hats, hands, like unto fiddlers'
boys, and shew that you are gotten into the basest contemptible life
as be in the fashion of the fiddlers' boys and stage-players, and
quite out of the paths and steeps of solid men.... And further to get
a pair of breeches like a coat and hang them about with points up
almost to the middle, and a pair of double cuffs upon his hands, and a
feather in his cap, and to say, "Here's a gentleman, bow before him,
put off your hats, bow, get a company of fiddlers, a set of music and
women to dance, this is a brave fellow, up in the chamber without and
up in the chamber within," are these your fine Christians? "Yea," say
they. "Yea but," say the serious people, "they are not of Christ's
life." And to see such a company as are in the fashions of the world
... get a couple of bowls in their hands or tables [dice] or
shovel-board, or a horse with a Company of ribbons on his head as he
hath on his own, and a ring in his ear; and so go to horse-racing to
spoil the creature. Oh these are gentlemen, these are bred up
gentlemen! these are brave fellows and they must have their
recreation, and pleasures are lawful. These are bad Christians and
shew that they are gluttoned with the creature and then the flesh
rejoiceth!'

No wonder that Edward Burrough wrote to Margaret Fell that 'in this
city iniquity is grown to the height,' and again, in a later letter:
'There are hundreds convinced, but not many great or noble do receive
our testimony ... we are much refreshed, we receive letters from all
quarters, the work goes on fast everywhere.... Richard Hubberthorne is
yet in prison and James Parnell at Cambridge.... Our dear brethren
John Audland and John Camm we hear from, and we write to one another
twice in the week. They are near us, they are precious and the work of
the Lord is great in Bristol.'

Margaret Fell writes back in answer, like a true mother in Israel,
'You are all dear unto me, and all are present with me, and are all
met together in my heart.'

And now, having heard what the 'Valiant Sixty' thought of London, what
did London think of the 'Valiant Sixty'? Many years later a certain
William Spurry wrote of these early days: 'I being in London at the
time of the first Publication of Truth, there was a report spread in
the City that there was a sort of people come there that went by the
name of plain North Country plow men, who did differ in judgment to
all other people in that City, who I was