"The Quakers, Anabaptists, and Fifth Monarchy men," it is stated, in the month of June, "will meet more daringly after the time limited in the Act, and say they will neither pay money nor be banished. They have solicited others of different persuasions to join them in opposing the Act, and they get encouragement, though no promises. If dealt with severely, a body of 10,000 would rise, and demand fulfilment of the King's Declaration for liberty of conscience. They say, if their spirit of suffering be turned into a spirit of action, woe to those who stand in their way. Other Sectaries resolve to keep to the limits of the Act, and increase their number as they can safely. The hopes of a war with the Dutch, fermented by spies at Court, dispose the desperadoes to dangerous resolutions."[450] This is the representation of an enemy, and cannot be trusted for accuracy in particulars; but, so far as a general determination to persevere in worship is concerned, probably the writer is perfectly correct, and the whole drift of his communication manifests the difficulty which was felt with regard to the anticipated execution of the new statute. The Congregational Churches about Furness were reported as resolved to meet, notwithstanding the Act; and as wasting their money by rewards, and by maintaining prisoners, and other people, who absconded in order that they might not be cited to bear witness.[451] [Sidenote: 1664.] After the Conventicle Act came into force the number of offenders excited attention, and created difficulty. Newgate was so full that it bred an infectious malignant fever, which sent many to their long home; and the magistrates, who thought their Nonconformist neighbours "unfit to breathe their native air when living, buried them as brethren, when dead." Stress was laid upon the great number of Dissenters, both by enemies and friends. They were said to exceed "two parts of the common people;" to have connection with the nobility and gentry; and to be so numerous that His Majesty could not force them to conformity, by banishment or death, without endangering the safety of the kingdom. Nor were there wanting Churchmen, to plead for a lenient treatment of their persecuted brethren, whilst they themselves complained that rulers were winding the pin of Government so high as to threaten to crack the sinews, and that so much formalism and corruption prevailed in the Establishment as to provoke people to wish for its overthrow.[452]