addition, to be tried by a special jury; though a standing law of the country contained, that none be sentenced to death and banishment, but by a special jury, and a court of assistants; and such a court consisted of seven magistrates at the least. But it was now resolved, to prosecute the Quakers to death; and all this trial, when it came to it, was but, whether they were Quakers? Which they judged by their coming in covered; and that they had been banished out of the country. Now to enter upon this bloody business, the following act was made at a general court, held at Boston, the 20th of October, in this year, 1658. ‘_An Act made at a general court, held at Boston, the 20th of October, 1658._ ‘Whereas there is a pernicious sect, (commonly called Quakers,) lately risen, who by word and writing have published and maintained many dangerous and horrid tenets, and do take upon them to change and alter the received laudable customs of our nation, in giving civil respect to equals, or reverence to superiors, whose actions tend to undermine the civil government, and also to destroy the order of the churches, by denying all established forms of worship, and by withdrawing from orderly church-fellowship, allowed and approved by all orthodox professors of the Truth, and instead thereof, and in opposition thereunto, frequently meeting themselves, insinuating themselves into the minds of the simple, or such as are least affected to the order and government of church and commonwealth, whereby divers of our inhabitants have been infected, notwithstanding all former laws, made upon the experience of their arrogant and bold obtrusions, to disseminate their principles among us, prohibiting their coming in this jurisdiction, they have not been deterred from their impetuous attempts to undermine our peace, and hazard our ruin.