Presbyterians. So that if I had then appeared with and amongst them, I had in all likelihood been sent to gaol with them for company, and that under the imputation of a plotter, than which nothing was more contrary to my profession and inclination."

We cannot wonder that Ellwood, contrasting his situation with the peace and liberty enjoyed by William Penn across the Atlantic, should give expression to his feelings in the following lines :

་

TO MY FRIEND IN AMERICA.

I envy not nor grudge the sweet content
I hope thou takest under thy shady tree,

Where many an hour is innocently spent,

From vexing cares, from noise and tumult free,
Where godly meetings are not riots made,
Nor innocents by stratagem betrayed.

But for mine own part, I expect not yet

Such peaceful days, such quiet time to see;

My station in a troublous world is set,
And daily trials still encompass me ;

This is my comfort, that my God is near.
To give me courage, and my spirit cheer.

The blustering winds blow hard, the foaming seas
Raise their proud waves, the surging billows swell;

No human art this tempest can appease;

He's only safe who with the Lord doth dwell.

Though storms and violence should yet increase,
In Him there is security and peace.

XXVII. THE LAST STORMS OF PERSECUTION.

As men the dictates of whose inward sense
Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit
Lures not from what they deem the cause of God.

WE

WORDSWORTH.

E have already seen that the Friends were exposed to great hardships during the period of panic which followed the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683. Seven hundred Friends were imprisoned in England during this year. They regarded it as a special grievance that their peaceable meetings were described in indictments as riots." The word was used with a great degree of latitude of meaning at this time. George Fownes, the eminent Baptist minister of Bristol, was arrested when riding to a meeting, and charged with riot, on which he wittily replied that George and his horse could not commit a riot unless Thomas or William were present to assist.

Amongst the leading gentry in South Bucks at this period was one Sir Dennis Hampson, of Taplow, a justice of the peace, and who, two years later, represented Wycombe in Parliament. This magistrate, on Sunday, July 1st, 1683, rode with a party of horse to Wooburn, and surprised twenty-three men, mostly of humble station, at a Friends' meeting there, and

committed them to Aylesbury Gaol. Their names, as preserved by Ellwood and Besse, were William Woodhouse, William Mason, John Reeve, Thomas Dell, Edward Moore, Stephen Pewsey, Thomas Sexton, Timothy Child, William Sexton, Robert Moore, Richard James, William Aldridge, John Ellis, George Salter, John Smith, William Tanner, William Batchelor, John Dolbin, Andrew Brothers, Richard Baldwin, John Jennings, and Robert Austin. They seem to have come together from a wide area. Thomas Dell and George Salter were yeoman farmers from Hedgerley; William Tanner was from Uxbridge; Richard Baldwin was a maltster of Hedgerley Dean; John Smith was a labourer of Farnham Royal. The others cannot now be traced, but most of the surnames are still familiar in South Bucks.

Eleven days later, the prisoners were indicted for a "riot" at the Quarter Sessions at Buckingham. Hampson did not appear himself, but sent his clerk to represent him. The prisoners demanded an immediate trial, but it was denied them, and they were ordered to give bail, but refused, and handed in a written statement of the reasons of their objection to give bail or fees. They were then remanded to prison till next Quarter Sessions; but "William Woodhouse was again bailed, as he had been before, and William Mason and John Reeve, who not being Friends, but casually taken at that meeting, entered recognizance as the court desired, and so were released till next sessions; before which time Mason died, and Reeve being sick appeared not, but got himself taken off." The rest were brought to

trial in October, and found guilty of a riot, though they had only been "sitting peaceably together without word or motion, and though there was no proclamation made nor they required to depart." One of the jurymen afterwards had the candour to confess that he did not know what a riot was! The prisoners were fined a noble (6s.8d.) each, and on their refusing to pay it, were recommitted to prison during life or the King's pleasure, or until they should pay the fine. Woodhouse was at once discharged, a relation having paid the fine and fees, and soon after Dell and Edward Moore were released in the same way; while Pewsey's fine and fees were paid by the parish in which he lived, to prevent his wife and children from becoming chargeable to the rates. The remaining seventeen continued in prison rather than take a step, simple as it was, which might be construed into an acknowledgment that they had done wrong in meeting to worship God. Month after month passed by, and still their imprisonment continued. On September 26th, 1684, one of them, John Smith, died in prison, and was buried at Jordans. Nearly twelve months later (September 12th, 1685), William Tanner, of Uxbridge, shared his fate, just as Jeffreys was commencing the Bloody Assize in the West of England. Ellwood does not mention the death of these two, but it is recorded by Besse. At last, in 1686, James II. proclaimed a general pardon to the Quakers, and the remainder were set at liberty.

Ellwood's narrative abruptly breaks off at this point, and he does not mention what we learn from other sources, that (apparently as the result of the Wooburn

injustice) he brought out another work called "A Discourse concerning Riots," which was quickly followed by "A Seasonable Dissuasive from Persecution." Both of these works were published in 1683.

The accession of James II. on his brother's death in 1685 only brought at first a heavier trial to most of the Nonconformists, but for the Quakers there was a ray of hope in the fact that the new King was the personal friend of William Penn, who had returned from America, not long before the death of Charles II. James, when Duke of York, had promised his old comrade, Admiral Penn, that he would always be his son's protector and friend, and it is to his credit that, bigoted Romanist though he was, he always kept his promise. It soon became known that Penn had influence with the new King, and his house at Kensington was thronged with petitioners, who sought his aid and intercession at Court. This singular friendship not unnaturally gave rise to suspicion, and Penn was accused of being a Jesuit in disguise. It is with regard to this part of his life that Lord Macaulay has brought some very serious charges against Penn, tending to implicate him in some of the worst cruelties and intrigues of the Court. He has, however, been ably defended by various writers; his influence with James was certainly exercised on behalf of the persecuted, and while he may have taken some regrettable steps under the seductive influence of Court favour, there is reason to think that the worst charges have originated in a confusion between him and George Penne, a lawyer of Bridgewater.