During his absence from Swarthmoor he vigilantly watched over his wife's interests, and took measures to protect her from the persecutions of some of the neighbouring clergy and magistrates. Thus, in a letter written from London on the 8th August, 1681, he says:--"Dearly Beloved,--There is a rumour here that one of the Justice Kirkbys (but which I cannot tell) took one of our fat oxen and killed him for his own table, in his own house, which ox was destrained and taken away from thee on account of your meeting at Swarthmoor. Now of the truth of this I desire to know, and, with a witness or two, to prove it; for justices of peace do not deny appeals here." And he concludes with the words: "Therefore, sweetheart, I do entreat thee to let me soon know the truth of all these things, and what thou writes let it be proved by witnesses." It was in the same year that Fox and his wife were sued in the Cartmel Wapentake Court for the small tithes of the Swarthmoor Hall estate; he demurred to the jurisdiction of the court, when the plaintiffs carried the suit into the Exchequer Court at Westminster, where, he says, "they ran us up a writ of rebellion for not answering the bill upon oath, and got an order from the sergeant to take me and my wife into custody." In his answer to the plaintiffs' bill he stated that his wife had lived forty-three years at Swarthmoor Hall, and that during all that time no tithes had been either paid or demanded. Other proofs were given, but the answer could not be received without an oath, which the uncompromising Quaker would not take, and so, he says, "the court granted a sequestration against me and my wife together. Thereupon, by advice of counsel, we moved for a limitation, which was granted, and that much defeated our adversary's design in suing out the sequestration, for this limited the plaintiff from taking no more than was proved." On the same occasion William Mead, who had married one of Judge Fell's daughters, bore testimony to Fox's disinterested conduct, and informed the court that "he had before marriage engaged himself not to meddle with his wife's estate;" a statement the judges could scarcely credit until the documents in proof of it were produced.