“O! the number of sufferers in the Commonwealth’s and Oliver Cromwell’s days, and since; especially those who were haled before the courts for not paying tithes, refusing to swear on their juries, not putting off their hats, and for going to meetings on the First-days; under pretence of breaking the Sabbath; and to meetings on other days of the week: who were abused both in meetings and on the highways. “O! how great were the sufferings we then sustained upon these accounts! for sometimes they would drive Friends by droves into the prison-houses like penfolds, confine them on the First-days, and take their horses from them, and keep them for pretended breach of their Sabbath, though they would ride in their coaches and upon their fat horses to the steeple-houses themselves, and yet punish others. And many Friends were turned out of their copyholds and customary tenements, because, in obedience to the command of Christ and his apostle, they could not swear; and as they went to meetings, they have been stoned through the streets, and otherwise cruelly abused. Many were fined with great fines, and lay long in prison for not putting off their hats, which fines Friends could never pay, though they kept them in prison till they had satisfied their own wills, and at last turned them out, after keeping them a year or more in prison. “Many books I gave forth against tithes, showing how the priesthood was changed that took them; and that Christ sent forth his twelve, and afterwards seventy disciples, saying unto them, ‘Freely ye have received, freely give.’ So all who do not obey the doctrine and command of Christ therein, we cannot receive them. “I was also moved to give forth several books against swearing, and that our Yea and Nay might be taken instead of an oath, which, if we broke, let us suffer the same punishment as they who broke their oaths. And in Jamaica the governor and the assembly granted the thing; it is also granted in some other places; and several of the parliament men in England have acknowledged the reasonableness thereof. The magistrates, after some time, when they saw our faithfulness in Yea and Nay, they who were moderate, both before and since the king came in, would put Friends into offices without an oath; but the cruel and envious would fine Friends to get money of them, though they could not pay them any.