ile on the way to
the prison, and addressed crowds congregated before the windows of the
jails. At this time Deputy-Governor Blair addressed the following letter
to the king's attorney in Spotsylvania:--

"SIR:--I lately received a letter, signed by a good number of worthy
gentlemen, who are not here, complaining of the Baptists; the
particulars of their misbehavior are not told, any further than their
running into private houses and making dissensions. Mr. Craig and Mr.
Benjamin Waller are now with me, and deny the charge; they tell me they
are willing to take the oaths as others have: I told them I had
consulted the attorney-general, who is of opinion that the general court
only have a right to grant licenses, and therefore I referred them to
the court; but on their application to the attorney-general,[554:A] they
brought me his letter, advising me to write to you that their petition
was a matter of right, and that you may not molest these conscientious
people, so long as they behave themselves in a manner becoming pious
Christians and in obedience to the laws, till the court, when they
intend to apply for license, and when the gentlemen who complain may
make their objections and be heard. The act of toleration (it being
found by experience that persecuting dissenters increases their numbers)
has given them a right to apply in a proper manner for licensed houses
for the worship of God, according to their consciences, and I persuade
myself the gentlemen will quietly overlook their meetings till the
court. I am told they administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper near
the manner we do, and differ in nothing from our church but in that of
baptism and their renewing the ancient discipline, by which they have
reformed some sinners and brought them to be truly penitent; nay, if a
man of theirs is idle and neglects to labor and provide for his family
as he ought, he incurs their censures, which have had good effects. If
this be their behavior, it were to be wished we had some of it among us;
but at least I hope all may remain quiet till the court." This letter
was dated at Williamsburg, July the 16th, 1768.

The persecution of the Baptists commenced in Chesterfield, in 1770, and
in no county was it carried farther. According to tradition, Colonel
Archibald Cary, of Ampthill, was the arch-persecutor. In few counties
have the Baptists been more numerous than in Chesterfield.

While many of the preachers were men of exempl