that he should go to meetings, as the Lord should order him; and that therefore he could not submit to their requirings: and having further added, that he and his friends were a peaceable people: the colonel said, ‘Well then, I will send you to-morrow morning by six o’clock, to my lord Protector, by captain Drury, one of his life-guard.’ The next morning, about the appointed time, he was delivered to captain Drury. Then G. Fox desired he would let him speak with the colonel, before he went; and so the captain brought him to the colonel’s bed-side, who again bade him go home and keep no more meetings. But G. Fox told him he could not submit to that; but must have his liberty to serve God, and go to meetings. ‘Then,’ said the colonel, ‘you must go before the Protector.’ Whereupon G. Fox kneeled on his bed-side, and prayed the Lord to forgive him: since, according to his judgment, he was as Pilate, though he would wash his hands; (for he was stirred up and set on by the priests,) and therefore George bade him, when the day of his misery and trial should come upon him, then to remember what he had said to him. Far was it now from Needham, who would have had G. Fox cut off, to think that one time this would befal his father, in an ignominious manner, at Tyburn. But what afterwards happened, when he was condemned as one of the judges of King Charles the First, will be related in its due place. G. Fox then having left colonel Hacker, was carried prisoner by captain Drury to London; where the captain went to give the Protector an account of him; and coming again, he told G. Fox, the Protector did require, that he should promise, not to take up a carnal sword or weapon against him, or the government as it then was: and that he should write this in what words he saw good, and set his hand to it. G. Fox considering this, next morning writ a paper to the Protector, by the name of Oliver Cromwell, wherein he did in the presence of God declare, that he denied the wearing or drawing of a carnal sword, or any outward weapon, against him, or any man: and that he was sent of God to stand a witness against all violence, and against the works of darkness; and to turn people from darkness to the light, and to bring them from the occasion of war and fighting, to the peaceable gospel; and from being evil-doers, which the magistrates sword should be a terror to. Having writ this, he set his name to it, and gave it to captain Drury, who delivered it to Oliver Cromwell; and after some time returning to the Mermaid, near Charing-cross, where G. Fox was lodged, he carried him to Whitehall, and brought him before the Protector who was not yet dressed, it being pretty early in the morning. G. F. coming in, said, ‘Peace be in this house,’ and bid the Protector keep in the fear of God, that he might receive wisdom from him; that by it he might be ordered, and with it might order all things under his hands to God’s glory.