The persecution of Dissenters, commenced before the breaking out of Monmouth’s rebellion, continued to rage, with additional vehemence, after the rebellion had been extinguished. The trade of the informer revived. The spiritual courts overflowed with causes. Ministers were seized, their houses searched, their rooms and closets broken open, and ransacked. The shopkeeper was taken from his business, the farmer from his homestead, husbands were separated from their wives, and parents from their children. The rich were mulcted in heavy fines, or bribes were wrung from them by informers--a present of wine or a few gold pieces being often sacrificed to these harpies, for the sake of escaping imprisonment. The loss of liberty is always an object of terror, but in those days it appeared with horrible aggravations--for dungeons were covered with filth of the most loathsome description; gaolers and turnkeys exercised despotic power, and extorted exorbitant fees; prisoners of all kinds were crowded together to suffocation; fever and pestilence were engendered and nourished; and numbers perished before their trial. It may seem incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that Ellwood the Quaker, and the friend of Milton, when immured in Newgate for his religion, saw the quarters of those who had been executed for treason placed close to the prisoners’ cells, and their heads tossed about like foot-balls.[149] The fear of punishment under such circumstances induced Nonconformists, in their worship, to return to those methods of secrecy and concealment which have been already described. Some proved faithless to their profession, and sought refuge from intolerant cruelty, in the bosom of the Establishment: on the other hand, there were not wanting Episcopalians, who seeing humanity outraged, professedly in support of the Church to which they belonged, left it in disgust, and cast in their lot with the sufferers for conscience’ sake. [Sidenote: 1685.] [Sidenote: PERSECUTION RENEWED.]