l. I., p. 364.]

[Footnote 105: Mr. Neal gives the following account of certain
Baptists--Clarke, Holmes and Crandall--who "were all apprehended upon
the 20th July this year, (1651), at the house of one William Witters, of
Lin. As they were worshipping God in their own way on a Lord's-day
morning, the constable took them into custody. Next morning they were
brought before the magistrate of the town, who sent them in custody to
Boston, where they remained in prison a fortnight, when they were
brought to trial, convicted and fined: John Clarke, twenty pounds or to
be well whipped; John Crandall, five pounds or to be whipped; Obadiah
Holmes, thirty pounds for several offences." Mr. Neal adds: "The
prisoners agreed not to pay their fines but to abide the corporal
punishment the Court had sentenced them to; but some of Mr. Clarke's
friends paid the fine without his consent; and Crandall was released
upon the promise to appear at the next Court; but Holmes received thirty
lashes at the whipping-post. Several of his friends were spectators of
his punishment; among the rest John Spear and John Hazell, who, as they
were attending the prisoner back to prison, took him by the hand in the
market-place, and, in the face of all the people, praised God for his
courage and constancy; for which they were summoned before the General
Court the next day, and were fined each of them forty shillings, or to
be whipped. The prisoners refused to pay the money, but some of their
friends paid it for them."

Mr. Neal adds the following just and impressive remarks: "_Thus the
Government of New England, for the sake of uniformity in divine worship,
broke in upon the natural rights of mankind, punishing men, not for
disturbing the State, but for their different sentiments in religion_,
as appears by the following Law:" [Then Mr. Neal quotes the law passed
against the Baptists seven years before, in 1644, and given on page 92.]
(Neal's History of New England, Vol. I., pp. 299, 300, 302, 303.)]

[Footnote 106: Hutchinson's Collection of State Papers, etc., pp. 401,
402.

Mr. Cotton wrote a long letter in reply to Sir R. Saltonstall, denying
that he or Mr. Wilson had instigated the complaints against the
Baptists, yet representing them as _profane_ because they did not attend
the established worship, though they worshipped God in their own way.
Cotton, assuming that the Baptist worship was no worship, and that the
only lawful worship was the Congreg