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Having completed our Account of the Sufferings of this religious People in England and Wales, let us cross the Seas to the American Plantations,
and take a View of the Variety of Afflictions to which many of the same Christian Confessors were exposed in those Parts of the World;
where they had Trial of Cruel Mockings and Scourgings, yea moreover, of Bonds and Imprisonments; and particularly in New England, where
several of them were put to Death, and underwent the utmost Trial of their Faith and Patience with Christian Courage and Magnanimity.
In that Province were sitting at the Helm of Government a Set of Men, making high Pretensions to Religion, and such as had loudly cried out against
the Tyranny and Oppression of the Bishops of Old England, from whom they had fled, professing themselves pious and peaceable Protestants, driven by
Severity to leave their Native Country, and seek a Refuge for their Lives and Liberties, with Freedom for the Worship of God, in a Wilderness
in the Ends of the Earth; yet, when invested with Power, we find them exercising a cruel Dominion over the Faith and Consciences of others;
in which they appear not to us so inconsistent with themselves as some have thought, because when, under Oppression, they pleaded for Liberty
of Conscience, they understood it not as the natural and common Right of all Mankind, but as a peculiar Privilege of the Orthodox. They had,
long before any of the Quakers came thither, viz. in the Year 1646, made a Law or Order for Uniformity in Religion, by imposing a Penalty of five
Shillings per Week on such as came not to hear the Established Ministers: Thus they early begun to intrench themselves against any farther Discoveries
of Truth and Religion by a Penal Law: And as to the Quakers, they had received an unreasonable Prejudice against them, as appears
by their rigid Treatment of the first of them who came into that Country. ANNO 1656. When in the Fifth Month called July, two Women of that Persuasion arrived in a Vessel from Barbadoes in the Road before Boston: Intelligence of their Arrival being given to Richard Bellingham, the Deputy-Governour, (the Governour himself being out of Town) he immediately ordered them to be detained on board, and sent Officers who searched their Trunks and Chests, and took away about an Hundred Books, which they carrried on Shore. The Danger which was apprehended from the Arrival of these Women, and the spreading of their Books, produced the following order, viz. |