In 1737, a different Christian spirit was manifested towards the Quakers, and they were exempted from taxes for the support of the clergy, provided they attended their own meetings. A letter from a Quaker to the King gives the following statement of the punishments and penalties received by his brethren: "Twenty-two have been banished on pain of death, three have been martyred, three have had their right ears cut, one hath been burned in the hand with the letter H, thirty-one persons have received six hundred and fifty stripes, ... one thousand and forty-four pounds worth of goods have been taken from them, and one lieth now in fetters, condemned to die." The letter H was probably intended for "heretic," which would certainly be giving a judgment against the religion the Quakers professed. In 1694, the Quakers owned a lot on Brattle Street, and it is thought probable had some sort of a meeting-house upon it; but still the years passed on, we hardly know how, until 1708, when they desired to build a brick house, but could not get permission to do so. Afterwards they built a small brick meeting-house in the rear of Congress Street on one side, and in the rear of Water Street on the other. It ran back to what is now the line of Exchange Place; in fact, was nearly in the centre of the square formed by State, Congress, Water, and Devonshire Streets. This building was partly destroyed by fire in 1760, having been standing more than fifty years; was then repaired, and finally demolished in 1825, having been unoccupied for nearly twenty years, the society, in 1808, having voted to discontinue their meetings. It is probably true that the treatment of the Quakers in the Massachusetts Colony, in the years mentioned, from 1600 to 1666-67, is unparalleled in the history of the human race; and although it may be true, as has been said, that the people here exiled themselves in order that "they might maintain and perpetuate what they conceived to be the principles of true Christianity," they manifested but little of the spirit of the Saviour of mankind or the religion he came to teach. Hutchinson concludes what he has to say of the remarkable persecution of the Quakers and its severity, with the remark, "May the time never come again, when the government shall think that by killing men for their religion they do God good service." However other denominations of Christians were persecuted by the Puritans, only Quakers and witches were hung. "These transient persecutions," as Bancroft calls them, with all the leniency possible, "begun in self-defence, were yet no more than a train of mists hovering of an autumn morning over the channel of a fine river, that diffused freshness and fertility wherever it wound." Much of this condition of things, it must be admitted, resulted from natural causes; namely, the character and circumstances of the settlers, their peculiar religious belief, and absolute fanaticism.