The fines, imprisonments, and stripes, liberally distributed by our pious
forefathers; the popular antipathy, so strong that it endured nearly a hundred
years after actual persecution had ceased, were attractions as powerful for
the Quakers, as peace, honor, and reward, would have been for the worldly-minded.
Every European vessel brought new cargoes of the sect, eager to testify against
the oppression which they hoped to share; and, when ship-masters were restrained
by heavy fines from affording them passage, they made long and circuitous
journeys through the Indian country, and appeared in the province as if conveyed
by a supernatural power. Their enthusiasm, heightened almost to madness by
the treatment which they received, produced actions contrary to the rules
of decency, as well as of rational religion, and presented a singular contrast
to the calm and staid deportment of their sectarian successors of the present
day. The command of the spirit, inaudible except to the soul, and not to be
controverted on grounds of human wisdom, was made a plea for most indecorous
exhibitions, which, abstractedly considered, well deserved the moderate chastisement
of the rod. These extravagances, and the persecution which was at once their
cause and consequence, continued to increase, till, in the year 1659, the
government of Massachusetts Bay indulged two members of the Quaker sect with
the crown of martyrdom.
An indelible stain of blood is upon the hands of all who consented to this
act, but a large share of the awful responsibility must rest upon the person
then at the head of the government. He was a man of narrow mind and imperfect
education, and his uncompromising bigotry was made hot and mischievous by
violent and hasty passions; he exerted his influence indecorously and unjustifiably
to compass the death of the enthusiasts; and his whole conduct, in respect
to them, was marked by brutal cruelty. The Quakers, whose revengeful feelings
were not less deep because they were inactive, remembered this man and his
associates, in after times. The historian of the sect affirms that, by the
wrath of Heaven, a blight fell upon the land in the vicinity of the "bloody
town" of Boston, so that no wheat would grow there; and he takes his stand,
as it were, among the graves of the ancient persecutors, and triumphantly
recounts the judgments that overtook them, in old age or at the parting hour.
He tells us that they died suddenly, and violently, and in madness; but nothing
can exceed the bitter mockery with which he records the loathsome disease,
and "death by rottenness," of the fierce and cruel governor.
