CH. XI] DEFENCE OF PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS. were kept from shedding blood, though it was by a woman." With a courage that would be sublime were it not tinctured with insanity, she returned to defy the tyrants of "the bloody town," and to seal her testimony against them with her life. She was taken and hanged on Boston Common in June, 1660. The discontent caused by such shocking scenes compelled the magistrates to enter upon a formal defence of their action. The language 1659. of it is worth noticing. "Although the justice of our proceedings against William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, and Mary Dyer supported by the authority of this Court, the laws of the country, and the law of God, may rather persuade us to expect encouragement and commendation from all prudent and pious men than convince us of any necessity to apologize for the same; yet, forasmuch as men of weaker parts, out of pity and commiseration—a commendable and Christian virtue, yet easily abused, and susceptible of sinister and dangerous impressions-for want of full information, may be less satisfied, and men of perverser principles may take occasion hereby to calumniate us and render us bloody persecutors—to satisfy the one and stop the mouths of the other, we thought it requisite to declare, That about three years since, divers persons, professing themselves Quakers-of whose pernicious opinions and practices we had received intelligence from good hands, both from Barbadoes and Englandarrived at Boston, whose persons were only secured to be sent away by the 101 And first opportunity, without censure or punishment. Although their professed tenets, turbulent and contemptuous behaviour to authority, would have justified a severer animadversion, yet the prudence of this Court was exercised only to make provision to secure the peace and order here established, against their attempts, whose designwe were well assured of by our own experience, as well as by the example of their predecessors in Munster-was to undermine and ruin the same. accordingly a law was made and published, prohibiting all masters of ships to bring any Quakers into this jurisdiction, and themselves from coming in, on penalty of the house of correction until they should be sent away. Notwithstanding which, by a back door, they found entrance, and the penalty inflicted upon themselves, proving insufficient to restrain their impudent and insolent intrusions, was increased by the loss of the ears of those that offended the second time; which also being too weak a defence against their impetuous fanatic fury, necessitated us to endeavor our security; and upon serious consideration, after the former experiment, by their incessant assaults, a law was made, that such persons should be banished on pain of death, according to the example of England in their provision against Jesuits, which sentence being regularly pronounced at the last Court of assistants against the parties abovenamed, and they either returning or continuing presumptuously in this jurisdiction after the time limited, were apprehended, and owning themselves to be the persons banished, were sentenced by the Court to death, according to the law aforesaid, which hath been executed upon two of them. Mary Dyer, upon the petition of her son, and the mercy and clemency of this Court, had liberty to depart within two days, which she hath accepted of. The consideration of our gradual proceedings will vindicate us from the clamorous accusations of severity; our own just and necessary defence calling upon us-other means failing-to offer the point which these persons have violently and wilfully rushed upon, and thereby become felones de se, which might have been prevented, and the sovereign law, salus populi, been preserved. Our former proceedings, as well as the sparing of Mary Dyer upon an inconsiderable intercession, will manifestly evince we desire their lives, absent, rather than their deaths, present.' Matters, however, had now gone too far for the magistrates to draw back. 1661. William Leddra was put to trial and sentenced, but was offered pardon on condition of leaving the colony. He refused, and was consequently put to death; but he was the last victim. Another Quaker, Wenlock Christison, who had been banished, returned, and courted death. "What do you gain,” he cried boldly to them, "by taking Quakers' lives? For the last man that ye put to death, here are five come in his room. If ye have power to take my life, God can raise up ten of his servants in my stead." It was true, that persecution only increased the number who would become martyrs. The magistrates were not able to withstand the tide of popular sympathy, and the conviction that they were scandalizing themselves before the world. They gave up all attempts to carry out their former plans; the prisoners were discharged; they were ordered to be whipped beyond the colony's bounds, if ever they returned; and so, treating them in this wise, the mania, in due time, died out a natural death. The labors of John Eliot, the Indian missionary, deserve a passing notice. He was born in England in 1604, was educated at Cambridge, and emigrated to New England in 1631. Earnestly desiring the spiritual improvement of the Indians, Eliot, though discharging the duties of a minister over a church at Roxbury, added to his regular charge the toil of learning the dialect spoken in New England, so as to translate the Bible for the benefit of the natives. He began his efforts as far back as 1645-preaching his first sermon to the Indians on the 28th of October, 1646—and by his zeal, tempered with prudence, his never failing kindness and gentleness, and his perseverance in his labor of love, he really wrought wonders; a considerable sum of money was remitted from England to carry on the work converts were made; churches were founded, and a sort of Indian college was established. No permanent impression, however, seems to have been made upon the great body of the natives. Most of the sterner Puritans looked coldly upon the project, and the Indian sachems and priests were very difficult persons to be in any wise changed from savage life and its enjoyments. All this, however, ought not 1661. 1663. CH. XI] ELIOT'S LABORS AMONG THE INDIANS. to, and does not, detract from the merits of Eliot. "It is a remarkable feature," to use the words of Grahame, "in Eliot's long and arduous career, that the energy by which he was actuated never sustained the slightest abatement, but, on the contrary, evinced a steady and vigorous increase. As his bodily strength decayed, the energy of his being seemed to retreat into his soul, and at length, all his faculties, he said, seemed absorbed in holy love. Being asked, shortly before his departure, how he did, he replied, 'I have lost every thing; my understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails me-but I thank God, my charity holds out still: I find that rather grows than fails.'" Eliot died in 1690, full of years and honors.* During the time that Cromwell was at the head of affairs in England, the affairs of Massachusetts and her immediate neighbors were on the whole very prosperous. Cromwell favored them all he could, and, freed from outside interference, the New Englanders advanced steadily in their progress towards wealth and power. Every thing tended to the rearing of hardy, upright, self-reliant men. The fisheries nurtured a race of expert, daring fishermen; ship building became active; commerce increased; and trades of various sorts were in active operation. The Puritan legislators frowned upon every thing that tended to laxity of manners; they * The learned Dr. Cotton Mather, in his "Life of the Renowned John Eliot," enters largely, and with a profoundly admiring spirit, into the history of Eliot's labors among the Indians. See Mather's " Magnalia," vol. i., pp. 526-583. 103 sternly watched over the morals of the community; wisely considering prevention as better than cure, they countenanced early unions; and although courtship carried on without permission of the girl's parents, or of "the next magistrate," was punishable with imprisonment, the magistrates might redress "wilful and unreasonable denial of timely marriage" on the part of parents. Adultery was a capital offence, and incontinence was punished with a severe discipline. Underhill, who, uniting, as he did, the gallantry of the soldier with his proverbial love of license, and of "bravery of apparel," having been accused of a backsliding of this nature, was summoned into the presence of the magistrates; and then, "after sermon, in presence of the congregation, standing on a form, and in his worst clothes, without his band, and in a dirty night cap, confessed the sin with which he had been charged;" and "while his blubberings interrupted him," says Winthrop, he dolefully lamented the loss of his "assurance," which, as he said, had been vouchsafed while enjoying a pipe of tobacco. The whole population were trained as militia, and a martial spirit was readily kept up. Several forts, and a good supply of artillery and ammunition, showed the determination of the people to maintain their rights at the price of blood if need be. Material prosperity was very much increased, and there was no lack of comforts and enjoyments of the good things of this life. The founders of New England, to their credit be it observed, were sincerely anxious for the promotion of |