The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers: Intermixed with Several Remarkable Occurrencs.Sewel, William
History
The History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers: Intermixed with Several Remarkable Occurrencs.
Sewel, William
Society of Friends -- History -- Early works to 1800
After consultation, the
jury had nothing to lay to his charge, but a paper in which he had
answered the mittimus, though he had already owned this paper to be his
writing. But in that they were at a loss, because in the indictment
he was accused of a riot: yet the judge and the clerk strove to draw
some words from the foreman, which the other jurymen did not consent
to, and he himself was unwilling to answer fully to their questions.
Then J. Parnel was made to withdraw; and being called in again, the
judge fined him to the value of about forty pounds, for contempt of the
magistracy and ministry; for he said the lord protector had charged him
to punish such persons as should contemn either magistracy or ministry.
Thereupon J. Parnel was carried back again to the prison, being an old
ruinous castle, built as it is reported, in the time of the ancient
Romans: here he was to be kept until the fine should be paid: and the
jailer was commanded, not to let any giddy-headed people, (by which
denomination they meant his friends,) come at him.
The jailer was willing enough to comply with this order, suffering none
to come to him, but such as abused him; and his wife, who was a wicked
shrew, did not only set her man to beat him, but several times herself
laid violent hands upon him, and swore she would have his blood: she
also set other prisoners to take away the victuals brought to him by
his friends; and would not let him have a trundle bed, which they would
have brought him to lie on, so that he was forced to lie on the cold
and damp stones. Afterwards he was put into the hole in the wall, a
room much like a baker’s oven; for the walls of that building, which is
indeed a direful nest, are of an excessive thickness, as I have seen
myself, having been in the hole where this pious young man ended his
days, as will be said by and by. Being confined in the said hole, which
was, as I remember, about twelve feet high from the ground, and the
ladder too short by six feet; he must climb up and down by a rope on a
broken wall, which he was forced to do to fetch his victuals, or for
other necessities: for though his friends would have given him a cord
and a basket to draw up his victuals in, yet such was the malice of his
keepers, that they would not suffer it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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