It so fell out that some of the lieutenants (of whom Esquire Clark, who committed me, was one) were standing in the balcony at a great inn or tavern, just over the place where I was to go by; and he spying me, called out to the soldiers, who stood thick in the street, to stop me. They being generally gentlemen’s servants, and many of them knowing me, did civilly forbear to lay hold on me, but calling modestly after me, said, “Stay, sir, stay; pray come back.” I heard, but was not willing to hear, therefore rather mended my pace, that I might have got within the door. But he calling earnestly after me, and charging them to stop me, some of them were fain to run, and laying hold on me before I could open the door, brought me back to my place again. Being thus disappointed, I took a pen and ink, and wrote a few lines, which I sealed up, and gave to the apprentice in the shop, who had carried himself handsomely towards me, and desired him to deliver it to that Friend who was their neighbour, which he promised to do. By the time I had done this came the soldier that was appointed to conduct me out of town. I knew the man, for he lived within a mile of me, being, through poverty, reduced to keep an alehouse; but he had lived in better fashion, having kept an inn at Thame, and by that means knew how to behave himself civilly, and did so to me. He told me he was ordered to wait on me to Wheatley, and to tarry there at such an inn, until Esquire Clark came thither, who would then take me home with him in his coach. Accordingly to Wheatley we walked (which is from Oxford some four or five miles), and long we had not been there before Clark and a great company of men came in. He alighted, and stayed awhile to eat and drink (though he came but from Oxford), and invited me to eat with him; but I, though I had need enough, refused it; for indeed their conversation was a burthen to my life, and made me often think of and pity good Lot. He seemed, at that time, to be in a sort of mixed temper, between pleasantness and sourness. He would sometimes joke (which was natural to him), and cast out a jesting flirt at me; but he would rail maliciously against the Quakers. “If” said he to me, “the King would authorise me to do it, I would not leave a Quaker alive in England, except you. I would make no more,” added he, “to set my pistol to their ears and shoot them through the head, than I would to kill a dog.” I told him I was sorry he had so ill an opinion of the Quakers, but I was glad he had no cause for it, and I hoped he would be of a better mind. I had in my hand a little walking-stick with a head on it, which he commended, and took out of my hand to look at it; but I saw his intention was to search it, whether it had a tuck in it, for he tried to have drawn the head; but when he found it was fast he returned it to me.