That night I was kept prisoner at the Marshalsea; and the next morning by the sixth hour I was delivered to Captain Drury. I desired that he would let me speak with Colonel Hacker before I went; and he took me to his bedside. Colonel Hacker again admonished me to go home, and keep no more meetings. I told him I could not submit to that; but must have my liberty to serve God, and to go to meetings. "Then," said he, "you must go before the Protector." Thereupon I kneeled at his bedside, and besought the Lord to forgive him; for he was as Pilate, though he would wash his hands; and I bade him remember, when the day of his misery and trial should come upon him, what I had said to him. But he was stirred up and set on by Stephens,[74] and the other priests and professors, wherein their envy and baseness was manifest. When they could not overcome me by disputes and arguments, nor resist the Spirit of the Lord that was in me, they got soldiers to take me up. [74] This is the minister of Drayton, who said "there was never such a plant bred in England" as George Fox. Afterwards, when Colonel Hacker was imprisoned in London, a day or two before his execution, he was put in mind of what he had done against the innocent; and he remembered it, and confessed it to Margaret Fell, saying he knew well whom she meant; and he had trouble upon him for it. Now I was carried up a prisoner by Captain Drury from Leicester; and when we came to Harborough he asked me if I would go home and stay a fortnight? I should have my liberty, he said, if I would not go to, nor keep meetings. I told him I could not promise any such thing. Several times upon the road did he ask and try me after the same manner, and still I gave him the same answers. So he brought me to London, and lodged me at the Mermaid[AC] over against the Mews at Charing-Cross. [AC] This was not the famous "Mermaid" of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. As we travelled I was moved of the Lord to warn people at the inns and places where I came of the day of the Lord that was coming upon them. William Dewsbury and Marmaduke Storr being in prison at Northampton, Captain Drury let me go and visit them. After Captain Drury had lodged me at the Mermaid, he left me there, and went to give the Protector an account of me. When he came to me again, he told me that the Protector required that I should promise not to take up a carnal sword or weapon against him or the government, as it then was, and that I should write it in what words I saw good, and set my hand to it. I said little in reply to Captain Drury.