friends.
Our salutation to each other was very grave and solemn, nor did we
entertain one another with much talk, or with common discourses; but most
of the little time I had with them was spent in a silent retiredness of
spirit, waiting upon the Lord. Yet before we parted we imparted one to
another some of the exercises we had gone through; and they seeming
willing to understand the ground and manner of my commitment, I gave them
a brief account thereof, letting Thomas Loe more particularly know that I
had directed a letter to him, which having fallen into the hand of the
Lord Lieutenant, was (so far as I could learn) the immediate cause of my
being taken up.
Having stayed with them as long as my limited time would permit (which I
thought was but very short), that I might keep touch with my keeper and
come home in due time, I took leave of my friends there, and with mutual
embraces parting, returned to my (in some sense more easy, but in others
less easy) prison, where after this I stayed not long before I was
brought back to my father’s house.
For after my father was come home, who, as I observed before, was from
home when I was taken, he applied himself to those justices that had
committed me, and not having disobliged them when he was in office,
easily obtained to have me sent home, which between him and them was thus
contrived.
There was about this time a general muster and training of the militia
forces at Oxford, whither on that occasion came the Lord Lieutenant and
deputy-lieutenants of the county, of which number they who committed me
were two.
When they had been awhile together, and the Marshal with them, he stepped
suddenly in, and in haste told me I must get ready quickly to go out of
town, and that a soldier would come by and bye to go with me. This said,
he hastened to them again, not giving me any intimation how I was to go,
or whither.
I needed not much time to get ready in; but I was uneasy in thinking what
the Friends of the town would think of this my sudden and private
removal; and I feared lest any report should be raised that I had
purchased my liberty by an unfaithful compliance. Wherefore I was in
care how to speak with some Friends about it; and that friendly baker,
whose wife was a Friend, living on the other side of the street at a
little distance, I went out at a back door, intending to step over the
way to their house, and return immediately.
It so fell out that some of the lieutenants (of whom Esquire Clark, who
committed me, was one) were standing in the balcony at a great inn or
tavern, just over the place where I was to go by; and he spying me,
called out to the soldiers, who stood thick in the street, to stop me.
They being generally gentlemen’s servants, and many of them knowing me,
did civilly forbear to lay hold on me, but calling modestly after me,
said, “Stay, sir, stay; pray come back.” I heard, but was not willing to
hear, therefore rather mended my pace, that I might have got within the
door. But he calling earnestly after me, and charging them to stop me,
some of them were fain to run, and laying hold on me before I could open
the door, brought me back to my place again.
Being thus disappointed, I took a pen and ink, and wrote a few lines,
which I sealed up, and gave to the apprentice in the shop, who had
carried himself handsomely towards me, and desired him to deliver it to
that Friend who was their neighbour, which he promised to do.
By the time I had done this came the soldier that was appointed to
conduct me out of town. I knew the man, for he lived within a mile of
me, being, through poverty, reduced to keep an alehouse; but he had lived
in better fashion, having kept an inn at Thame, and by that means knew
how to behave himself civilly, and did so to me.
He told me he was ordered to wait on me to Wheatley, and to tarry there
at such an inn, until Esquire Clark came thither, who would then take me
home with him in his coach. Accordingly to Wheatley we walked (which is
from Oxford some four or five miles), and long we had not been there
before Clark and a great company of men came in.
He alighted, and stayed awhile to eat and drink (though he came but from
Oxford), and invited me to eat with him; but I, though I had need enough,
refused it; for indeed their conversation was a burthen to my life, and
made me often think of and pity good Lot.
He seemed, at that time, to be in a sort of mixed temper, between
pleasantness and sourness. He would sometimes joke (which was natural to
him), and cast out a jesting flirt at me; but he would rail maliciously
against the Quakers. “If” said he to me, “the King would authorise me to
do it, I would not leave a Quaker alive in England, except you. I would
make no more,” added he, “to set my pistol to their ears and shoot them
through the head, than I would to kill a dog.” I told him I was sorry he
had so ill an opinion of the Quakers, but I was glad he had no cause for
it, and I hoped he would be of a better mind.
I had in my hand a little walking-stick with a head on it, which he
commended, and took out of my hand to look at it; but I saw his intention
was to search it, whether it had a tuck in it, for he tried to have drawn
the head; but when he found it was fast he returned it to me.
He told me I should ride with him to his house in his coach, which was
nothing pleasant to me; for I had rather have gone on foot (as bad as the
ways were), that I might have been out of his company. Wherefore I took
no notice of any kindness in the offer, but only answered I was at his
disposal, not mine own.
But when we were ready to go the Marshal came to me, and told me if I
pleased I should ride his horse, and he would go in the coach with Mr.
Clark. I was glad of the offer, and only told him he should take out his
pistols then, for I would not ride with them. He took them out, and laid
them in the coach by him, and away we went.
It was a very fine beast that I was set on, by much the best in the
company. But though she was very tall, yet the ways being very foul, I
found it needful, as soon as I was out of town, to alight and take up the
stirrups. Meanwhile, they driving hard on, I was so far behind, that
being at length missed by the company, a soldier was sent back to look
after me.
As soon as I had fitted my stirrups and was remounted I gave the rein to
my mare, which being courageous and nimble, and impatient of delay, made
great speed to recover the company; and in a narrow passage the soldier,
who was my barber, that had fetched me from home, and I met upon so brisk
a gallop that we had enough to do on either side to pull up our horses
and avoid a brush.
When we were come to Weston, where Esquire Clark lived, he took the
Marshal and some others with him into the parlour; but I was left in the
hall, to be exposed a second time for the family to gaze on.
At length himself came out to me, leading in his hand a beloved daughter
of his, a young woman of about eighteen years of age, who wanted nothing
to have made her comely but gravity. An airy piece she was, and very
merry she made herself at me. And when they had made themselves as much
sport with me as they would, the Marshal took his leave of them, and
mounting me on a horse of Clark’s had me home to my father’s that night.
Next morning, before the Marshal went away, my father and he consulted
together how to entangle me. I felt there were snares laid, but I did
not know in what manner or to what end till the Marshal was ready to go.
And then, coming where I was to take his leave of me, he desired me to
take notice, that although he had brought me home to my father’s house
again, yet I was not discharged from my imprisonment, but was his
prisoner still; and that he had committed me to the care of my father, to
see me forthcoming whenever I should be called for. And therefore he
expected I should in all things observe my father’s orders, and not go
out at any time from the house without his leave.
Now I plainly saw the snare, and to what end it was laid; and I asked him
if this device was not contrived to keep me from going to meetings; he
said I must not go to meetings. Whereupon I desired him to take notice
that I would not own myself a prisoner to any man while I continued here;
that if he had power to detain me prisoner, he might take me back again
with him if he would, and I should not refuse to go with him. But I bade
him assure himself, that while I was at home I would take my liberty both
to go to meetings and to visit Friends. He smiled, and said if I would
be resolute he could not help it; and so took his leave of me.
By this I perceived that the plot was of my father’s laying, to have
brought me under such an engagement as should have tied me from going to
meetings; and thereupon I expected I should have a new exercise from my
father.
It was the constant manner of my father to have all the keys of the
out-doors of his house (which were four, and those linked upon a chain)
brought up into his chamber every night, and fetched out from thence in
the morning; so that none could come in or go out in the night without
his knowledge.
I knowing this, suspected that if I got not out before my father came
down I should be stopped from going out at all that day. Wherefore (the
passage from my chamber lying by his chamber door) I went down softly
without my shoes, and as soon as the maid had opened the door I went out
(though too early), and walked towards the meeting at Meadle, four long
miles off.
I expected to have been talked with about it when I came home, but heard
nothing of it, my father resolving to watch me better next time.
This I was aware of; and therefore on the next first day I got up early,
went down softly, and hid myself in a back room before the maid was
stirring.
When she was up she went into my father’s chamber for the keys; but he
bade her leave them till he was up, and he would bring them down himself;
which he did, and tarried in the kitchen, through which he expected I
would go.
The manner was, that when the common doors were opened the keys were hung
upon a pin in the hall. While therefore my father stayed in the kitchen
expecting my coming, I, stepping gently out of the room where I was,
reached the keys, and opening another door, not often used, slipped out,
and so got away.
I thought I had gone off undiscovered; but whether my father saw me
through the window, or by what means he knew of my going, I know not; but
I had gone but a little way before I saw him coming after me.
The sight of him put me to a stand in my mind whether I should go on or
stop. Had it been in any other case than that of going to a meeting I
could not in any wise have gone a step farther. But I considered that
the intent of my father’s endeavouring to stop me was to hinder me from
obeying the call of my heavenly Father, and to stop me from going to
worship Him in the assembly of His people; upon this I found it my duty
to go on, and observing that my father gained ground upon me, I somewhat
mended my pace.
This he observing, mended his pace also, and at length ran. Whereupon I
ran also, and a fair course we had through a large meadow of his which
lay behind his house and out of sight of the town. He was not, I
suppose, then above fifty years of age, and being light of body and
nimble of foot, he held me to it for a while. But afterwards slacking
his pace to take breath, and observing that I had gotten ground of him,
he turned back and went home; and, as I afterwards understood, telling my
sisters how I had served him, he said, “Nay, if he will take so much
pains to go, let him go if he will.” And from that time forward he never
attempted to stop me, but left me to my liberty, to go when and whither I
would; yet kept me at the usual distance, avoiding the sight of me as
much as he could, as not able to bear the sight of my hat on, nor willing
to contend with me again about it.
Nor was it long after this before I was left not only to myself, but in a
manner by myself; for the time appointed for the coronation of the King
(which was the 23rd of the second month, called April) drawing on, my
father, taking my two sisters with him, went up to London some time
before, that they might be there in readiness, and put themselves into a
condition to see so great a solemnity, leaving nobody in the house but
myself and a couple of servants. And though this was intended only for a
visit on that occasion, yet it proved the breaking of the family; for he
bestowed both his daughters there in marriage, and took lodgings for
himself, so that afterwards they never returned to settle at Crowell.
Being now at liberty, I walked over to Aylesbury, with some other
Friends, to visit my dear friend Isaac Penington, who was still a
prisoner there. With him I found dear John Whitehead, and between sixty
and seventy more, being well nigh all the men Friends that were then in
the county of Bucks; many of them were taken out of their houses by armed
men, and sent to prison, as I had been, for refusing to swear. Most of
these were thrust into an old room behind the gaol, which had anciently
been a malt-house, but was now so decayed that it was scarce fit for a
doghouse; and so open it lay, that the prisoners might have gone out at
pleasure. But these were purposely put there, in confidence that they
would not go out, that there might be room in the prison for others, of
other professions and names, whom the gaoler did not trust there.
While this imprisonment lasted, which was for some months, I went
afterwards thither sometimes to visit my suffering brethren; and because
it was a pretty long way (some eight or nine miles), too far to be walked
forward and backward in one day, I sometimes stayed a day or two there,
and lay in the malt house among my friends, with whom I delighted to be.
After this imprisonment was over, I went sometimes to Isaac Penington’s
house at Chalfont, to visit that family, and the Friends thereabouts.
There was then a meeting for the most part twice a week in his house; but
one first-day in four there was a more general meeting (which was thence
called the monthly meeting) to which resorted most of the Friends of
other adjacent meetings; and to that I usually went, and sometimes made
some stay there.
Here I came acquainted with a friend of London, whose name was Richard
Greenaway, by trade a tailor, a very honest man, and one who had received
a gift for the ministry.
He having been formerly in other professions of religion, had then been
acquainted with one John Ovy, of Watlington, in Oxfordshire, a man of
some note among the professors there, and understanding upon inquiry that
I knew him, he had some discourse with me about him; the result whereof
was, that he, having an intention then shortly to visit some meetings of
Friends in this county and the adjoining parts of Oxfordshire and
Berkshire, invited me to meet him (upon notice given), and to bear him
company in that journey; and in the way bring him to John Ovy’s house,
with whom I was well acquainted; which I did.
We were kindly received, the man and his wife being very glad to see both
their old friend Richard Greenaway and me also, whom they had been very
well acquainted with formerly, but had never seen me since I was a
Quaker.
Here we tarried that night, and in the evening had a little meeting there
with some few of John Ovy’s people, amongst whom Richard Greenaway
declared the truth; which they attentively heard, and did not oppose,
which at that time of day we reckoned was pretty well, for many were apt
to cavil.
This visit gave John Ovy an opportunity to inquire of me after Isaac
Penington, whose writings (those which he had written before he came
among Friends) he had read, and had a great esteem of, and he expressed a
desire to see him, that he might have some discourse with him, if he knew
how. Whereupon I told him that if he would take the pains to go to his
house I would bear him company thither, introduce him, and engage he
should have a kind reception.
This pleased him much; and he embracing the offer, I undertook to give
him notice of a suitable time, which after I had gone this little journey
with my friend Richard Greenaway and was returned, I did, making choice
of the monthly meeting to go to.
We met by appointment at Stoken Church, with our staves in our hands,
like a couple of pilgrims, intending to walk on foot; and having taken
some refreshment and rest at Wycombe, went on cheerfully in the
afternoon, entertaining each other with grave and religious discourse,
which made the walk the easier, and so reached thither in good time, on
the seventh day of the week.
I gave my friends an account who this person was whom I had brought to
visit them, and the ground of his visit. He had been a professor of
religion from his childhood to his old age (for he was now both
grey-headed and elderly), and was a teacher at this time, and had long
been so amongst a people, whether Independents or Baptists I do not well
remember. And so well thought of he was, for his zeal and honesty, that
in those late professing times he was thrust into the Commission of the
Peace, and thereby lifted up on the Bench; which neither became him nor
he it, for he wanted indeed most of the qualifications requisite for a
Justice of the Peace: an estate to defray the charge of the office and to
bear him up in a course of living above contempt; a competent knowledge
in the laws, and a presence of mind or body, or both, to keep offenders
in some awe; in all which he was deficient; for he was but a fellmonger
by trade, accustomed to ride upon his pack of skins, and had very little
estate, as little knowledge of the law, and of but a mean presence and
appearance to look on. But as my father, I suppose, was the means of
getting him put into the Commission, so he, I know, did what he could to
countenance him in it, and help him through it at every turn, till that
turn came (at the King’s return) which turned them both out together.
My friends received me in affectionate kindness, and my companion with
courteous civility. The evening was spent in common but grave
conversation; for it was not a proper season for private discourse, both
as we were somewhat weary with our walk, and there were other companies
of Friends come into the family, to be at the meeting next day.
But in the morning I took John Ovy into a private walk, in a pleasant
grove near the house, whither Isaac Penington came to us; and there in
discourse both answered all his questions, objections, and doubts, and
opened to him the principles of truth, to his both admiration and present
satisfaction. Which done, we went in to take some refreshment before the
meeting began.
Of those Friends who were come overnight in order to be at the meeting,
there was Isaac’s brother, William Penington, a merchant of London, and
with him a Friend (whose name I have forgotten), a grocer of Colchester,
in Essex; and there was also our friend George Whitehead, whom I had not,
that I remember, seen before.
The nation had been in a ferment ever since that mad action of the
frantic fifth-monarchy men, and was not yet settled; but storms, like
thunder-showers, flew here and there by coast, so that we could not
promise ourselves any safety or quiet in our meetings. And though they
had escaped disturbance for some little time before, yet so it fell out
that a party of horse were appointed to come and break up the meeting
that day, though we knew nothing of it till we heard and saw them.
The meeting was scarce fully gathered when they came; but we that were in
the family, and many others, were settled in it in great peace and
stillness, when on a sudden the prancing of the horses gave notice that a
disturbance was at hand.
We all sat still in our places, except my companion John Ovy, who sat
next to me. But he being of a profession that approved Peter’s advice to
his Lord, “to save himself,” soon took the alarm, and with the nimbleness
of a stripling, cutting a caper over the form that stood before him, ran
quickly out at a private door, which he had before observed, which led
through the parlour into the gardens, and from thence into an orchard;
where he hid himself in a place so obscure, and withal so convenient for
his intelligence by observation of what passed, that no one of the family
could scarce have found a likelier.
By the time he was got into his burrow came the soldiers in, being a
party of the county troop, commanded by Matthew Archdale of Wycombe. He
behaved himself civilly, and said he was commanded to break up the
meeting, and carry the men before a justice of the peace; but he said he
would not take all; and thereupon began to pick and choose, chiefly as
his eye guided him, for I suppose he knew very few.
He took Isaac Penington and his brother, George Whitehead, and the Friend
of Colchester, and me, with three or four more of the county, who
belonged to that meeting.
He was not fond of the work, and that made him take no more; but he must
take some, he said, and bade us provide to go with him before Sir William
Boyer of Denham, who was a justice of the peace. Isaac Penington being
but weakly, rode, but the rest of us walked thither, it being about four
miles.
When we came there the Justice carried himself civilly to us all,
courteously to Isaac Penington as being a gentleman of his neighbourhood;
and there was nothing charged against us but that we were met together
without word or deed. Yet this being contrary to a late proclamation,
given forth upon the rising of the fifth-monarchy men, whereby all
dissenters’ meetings were forbidden, the Justice could do no less than
take notice of us.
Wherefore he examined all of us whom he did not personally know, asking
our names and the places of our respective habitations. But when he had
them, and considered from what distant parts of the nation we came, he
was amazed; for George Whitehead was of Westmoreland, in the north of
England; the grocer was of Essex; I was of Oxfordshire; and William
Penington was of London.
Hereupon he told us that our case looked ill, and he was sorry for it:
“for how,” said he, “can it be imagined that so many could jump
altogether at one time and place, from such remote quarters and parts of
the kingdom, if it was not by combination and appointment?”
He was answered that we were so far from coming thither by agreement or
appointment, that none of us knew of the others’ coming, and for the most
of us, we had never seen one another before; and that therefore he might
impute it to chance, or, if he pleased, to Providence.
He urged upon us that an insurrection had been lately made by armed men,
who pretended to be more religious than others; that that insurrection
had been plotted and contrived in their meeting-house, where they
assembled under colour of worshipping God; that in their meeting-house
they hid their arms, and armed themselves, and out of their meeting-house
issued forth in arms, and killed many; so that the government could not
be safe unless such meetings were suppressed.
We replied, we hoped he would distinguish and make a difference between
the guilty and the innocent, and between those who were principled for
fighting and those who were principled against it, which we were, and had
been always known to be so; that our meetings were public, our doors
standing open to all comers, of all ages, sexes, and persuasions, men,
women, and children, and those that were not of our religion, as well as
those that were; and that it was next to madness for people to plot in
such meetings.
He told us we must find sureties for our good behaviour, and to answer
our contempt of the King’s proclamation at the next general Quarter
Sessions, or else he must commit us.
We told him that, knowing our innocency and that we had not misbehaved
ourselves, nor did meet in contempt of the King’s authority, but purely
in obedience to the Lord’s requirings to worship Him, which we held
ourselves in duty bound to do, we could not consent to be bound, for that
would imply guilt which we were free from.
“Then,” said he, “I must commit you;” and ordered his clerk to make a
mittimus. And divers mittimuses were made, but none of them would hold;
for still, when they came to be read, we found such flaws in them as made
him throw them aside, and write more.
He had his eye often upon me, for I was a young man, and had at that time
a black suit on. At length he bid me follow him, and went into a private
room and shut the door upon me.
I knew not what he meant by this; but I cried in spirit to the Lord, that
he would be pleased to be a mouth and wisdom to me, and keep me from
being entangled in any snare.
He asked me many questions concerning my birth, my education, my
acquaintance in Oxfordshire, particularly what men of note I knew there;
to all which I gave him brief but plain and true answers, naming several
families of the best rank in that part of the county where I dwelt.
He asked me how long I had been of this way, and how I came to be of it.
Which when I had given him some account of, he began to persuade me to
leave it, and return to the right way—the Church, as he called it. I
desired him to spare his pains in that respect, and forbear any discourse
of that kind, for that I was fully satisfied the way I was in was the
right way, and hoped the Lord would so preserve me in it that nothing
should be able to draw or drive me out of it. He seemed not pleased with
that, and thereupon went out to the rest of the company, and I followed
him, glad in my heart that I had escaped so well, and praising God for my
deliverance.
When he had taken his seat again at the upper end of a fair hall, he told
us he was not willing to take the utmost rigour of the law against us,
but would be as favourable to us as he could. And therefore he would
discharge, he said, Mr. Penington himself, because he was but at home in
his own house. And he would discharge Mr. Penington of London, because
he came but as a relation to visit his brother. And he would discharge
the grocer of Colchester, because he came to bear Mr. Penington of London
company, and to be acquainted with Mr. Isaac Penington, whom he had never
seen before. And as for those others of us who were of this county, he
would discharge them, for the present at least, because they being his
neighbours, he could send for them when he would. “But as for you,” said
he to George Whitehead and me, “I can see no business you had there, and
therefore I intend to hold you to it, either to give bail or go to gaol.”
We told him we could not give bail. “Then,” said he, “you must go to
gaol;” and thereupon he began to write our mittimus; which puzzled him
again; for he had discharged so many, that he was at a loss what to lay
as the ground of our commitment, whose case differed nothing in reality
from theirs whom he had discharged.
At length, having made divers draughts (which still George Whitehead
showed him the defects of), he seemed to be weary of us; and rising up
said unto us: “I consider that it is grown late in the day, so that the
officer cannot carry you to Aylesbury to-night, and I suppose you will be
willing to go back with Mr. Penington; therefore if you will promise to
be forthcoming at his house to-morrow morning, I will dismiss you for the
present, and you shall hear from me again to-morrow.”
We told him we did intend, if he did not otherwise dispose of us, to
spend that night with our friend Isaac Penington, and would, if the Lord
gave us leave, be there in the morning, ready to answer his requirings.
Whereupon he dismissed us all, willing, as we thought, to be rid of us;
for he seemed not to be of an ill temper, nor desirous to put us to
trouble, if he could help it.
Back then we went to Isaac Penington’s. But when we were come thither,
oh the work we had with poor John Ovy! He was so dejected in mind, so
covered with shame and confusion of face for his cowardliness, that we
had enough to do to pacify him towards himself.
The place he had found out to shelter himself in was so commodiously
contrived, that undiscovered he could discern when the soldiers went off
with us, and understand when the bustle was over and the coast clear.
Whereupon he adventured to peep out of his hole, and in a while drew near
by degrees to the house again; and finding all things quiet and still, he
adventured to step within the doors, and found the Friends who were left
behind peaceably settled in the meeting again.
The sight of this smote him, and made him sit down among them. And after
the meeting was ended, and the Friends departed to their several homes,
addressing himself to Mary Penington, as the mistress of the house, he
could not enough magnify the bravery and courage of the Friends, nor
sufficiently debase himself. He told her how long he had been a
professor, what pains he had taken, what hazards he had run, in his
youthful days, to get to meetings; how, when the ways were forelaid and
passages stopped, he swam through rivers to reach a meeting; and now,
said he, that I am grown old in the profession of religion, and have long
been an instructor and encourager of others, that I should thus
shamefully fall short myself, is matter of shame and sorrow to me.
Thus he bewailed himself to her. And when we came back he renewed his
complaints of himself to us, with high aggravations of his own cowardice;
which gave occasion to some of the Friends tenderly to represent to him
the difference between profession and possession, form and power.
He was glad, he said, on our behalfs, that we came off so well, and
escaped imprisonment.
But when he understood that George Whitehead and I were liable to an
after-reckoning next morning, he was troubled, and wished the morning was
come and gone, that we might be gone with it.
We spent the evening in grave conversation and in religious discourses,
attributing the deliverance we hitherto had to the Lord. And the next
morning, when we were up and had eaten, we tarried some time to see what
the Justice would do further with us, and to discharge our engagement to
him; the rest of the Friends, who were before fully discharged, tarrying
also with us to see the event.
And when we had stayed so long that on all hands it was concluded we
might safely go, George Whitehead and I left a few words in writing to be
sent to the Justice if he sent after us, importing that we had tarried
till such an hour, and not hearing from him, did now hold ourselves free
to depart, yet so as that if he should have occasion to send for us
again, upon notice thereof we would return.
This done, we took our leave of the family and one of another; they who
were for London taking horse, and I and my companions, setting forth on
foot for Oxfordshire, went to Wycombe, where we made a short stay to rest
and refresh ourselves, and from thence reached our respective homes that
night.
After I had spent some time at home, where, as I had no restraint, so (my
sisters being gone) I had now no society, I walked up to Chalfont again,
and spent a few days with my friends there.
As soon as I came in I was told that my father had been there that day to
see Isaac Penington and his wife, but they being abroad at a meeting, he
returned to his inn in the town, where he intended to lodge that night.
After supper Mary Penington told me she had a mind to go and see him at
his inn (the woman of the house being a friend of ours), and I went with
her. He seemed somewhat surprised to see me there, because he thought I
had been at home at his house; but he took no notice of my hat—at least
showed no offence at it, for, as I afterwards understood, he had now an
intention to sell his estate, and thought he should need my concurrence
therein, which made him now hold it necessary to admit me again into some
degree of favour. After we had tarried some little time with him, she
rising up to be gone, he waited on her home, and having spent about an
hour with us in the family, I waited on him back to his inn. On the way
he invited me to come up to London to see my sisters, the younger of whom
was then newly married, and directed me where to find them, and also gave
me money to defray my charges.
Accordingly I went; yet stayed not long there, but returned to my friend
Isaac Penington’s, where I made a little stay, and from thence went back
to Crowell.
When I was ready to set forth, my friend Isaac Penington was so kind to
send a servant with a brace of geldings to carry me as far as I thought
fit to ride, and to bring the horses back. I, intending to go no farther
that day than to Wycombe, rode no farther than to Beaconsfield town’s
end, having then but five miles to walk. But here a new exercise befell
me, the manner of which was thus:
Before I had walked to the middle of the town I was stopped and taken up
by the watch. I asked the watchman what authority he had to stop me,
travelling peacefully on the highway: he told me he would show me his
authority, and in order thereunto, had me into a house hard by, where
dwelt a scrivener whose name was Pepys. To him he gave the order which
he had received from the constables, which directed him to take up all
rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. I asked him for which of these he
stopped me, but he could not answer me.
I thereupon informed him what a rogue in law is, _viz._, one who for some
notorious offence was burnt on the shoulder; and I told them they might
search me if they pleased, and see if I was so branded. A vagabond, I
told them, was one that had no dwelling-house nor certain place of abode;
but I had, and was going to it, and I told them where it was. And for a
beggar, I bade them bring any one that could say I had begged or asked
relief.
This stopped the fellow’s mouth, yet he would not let me go; but, being
both weak-headed and strong-willed, he left me there with the scrivener,
and went out to seek the constable, and having found him, brought him
thither. He was a young man, by trade a tanner, somewhat better mannered
than his wardsman, but not of much better judgment.
He took me with him to his house, and having settled me there, went out
to take advice, as I supposed, what to do with me; leaving nobody in the
house to guard me but his wife, who had a young child in her arms.
She inquired of me upon what account I was taken up, and seeming to have
some pity for me, endeavoured to persuade me not to stay, but to go my
way, offering to show me a back way from their house which would bring me
into the road again beyond the town, so that none of the town should see
me or know what was become of me. But I told her I could not do so.
Then having sat awhile in a muse, she asked me if there was not a place
of Scripture which said Peter was at a tanner’s house. I told her there
was such a Scripture, and directed her where to find it.
After some time she laid her child to sleep in the cradle, and stepped
out on a sudden, but came not in again for a pretty while.
I was uneasy that I was left alone in the house, fearing lest if anything
should be missing I might be suspected to have taken it; yet I durst not
go out to stand in the street, lest it should be thought I intended to
slip away.
But besides that, I soon found work to employ myself in; for the child
quickly waking, fell to crying, and I was fain to rock the cradle in my
own defence, that I might not be annoyed with a noise, to me not more
unpleasant than unusual. At length the woman came in again, and finding
me nursing the child, gave me many thanks, and seemed well pleased with
my company.
When night came on, the constable himself came in again, and told me some
of the chief of the town were met together to consider what was fit to do
with me, and that I must go with him to them. I went, and he brought me
to a little nasty hut, which they called a town-house (adjoining to their
market-house), in which dwelt a poor old woman whom they called Mother
Grime, where also the watch used by turns to come in and warm themselves
in the night.
When I came in among them they looked, some of them, somewhat sourly on
me, and asked me some impertinent questions, to which I gave them
suitable answers.
Then they consulted one with another how they should dispose of me that
night, till they could have me before some justice of peace to be
examined. Some proposed that I should be had to some inn, or other
public-house, and a guard set on me there. He that started this was
probably an innkeeper, and consulted his own interest. Others objected
against this, that it would bring a charge on the town, to avoid which
they were for having the watch take charge of me, and keep me walking
about the streets with them till morning. Most voices seemed to go this
way, till a third wished them to consider whether they could answer the
doing of that, and the law would bear them out in it: and this put them
to a stand. I heard all their debates, but let them alone, and kept my
mind to the Lord.
While they thus bandied the matter to and fro, one of the company asked
the rest if any of them knew who this young man was, and whither he was
going; whereupon the constable to whom I had given both my name and the
name of the town where I dwelt, told them my name was Ellwood, and that I
lived at a town called Crowell, in Oxfordshire.
Old Mother Grime, sitting by and hearing this, clapped her hand on her
knee, and cried out: “I know Mr. Ellwood of Crowell very well; for when I
was a maid I lived with his grandfather there when he was a young man.”
And thereupon she gave them such an account of my father as made them
look more regardfully on me; and so Mother Grime’s testimony turned the
scale, and took me off from walking the rounds with the watch that night.
The constable hereupon bade them take no further care, I should lie at
his house that night; and accordingly took me home with him, where I had
as good accommodation as the house did afford. Before I went to bed he
told me that there was to be a visitation, or Spiritual Court, as he
called it, holden next day at Amersham, about four miles from
Beaconsfield, and that I was to be carried thither.
This was a new thing to me, and it brought a fresh exercise upon my mind.
But being given up in the will of God to suffer what he should permit to
be laid on me, I endeavoured to keep my mind quiet and still.
In the morning, as soon as I was up, my spirit was exercised towards the
Lord in strong cries to him, that he would stand by me and preserve me,
and not suffer me to be taken in the snare of the wicked. While I was
thus crying to the Lord the other constable came, and I was called down.
This was a budge fellow, and talked high. He was a shoemaker by trade,
and his name was Clark. He threatened me with the Spiritual Court. But
when he saw I did not regard it, he stopped, and left the matter to his
partner, who pretended more kindness for me, and therefore went about to
persuade Clark to let me go out at the back-door, so slip away.
The plot, I suppose, was so laid that Clark should seem averse, but at
length yield, which he did, but would have me take it for a favour. But
I was so far from taking it so, that I would not take it at all, but told
them plainly, that as I came in at the fore-door, so I would go out at
the fore-door. When therefore they saw they could not bow me to their
will, they brought me out at the fore-door into the street, and wished me
a good journey. Yet before I went, calling for the woman of the house, I
paid her for my supper and lodging, for I had now got a little money in
my pocket again.
After this I got home, as I thought, very well, but I had not been long
at home before an illness seized on me, which proved to be the small-pox;
of which, so soon as Friends had notice, I had a nurse sent me, and in a
while Isaac Penington and his wife’s daughter, Gulielma Maria Springett,
to whom I had been playfellow in our infancy, came to visit me, bringing
with them our dear friend Edward Burrough, by whose ministry I was called
to the knowledge of the truth.
It pleased the Lord to deal favourably with me in this illness, both
inwardly and outwardly; for His supporting presence was with me, which
kept my spirit near unto Him; and though the distemper was strong upon
me, yet I was preserved through it, and my countenance was not much
altered by it. But after I was got up again, and while I kept my
chamber, wanting some employment for entertainment’s sake to spend the
time with, and there being at hand a pretty good library of books,
amongst which were the works of Augustine and others of those ancient
writers who were by many called the fathers, I betook myself to reading.
And these books being printed in the old black letter, with abbreviations
of the words difficult to be read, I spent too much time therein, and
thereby much impaired my sight, which was not strong before, and was now
weaker than usual by reason of the illness I had so newly had, which
proved an injury to me afterwards, for which reason I here mention it.
After I was well enough to go abroad with respect to my own health and
the safety of others, I went up, in the beginning of the twelfth month,
1661, to my friend Isaac Penington’s at Chalfont, and abode there some
time, for the airing myself more fully, that I might be more fit for
conversation.
I mentioned before, that when I was a boy I had made some good progress
in learning, and lost it all again before I came to be a man; nor was I
rightly sensible of my loss therein until I came amongst the Quakers.
But then I both saw my loss and lamented it; and applied myself with
utmost diligence, at all leisure times, to recover it; so false I found
that charge to be which in those times was cast as a reproach upon the
Quakers, that they despised and decried all human learning, because they
denied it to be essentially necessary to a gospel ministry, which was one
of the controversies of those times.
But though I toiled hard and spared no pains to regain what once I had
been master of, yet I found it a matter of so great difficulty that I was
ready to say as the noble eunuch to Philip in another case, “How can I,
unless I had some man to guide me?”
This I had formerly complained of to my especial friend Isaac Penington,
but now more earnestly, which put him upon considering and contriving a
means for my assistance.
He had an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Paget, a physician of note in
London, and he, with John Milton, a gentleman of great note for learning
throughout the learned world, for the accurate pieces he had written on
various subjects and occasions.
This person, having filled a public station in the former times, lived
now a private and retired life in London, and having wholly lost his
sight, kept always a man to read to him, which usually was the son of
some gentleman of his acquaintance, whom in kindness he took to improve
in his learning.
Thus, by the mediation of my friend Isaac Penington with Dr. Paget, and
of Dr. Paget with John Milton, was I admitted to come to him, not as a
servant to him (which at that time he needed not), nor to be in the house
with him, but only to have the liberty of coming to his house at certain
hours when I would, and to read to him what books he should appoint me,
which was all the favour I desired.
But this being a matter which would require some time to bring about, I
in the meanwhile returned to my father’s house in Oxfordshire.
I had before received direction by letters from my eldest sister (written
by my father’s command) to put off what cattle he had left about his
house, and to discharge his servants; which I had done at the time called
Michaelmas before. So that all that winter, when I was at home, I lived
like a hermit, all alone, having a pretty large house, and nobody in it
but myself, at nights especially; but an elderly woman, whose father had
been an old servant to the family, came every morning and made my bed,
and did what else I had occasion for her to do, till I fell ill of the
small-pox, and then I had her with me and the nurse. But now,
understanding by letter from my sister that my father did not intend to
return to settle there, I made off those provisions which were in the
house, that they might not be spoiled when I was gone; and because they
were what I should have spent if I had tarried there, I took the money
made of them to myself for my support at London, if the project succeeded
for my going thither.
This done, I committed the care of the house to a tenant of my father’s
who lived in the town, and taking my leave of Crowell, went up to my sure
friend Isaac Penington again; where understanding that the mediation used
for my admittance to John Milton had succeeded so well that I might come
when I would, I hastened to London, and in the first place went to wait
upon him.
He received me courteously, as well for the sake of Dr. Paget, who
introduced me, as of Isaac Penington, who recommended me; to both whom he
bore a good respect. And having inquired divers things of me with
respect to my former progression in learning, he dismissed me, to provide
myself with such accommodation as might be most suitable to my future
studies.
I went therefore and took myself a lodging as near to his house (which
was then in Jewyn-street) as conveniently as I could, and from
thenceforward went every day in the afternoon, except on the first days
of the week, and sitting by him in his dining-room read to him in such
books in the Latin tongue as he pleased to hear me read.
At my first sitting to read to him, observing that I used the English
pronunciation, he told me, if I would have the benefit of the Latin
tongue, not only to read and understand Latin authors, but to converse
with foreigners, either abroad or at home, I must learn the foreign
pronunciation. To this I consenting, he instructed me how to sound the
vowels; so different from the common pronunciation used by the English,
who speak Anglice their Latin, that—with some few other variations in
sounding some consonants in particular cases, as _c_ before _e_ or _i_
like _ch_, _sc_ before _i_ like _sh_, &c.—the Latin thus spoken seemed as
different from that which was delivered, as the English generally speak
it, as if it were another language.
I had before, during my retired life at my father’s, by unwearied
diligence and industry, so far recovered the rules of grammar, in which I
had once been very ready, that I could both read a Latin author and after
a sort hammer out his meaning. But this change of pronunciation proved a
new difficulty to me. It was now harder to me to read than it was before
to understand when read. But
_Labor omnia vincit_
_Improbus_.
Incessant pains,
The end obtains.
And so did I. Which made my reading the more acceptable to my master.
He, on the other hand, perceiving with what earnest desire I pursued
learning, gave me not only all the encouragement but all the help he
could; for, having a curious ear, he understood by my tone when I
understood what I read and when I did not; and accordingly would stop me,
examine me, and open the most difficult passages to me.
Thus went I on for about six weeks’ time, reading to him in the
afternoons; and exercising myself with my own books in my chamber in the
forenoons, I was sensible of an improvement.
But, alas! I had fixed my studies in a wrong place. London and I could
never agree for health; my lungs, as I suppose, were too tender to bear
the sulphurous air of that city, so that I soon began to droop; and in
less than two months’ time I was fain to leave both my studies and the
city, and return into the country to preserve life; and much ado I had to
get thither.
I chose to go down to Wycombe, and to John Rance’s house there; both as
he was a physician, and his wife an honest, hearty, discreet, and grave
matron, whom I had a very good esteem of, and who I knew had a good
regard for me.
There I lay ill a considerable time, and to that degree of weakness that
scarce any who saw me expected my life. But the Lord was both gracious
to me in my illness, and was pleased to raise me up again, that I might
serve him in my generation.
As soon as I had recovered so much strength as to be fit to travel, I
obtained of my father (who was then at his house in Crowell, to dispose
of some things he had there, and who in my illness had come to see me) so
much money as would clear all charges in the house, for both physic,
food, and attendance; and having fully discharged all, I took leave of my
friends in that family and in the town, and returned to my studies at
London.
I was very kindly received by my master, who had conceived so good an
opinion of me that my conversation, I found, was acceptable to him, and
he seemed heartily glad of my recovery and return; and into our old
method of study we fell again, I reading to him, and he explaining to me,
as occasion required.
But as if learning had been a forbidden fruit to me, scarce was I well
settled in my work before I met with another diversion, which turned me
quite out of my work.
For a sudden storm arising, from I know not what surmise of a plot, and
thereby danger to the government, and the meetings of Dissenters—such I
mean as could be found, which perhaps were not many besides the
Quakers—were broken up throughout the city, and the prisons mostly filled
with our friends.
I was that morning, which was the 26th day of the eighth month, 1662, at
the meeting at the Bull and Mouth, by Aldersgate, when on a sudden a
party of soldiers (of the trained bands of the city) rushed in, with
noise and clamour, being led by one who was called Major Rosewell, an
apothecary, if I misremember not, and at that time under the ill name of
a Papist.
As soon as he was come within the room, having a file or two of
musketeers at his heels, he commanded his men to present their muskets at
us, which they did, with intent, I suppose, to strike a terror into the
people. Then he made a proclamation that all who were not Quakers might
depart if they would.
It so happened that a young man, an apprentice in London, whose name was
— Dove, the son of Dr. Dove, of Chinner, near Crowell, in Oxfordshire,
came that day in curiosity to see the meeting, and coming early, and
finding me there (whom he knew), came and sat down by me.
As soon as he heard the noise of soldiers he was much startled, and asked
me softly if I would not shift for myself, and try to get out. I told
him no; I was in my place, and was willing to suffer if it was my lot.
When he heard the notice given that they who were not Quakers might
depart, he solicited me again to be gone. I told him I could not do so,
for that would be to renounce my profession, which I would by no means
do; but as for him, who was not one of us, he might do as he pleased.
Whereupon, wishing me well, he turned away, and with cap in hand went
out. And truly I was glad he was gone, for his master was a rigid
Presbyterian, who in all likelihood would have led him a wretched life
had he been taken and imprisoned among the Quakers.
The soldiers came so early that the meeting was not fully gathered when
they came, and when the mixed company were gone out, we were so few, and
sat so thin in that large room, that they might take a clear view of us
all, and single us out as they pleased.
He that commanded the party gave us first a general charge to come out of
the room. But we, who came thither at God’s requirings, to worship him,
like that good man of old who said, “We ought to obey God rather than
men” (Acts v. 29), stirred not, but kept our places. Whereupon he sent
some of his soldiers among us, with command to drag or drive us out,
which they did roughly enough.
When we came out into the street, we were received there by other
soldiers, who with their pikes holden lengthways from one another
encompassed us round as sheep in a pound; and there we stood a pretty
time, while they were picking up more to add to our number.
In this work none seemed so eager and active as their leader, Major
Rosewell; which I observing, stepped boldly to him as he was passing by
me, and asked him if he intended a massacre, for of that in those days
there was a great apprehension and talk. The suddenness of the question,
from such a young man especially, somewhat startled him; but recollecting
himself, he answered, “No; but I intend to have you all hanged by the
wholesome laws of the land.”
When he had gotten as many as he could or thought fit, which were in
number thirty-two, whereof two were catched up in the street, who had not
been at the meeting, he ordered the pikes to be opened before us; and
giving the word to march, went himself at the head of us, the soldiers
with their pikes making a lane to keep us from scattering.
He led us up Martin’s, and so turned down to Newgate, where I expected he
would have lodged us. But, to my disappointment, he went on though
Newgate, and turning through the Old Bailey, brought us into Fleet
Street. I was then wholly at a loss to conjecture whither he would lead
us, unless it were to Whitehall, for I knew nothing then of Old
Bridewell; but on a sudden he gave a short turn, and brought us before
the gate of that prison, where knocking, the wicket was forthwith opened,
and the master, with his porter, ready to receive us.
One of those two who were picked up in the street, being near me, and
telling me his case, I stepped to the Major, and told him that this man
was not at the meeting, but was taken up in the street; and showed him
how hard and unjust a thing it would be to put him into prison.
I had not pleased him before in the question I had put to him about a
massacre, and that, I suppose, made this solicitation less acceptable to
him from me than it might have been from some other; for looking sternly
on me, he said: “Who are you, that take so much upon you? Seeing you are
so busy, you shall be the first man that shall go into Bridewell;” and
taking me by the shoulders, he thrust me in.
As soon as I was in, the porter, pointing with his finger, directed me to
a fair pair of stairs on the farther side of a large court, and bid me go
up those stairs and go on till I could go no farther.
Accordingly I went up the stairs; the first flight whereof brought me to
a fair chapel on my left hand, which I could look into through the iron
grates, but could not have gone into if I would.
I knew that was not a place for me: wherefore, following my direction and
the winding of the stairs, I went up a storey higher, which brought me
into a room which I soon perceived to be a court-room or place of
judicature. After I had stood a while there, and taken a view of it,
observing a door on the farther side, I went to it, and opened it, with
intention to go in, but I quickly drew back, being almost affrighted at
the dismalness of the place; for besides that the walls quite round were
laid all over, from top to bottom, in black, there stood in the middle of
it a great whipping-post, which was all the furniture it had.
In one of these two rooms judgment was given, and in the other it was
executed on those ill people who for their lewdness were sent to this
prison, and there sentenced to be whipped; which was so contrived that
the court might not only hear, but see, if they pleased, their sentence
executed.
A sight so unexpected, and withal so unpleasing, gave me no encouragement
either to rest or indeed to enter at all there; till looking earnestly I
espied, on the opposite side, a door, which giving me hopes of a farther
progress, I adventured to step hastily to it, and opened it.
This let me into one of the fairest rooms that, so far as I remember, I
was ever in, and no wonder, for though it was now put to this mean use,
it had for many ages past been the royal seat or palace of the kings of
England, until Cardinal Wolsey built Whitehall, and offered it as a peace
offering to King Henry the Eighth, who until that time had kept his court
in this house, and had this, as the people in the house reported, for his
dining-room, by which name it then went.
This room in length (for I lived long enough in it to have time to
measure it) was threescore feet, and had breadth proportionable to it.
In it, on the front side, were very large bay windows, in which stood a
large table. It had other very large tables in it, with benches round;
and at that time the floor was covered with rushes, against some solemn
festival, which I heard it was bespoken for.
Here was my _nil ultra_, and here I found I might set up my pillar; for
although there was a door out of it to a back pair of stairs which led to
it, yet that was kept locked. So that finding I had now followed my
keeper’s direction to the utmost point, beyond which I could not go, I
sat down and considered that rhetorical saying, “That the way to Heaven
lay by the gate of Hell;” the black room, through which I passed into
this, bearing some resemblance to the latter, as this comparatively and
by way of allusion might in some sort be thought to bear to the former.
But I was quickly put out of these thoughts by the flocking in of the
other Friends, my fellow-prisoners, amongst whom yet, when all were come
together, there was but one whom I knew so much as by face, and with him
I had no acquaintance; for I having been but a little while in the city,
and in that time kept close to my studies, I was by that means known to
very few.
Soon after we were all gotten together came up the master of the house
after us, and demanded our names, which we might reasonably have refused
to give till we had been legally convened before some civil magistrate
who had power to examine us and demand our names; but we, who were
neither guileful nor wilful, simply gave him our names, which he took
down in writing.
It was, as I hinted before, a general storm which fell that day, but it
lighted most, and most heavily, upon our meetings; so that most of our
men Friends were made prisoners, and the prisons generally filled. And
great work had the women to run about from prison to prison to find their
husbands, their fathers, their brothers, or their servants; for according
as they had disposed themselves to several meetings, so were they
dispersed to several prisons. And no less care and pains had they, when
they had found them, to furnish them with provisions and other necessary
accommodations.
But an excellent order, even in those early days, was practised among the
Friends of that city, by which there were certain Friends of either sex
appointed to have the oversight of the prisons in every quarter, and to
take care of all Friends, the poor especially, that should be committed
thither.
This prison of Bridewell was under the care of two honest, grave,
discreet, and motherly women, whose names were Anne Merrick (afterwards
Vivers), and Anne Travers, both widows.
They, so soon as they understood that there were Friends brought into
that prison, provided some hot victuals, meat, and broth, for the weather
was cold; and ordering their servants to bring it them, with bread,
cheese, and beer, came themselves also with it, and having placed it on a
table, gave notice to us that it was provided for all those that had not
others to provide for them, or were not able to provide for themselves.
And there wanted not among us a competent number of such guests.
As for my part, though I had lived as frugally as possibly I could, that
I might draw out the thread of my little stock to the utmost length, yet
had I by this time reduced it to tenpence, which was all the money I had
about me, or anywhere else at my command.
This was but a small estate to enter upon an imprisonment with, yet was I
not at all discouraged at it, nor had I a murmuring thought. I had known
what it was, moderately, to abound, and if I should now come to suffer
want, I knew I ought to be content; and through the grace of God I was
so. I had lived by Providence before, when for a long time I had no
money at all, and I had always found the Lord a good provider. I made no
doubt, therefore, that He who sent the ravens to feed Elijah, and who
clothes the lilies, would find some means to sustain me with needful food
and raiment; and I had learned by experience the truth of that saying,
_Natura paucis contenta—i.e._ Nature is content with few things, or a
little.
Although the sight and smell of hot food was sufficiently enticing to my
empty stomach, for I had eaten little that morning and was hungry, yet,
considering the terms of the invitation, I questioned whether I was
included in it; and after some reasonings at length concluded that, while
I had tenpence in my pocket, I should be but an injurious intruder to
that mess, which was provided for such as perhaps had not twopence in
theirs.
Being come to this resolution, I withdrew as far from the table as I
could, and sat down in a quiet retirement of mind till the repast was
over, which was not long; for there were hands enough at it to make light
work of it.
When evening came the porter came up the backstairs, and opening the
door, told us if we desired to have anything that was to be had in the
house, he would bring it us; for there was in the house a chandler’s
shop, at which beer, bread, butter, cheese, eggs and bacon, might be had
for money. Upon which many went to him, and spake for what of these
things they had a mind to, giving him money to pay for them.
Among the rest went I, and intending to spin out my tenpence as far as I
co
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/6925