ecute them?" Edward answered, "Thou knowest we are not such a people," and desired to know what they had against him. Rawson charged him with coming from Salem to Boston, a great offence, sure, as I may speak by the way of contraries, for an inhabitant of a colony, and a tradesman and housekeeper, to travel about his lawful occasions, and to be at the Quakers' meeting. Edward answered, "He came not then from Salem." "From whence came ye then ?" said Rawson. "From the westward," replied Edward. "What did ye there?" said Rawson. "What hast thou to do," replied Edward, "to demand of me what I do in another jurisdiction? I have been about my occasions." Your secretary asked your governor, "Whether he would accept of this answer?" "No," said your governor. See how the governor and secretary hitch together, to cause the innocent to suffer. Then Rawson began to raise false accusations against him, and to charge him with going about the country to deceive people, (see your Account of the Declaration of the Gospel of Peace,) and that he and others had been at Milcome, and had done much hurt there, which Milcome is a place at which Rawson's son was an oppressive priest; * and see how the father manageth the son's quarrel, and what partiality and injustice is here! Indeed, I scarce reckon it, because your whole course is nothing else but one entire piece of injustice and cruelty. And after he had flouted and thrown out his dirt and filth at Truth and the friends thereof, Rawson said, "That if he gave no better account of his business," (and what better account would he have of a man who had as much reason and justice to be in Boston as himself, being a housekeeper in your jurisdiction, and being charged with nothing as an offence, by your own law, as done by him?) "he should suffer as a vagabond." Edward replied, "I defy the life of a vagabond, and that law is a wicked law, and very wicked

* Samuel Tory, who promised the people at Milcome, at his first coming, to labour with his hands to ease their provisions for his maintenance, but, instead thereof, took away the Quaker's (one Henry Tucker's) cordwood, without giving notice, and sold it at Boston to buy glass for his new house that the people built for him; and his wife got George Badcock's cow to make up the number of hers, for her dairy. A right tory indeed.

and unrighteous men are they that cause those that fear the Lord to suffer by such a wicked law." So Rawson drew his sentence, which is as followeth :

"To the Constable of Boston, or his Deputy, and of Lynn, and "his Deputy.

"You are hereby required, in his majesty's name,* to commit "the body of Edward Wharton to safe custody till the next "morning, and then to take him out of prison, and cause him "to be tied to a cart's tail, and whipped through this town, and "delivered to the constable of Lynn, to be alike whipped, and "by him to be carried to Salem, the place of his abode, from "whence as a vagabond he hath strayed, and refused to give a "satisfactory answer for such his vagrant life; whereof you are "not to fail.

"Dated the 4th day "of May, 1664."

"JOHN ENDICOTT.

Notwithstanding, after he had wrote this, he told Edward, "That if he would promise the governor to come no more to the Quakers' meeting in Boston, then it was likely the governor would let him have his liberty." "Not for all the world," replied Edward. "And, friends," said he, "I have a back to lend to the smiter, and I have felt your cruel whippings before now, and the Lord hath made me able to bear them; and as I abide in His fear, I need not fear what you shall be suffered to do unto me. But surely the Lord will visit you for the blood of the innocent; and your day is coming, as it is come upon many, who but as yesterday were higher in power than ever you were or are like to be, but now are made the lowest of many; and truly my soul laments for you."

But none of these things prevailed, though they were words seasonable and tender; but as those that scorn all reproof, and set

* Which serves you as an honest man's hand doth a cheat's, to counterfeit withal; for, when you please, the king's authority is of no validity.

*

counsel at nought, the constable was commanded to deliver him to the jailer; and the next morning a man with a horse and cart came to the prison door, and the hangman with his whip; and he being tied fast to the cart was cruelly whipped, almost a mile, through Boston town; and his hat kept off in honour to the sentence, as said your hangman, some of you threatening him, "That he should be so served every time he came to Boston." To which Edward replied, "And I think I shall be here to-morrow again." Then he was brought to the next town by two lusty men, being assistants to the executioner and constable, to be whipped and set at liberty, and all this but for being at Boston. What wickedness, what cruelty, what injustice is here! Should the law of retaliation be exercised upon you, you should be whipped from every place from whence you came, who whip after this manner, and so show yourselves destructive to trade, and the being of men. How do ye know but that the Lord will do to you, as you have done, and double it upon you? And then how sad will be your portion, and what will be the lot of your inheritance? And for aught you know, this or a worse judgment may be your portion from the hand of the Lord. † So Edward being at liberty, he went to his house at Salem, and made his way to Boston on the morrow, and looked some of you in the face, as Deputy Bellingham, etc., who, as guilty men, turned the other way, which made him question with some of you, "How it could be, that he should be a vagabond yesterday, and none to day?" To which he was answered, "That if the lion be judge, and he say the fox's long ears be horns, it must go so, though it cost the fox his life." S. Burrel, the constable of Lynn, being told who he was, and what might be the consequence of whipping him as a vagabond,

* Edward Wharton's own horse, which he had to carry him in the country, was led this while by the cart, and yet a vagabond; this horse and other things he had then with him at Boston being worth between twenty and thirty pounds sterling.

This was a modest caution, and fulfilled in the time of the wars and witches, &c., when it was not only doubled, but trebled, in manifold ways upon them in a worse judgment, and then their portion and the lot of their inheritance was sad, indeed, from the hand of the Lord.

who was an inhabitant, thought fit, in his own safety, to let your order go without execution.

So this matter hath an end, in which I have been the longer, and somewhat the more particular, because these proceedings were most wicked and unreasonable; and to leave a record of the faithfulness of a man who was given up to the Lord, to serve His will, whose power, sustained him through the midst of his enemies.

Yet I have not done with you, but a reckoning I must make with you, for a high piece of cruelty exercised by you on some of the women mentioned before, in the relations of the first sufferings at Dover, viz., Mary Tomkins and Alice Ambrose, alias Gary. These two servants of the Lord, having been at Virginia, whitherto they departed from New England as aforesaid, in obedience to the Lord, and who being drawn up to the pillory in such an uncivil manner as is not to be rehearsed, with a running knot about their hands, had there suffered thirty-two stripes apiece, with a nine-corded whip, three knots in each cord; the very first lash of which drew the blood, and made it to run down in abundance from their breasts; and having their chests and goods taken away, and so expelled from those coasts at your instigation; they, on the 30th day of the Fourth month following, being in the year 1664, came from thence into your jurisdiction, and arrived at Boston; and one of them, viz., Mary Tomkins, being very sick, near death, often fainting away, Edward Wharton, with Wenlock Christison, came from Salem to see her. After they had been there a little while, in came two constables,* and in a great rage and violence, notwithstanding their weak condition, forced them all up to the governor's house; and though Mary fell down faint in the way, yet your cruel constable stood over her till she came to herself again, and so had her up before your governor. R. Bellingham, your deputy, and Thomas Danforth, one of your magistrates, because Mary was so weak, and lest, possibly, she might die under your hands; at least, that the outcry of the

* Duer was one of the constables; the other, a shoemaker, dwelt at the end of the town next to Roxbury.

people might not be too loud at your doors for such abominable cruelty, ordered her and Alice to be whipped, not at Boston, but at the towns beyond; and Wenlock they ordered to be whipped through Boston, and so out of the jurisdiction; and Edward through Boston, home. And this your barbarity had taken hold on them, but that Colonel Temple came in and interceded, and prevailed for three of them; but as for Edward, he being an inhabitant, they said, "They would go to work another way with him;" so, unless he would subscribe to four things, Danforth said, "He should forthwith be tied to a great gun, and be severely whipped with thirty stripes on his naked back;" which Edward refusing to do, Danforth forthwith framed a sentence, and got your governor's hand to it, of which what follows is a copy, and it is a cruel sentence, as the contents will manifest ::

"To the Constables of Boston, of Charlestown, Malden, and Lynn.

"You are required to take into your custody, respectively, "Edward Wharton, convicted of being a vagabond from his own "dwelling-place ;* and the constable of Boston is to whip him "severely, with thirty stripes on his naked body; and from con"stable to constable you are required to convey him, until he "come to Salem, the place where he saith he dwelleth, and in so doing, this shall be your warrant.

66

"Dated at Boston, the 30th of

"the Fourth month, 1664."

"JOHN ENDICOTT.

So Thomas Danforth, magistrate of Cambridge, of his own head framed this cruel warrant, and got Bellingham to consent to it, and John Endicott to put his hand to it; but Colonel Temple and your governor's wife, being somewhat sensible of the hardness of the sentence, and cruelty thereof, begged or sought

* And hath a vagabond a dwelling-place? Oh, what will be your condition, when the Judge of all shall turn you into everlasting punishment, with the devil and his angels, who order a man to be whipped thus severely, and with the highest cruelty, for visiting his friend that was so near the grave; who said, "I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not."