Sheldon was delighted at the enactment of this statute, and zealously availed himself of it.[557] Ward and Gunning, at the same time distinguished themselves in repressing Dissent, and no colouring of their conduct can hide their intolerance. The former, it is said, made the diocese of Salisbury too hot for Nonconformists, and drove many over to Holland to the great detriment of trade in the City of Salisbury.[558] Gunning, whose propensities for public discussion remained as strong as ever, sometimes played the part of a magistrate, and sat upon the bench at quarter sessions, at other times he challenged Dissenters of all sorts to engage with him in theological tournaments.[559] Informers were now let loose upon all kinds of inoffensive citizens, and the severities of the New Conventicle Act were more than doubled by connecting with them the execution of earlier statutes. No less a person than Dr. Manton, after being discovered at a house in the Piazza of Covent Garden, holding a religious service, had the Oxford Oath tendered to him, and for refusing to take it, was committed a prisoner to the Gatehouse. [Sidenote: 1670.] Of all sufferers the Quakers suffered most, because they were the most persistent and resolute in continuing their meetings; because when officers were on their way to seize them they would not escape; and further, because they would pay no fines, not even gaol fees, nor offer any petition to be set at liberty. Such people occasioned the greatest perplexity to magistrates and the Government, and completely wore out their patience; thus ultimately gaining their own point by an invincible resistance under the form of perfect passivity. The famous trial, in the month of August, 1670, of two friends, William Penn and William Mead, affords an example of the injustice and oppression which this remarkable sect had to endure, and also of the sympathy with them in their wrongs which they inspired in the breasts of their fellow-subjects. These two gentlemen were accused of holding a tumultuous assembly in the public streets, simply because they preached in the open air, and they were fined forty marks each, in consequence of not pulling off their hats in court. The jury returned a verdict to which the court objected, and for persistence in their own course, the jurymen were fined forty marks apiece, and were imprisoned until they should pay the amount. Afterwards they were discharged by writ of Habeas Corpus, their commitments being pronounced, in the Court of Common Pleas, to be totally illegal.[560] [Sidenote: CONVENTICLES.]