Others have been moved to go in sackcloth, and to denounce the woes and vengeance of God against the pride and haughtiness of the people; but few regarded it. And in the other power's days, the wicked, envious, and professing priests, put up several petitions both to Oliver and Richard, called Protectors, and to the Parliaments, judges and justices, against us, full of lies, vilifying words and slanders; but we got copies of them, and, through the Lord's assistance, answered them all, and cleared the Lord's truth and ourselves of them. But oh! the body of darkness that rose against the Truth in them that made lies their refuge! But the Lord swept them away; and in and with His power, truth, light, and life, hedged his lambs about, and preserved them as on eagles' wings. Therefore we all had, and have, great encouragement to trust the Lord, who, we saw by His power and Spirit, overturned and brought to naught all the confederacies and counsels that were hatched in darkness against His Truth and people; and by the same truth gave His people dominion, that therein they might serve Him. Indeed, I could not but take notice how the hand of the Lord turned against the persecutors who had been the cause of my imprisonment, or had been abusive or cruel to me in it. The officer that fetched me to Holker-Hall wasted his estate, and soon after fled into Ireland. Most of the justices that were upon the bench at the sessions when I was sent to prison, died in a while after; as old Thomas Preston, Rawlinson, Porter, and Matthew West, of Borwick. Justice Fleming's wife died, and left him thirteen or fourteen motherless children. Colonel Kirby never prospered after. The chief constable, Richard Dodgson, died soon after, and Mount, the petty constable, and the wife of the other petty constable, John Ashburnham, who railed at me in her house, died soon after. William Knipe, the witness they brought against me, died soon after also. Hunter, the jailer of Lancaster, who was very wicked to me while I was his prisoner, was cut off in his young days; and the under-sheriff that carried me from Lancaster prison towards Scarborough, lived not long after. And Joblin, the jailer of Durham, who was prisoner with me in Scarborough Castle, and had often incensed the Governor and soldiers against me, though he got out of prison, yet the Lord cut him off in his wickedness soon after. When I came into that country again, most of those that dwelt in Lancashire were dead, and others ruined in their estates; so that, though I did not seek revenge upon them for their actings against me contrary to the law, yet the Lord had executed His judgments upon many of them. CHAPTER XVII. At the Work of Organizing. 1667-1670. I then visited Friends till I came to York, where we had a large meeting. After this I went to visit Justice Robinson, an ancient justice of the peace, who had been very loving to me and Friends from the beginning.