They were also to be branded with the letter R on the right shoulder. They were called "blasphemous hereticks" by the magistrates, and any who read books of their "devilish opinions" were to be punished with severity. New York and Virginia were likewise intolerant and cruel to the Quakers, but were less visited by them than Massachusetts. In the despotism of early Virginia, under the Code of Martial Law established by Sir Thomas Dale, the fierceness of punishment was appalling; possibly the arbitrariness was necessary to control the turbulent community, but the cruelty shocked Dale's successor, Governor Yeardly, who proclaimed that the "cruel laws by which the Ancient Planters had been governed" should be abolished. Under the laws proclaimed by Dale, absence from church was a capital offense. One man was broken on the wheel, one of the few instances known in the colonies. Blasphemy was punished by boring the tongue with a red hot bodkin; one offender was thus punished and chained to a tree to die. A Mr. Barnes of Bermuda Hundred, for uttering detracting words against another Virginia gentleman, was condemned to have his tongue bored through with an awl, to pass through a guard of forty men, and be butted by every one of them. At the end to be knocked down and footed out of the fort, which must have effectively finished Mr. Barnes of Virginia. Yet Dale was an ardent Christian, beloved by his pastor, who said he was "a man of great knowledge in divinity and a good conscience in all things." He is an interesting figure in Virginia history--a sturdy watch-dog--tearing and rending with a cruelty equal to his zeal every offender against the common-weal. In Maryland blasphemy was similarly punished. For the first offense the tongue was to be bored, and a fine paid of twenty pounds. For the second offense the blasphemer was to be stigmatized in the forehead with the letter B and the fine was doubled. For the third offense the penalty was death. Until the reign of Queen Anne the punishment of an English officer for blasphemy was boring the tongue with a hot iron.