intentions of marriage to the monthly-meeting unto which we belonged; and because I had been travelling in America, I had certificates from my brethren there, not only of my industry and labour in the ministry, with the good effects thereof; but also of my clearness in relation to marriage; and after having twice published our intentions, we had liberty of the said meeting to proceed to the solemnization of our marriage, which was accomplished at Devonshire-house in London, at a meeting appointed for that end, on the 28th day of the Seventh month, in the aforesaid year, in the presence of many hundreds of people, and many worthy brethren and elders. A day of days it was to my soul! wherein I was made sensible of the love and goodness of God in a particular manner, which to me was an earnest of our future welldoing. My dear wife was one who truly loved and feared God, and had an excellent gift of the ministry given to her, and was serviceable therein. A paper coming to my hands of her own hand writing and composing, I transcribe it here. She calls it an account of the exercise of Martha Betterton, viz. “As I was walking in the city of London, with a concern on my mind, in beholding the abominable pride of the people, it opened upon my mind in this wise: Wo, wo! to the crown of pride! and then I was deeply bowed in my spirit before the Lord, and it was said to me, I will yet spare a little longer; I have sheep which I will gather home to me, and there shall be one Shep

herd and one sheep fold. Then I said in my heart, Oh Lord! shall I be one of thy sheep belonging to thy sheepfold of eternal rest. And again it was answered me, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. Then a cry was raised in me, Cause me to hear thy voice; and not only so, but enable me to obey the same. And then this charge was returned to me, Be thou faithful."

Soon after I was married, I had a concern to visit Friends in the counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, which I performed in about two weeks time, and came home and followed my calling, and was industrious therein; and when I had gotten something to bear my expenses, and settle my wife in some little business, I found an exercise on my spirit to go over to Ireland, to visit our Friends and brethren on that island, in which William Townshend accompanied me, and Friends in that nation were generally satisfied with our service among them. When we had been from home about ten weeks, and had visited most parts of that nation, having had many meetings among Friends and others, we found freedom in our minds to return home, which we did, being comforted in our service, and blessed the name of the Lord.

After some few months I acquainted my wife and my father, with her father and mother, that I thought it my duty to go over and live in America. To which proposal, my father consented, though with tenderness of heart, considering that I must be so far separated from him. I also laid it before

the monthly meeting of Friends at Horslydown in Southwark, of which meeting I was a member, who consented to it, though somewhat unwilling to part with us; and gave us their certificate, to let our brethren know that we were in love and unity with them, and walked according to our profession. And when we were ready, and in order for going, we agreed for the freight of our goods and servants, with John Snowden, and shipped them on board the Josiah, bound for Maryland. When the ship was at Gravesend, and ready to sail, several of our dear relations and friends accompanied us to the ship, on board of which we had a good meeting, and took our solemn leave of one another, as never expecting to see each other any more in this world. It was a solemn time indeed! we prayed for one another, and so parted, our ship sailing that evening, and we got to Margate Road, where we anchored, and the wind sprung up very fresh, and blew tempestuously, so that we broke our cable, and lost our best bower anchor, and drove violently towards the Goodwin Sands. We let go our sheet anchor, and three more, which were all we had, but they did not stop her; upon which the master ordered the carpenters to stand by the main-mast, with their axes upon their shoulders, and when he gave the word, then they were to cut the mast. people in the ship (there being divers passengers) were in great consternation, expecting nothing but death: but for my part, being exceedingly

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sea-sick, and having been in many storms, I was not so much surprised with this, the sailors sometimes making a great noise when there is but little danger; but there was more danger than I was aware of, as appeared afterwards. One of the passengers came weeping, and said, our case was very bad. The doctor also came in the same manner, and cried, "Oh! Mr. Chalkley, we are all dead men!" then I thought with myself, I would go out on deck, and see what the matter was; and when on deck, I went to the pilot, who had the lead in his hand, and he sounded, and cried out, "Lord have mercy upon us! she is gone, she is gone, she is gone!" by which I perceived that we were very near the Goodwin sands, on which many ships have been lost with all their crews. In this sense of danger I sent for the passengers into the cabin, and told them that I thought it would be well for us to sit still together, and look unto, and wait upon God, to see what he would please to do for us; that, if death came, we might meet him in as good a frame of mind as we could, and that we might not be surprised beyond measure: and as we were thus composed in our minds, a concern came upon my dear wife, and she prayed to God the Father, in the living power and sense of his Son, and he heard from his holy habitation, and answered the prayer; for immediately after the wind abated, and our anchors held us. This was a great deliverance, which is not to be forgotten. When we saw the

longed for morning, we were very near the sands, and the sea ran prodigiously high, and broke upon them mightily, so that we were forced to leave our cables and anchors, and make the best of our way to Deal, as well as we could. One of the owners being on shore, and seeing us in distress, sent off a cable and anchor to us; and we anchored before Deal with our new cable and anchor, and ́sent a boat for our other anchors and cables, when it was calm, which brought them to us. And after we had supplied ourselves with what we wanted, we put to sea again, and had fair winds till we got as far as the Western Islands, where Captain Cant being in company with us, he spoke to our captain in the evening, and the two captains concluded it would be stormy that night, which happened accordingly. They took in their sails, and we all but our mainsail; notwithstanding which, the storm was such, that we lost our mainmast, sprung the head of our fore-mast, and broke our cross-jack-yard, and thus lay rolling upon the sea for about two weeks: the ship BristolMerchant coming by in that time, lent us a spare top-mast, of which we made a main-mast, and a top-mast of our topgallant-mast, and so refitted out as well as we could, and had a pretty good passage afterwards. We were about eight weeks from the Land's-End to the Capes of Virginia; had meetings twice a week on board, and they helped to stay our minds on our Maker, though our bodies were tossed to and again on the mighty

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