selves, who had shunned the
cross by providing for the peaceable exercise of their religion in a
distant wilderness. Though it was the singular fact that every nation
of the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who practised peace
toward all men, the place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and
therefore in their eyes the most eligible, was the province of
Massachusetts Bay.

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 shipmasters 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