ammunition of the Americans, and dam- the British were pushed farther back. It aged their provisions. Expecting D'Es- was a hot and sultry day, and many taing's speedy return, the Americans had perished by the heat. The action ended marched towards Newport, and when Sul- at 3 P.M., but a sluggish cannonade was

livan found he had gone to Boston, he sent kept up until sunset. On the night of the Lafayette to urge him to return. The 30th Sullivan's army withdrew to the militia began to desert, and Sullivan's main. They had lost about 200 men, and army was reduced to 6,000 men. He felt the British 260. Sullivan made bitter compelled to retreat, and began that move- complaints against D'Estaing, but Conment on the night of the 28th, pursued gress soothed his wounded spirit by comby the British. The Americans made a mending his course. The day after Sulli

stand at Butts's Hill, and, turning, drove van withdrew, the British on Rhode Islthe pursuers back to Quaker Hill, where and were reinforced by 4,000 men from they had strong intrenchments. There a New York, led by General Clinton in severe engagement occurred (Aug. 29), and person.

QUAKERS

Quakers. The sect of "Friends," who that the light of Christ within was God's were called Quakers in derision, was founded at about the middle of the seventeenth century. At first they were called Professors (or Children) of the Light." because of their fundamental principle

gift of salvation-that "Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." It is said that GEORGE FOX (q. v.), the founder of the sect, when brought before magistrates at Derby, England, in 1650,

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told them to "quake before the Lord," disciples was William Penn, who did much when one of them (Gervase Bennet) to alleviate their sufferings. Many died caught up the word "quake," and was in prison or from the effects of imprisonthe first who called the sect Quakers." ment. Grievous fines were imposed, a They were generally known by that name large portion of which went to informers. afterwards. They spread rapidly in Eng- They were insulted by the lower classes; land, and were severely persecuted by the their women and children were dragged by Church and State. At one time there the hair along the streets; their meetingwere 4,000 of them in loathsome prisons houses were robbed of their windows; and, in England. The most prominent of Fox's by order of King Charles and the Arch

bishop of Canterbury, in 1670, their meeting-houses were pulled down; and when they gathered for worship beside the ruins they were beaten over the head by soldiers and dispersed. In this way many were killed outright or disabled for life. Con

Those who first appeared in New England and endured persecution there were fanatical and aggressive, and were not true representatives of the sect in England. They were among the earliest of the disciples of Fox, whose enthusiasm led their judg

ment; and some of them were absolutely lunatics and utterly unlike the sober-minded, mildmannered members

of that society

to day. They ran into the wildest extravagances of speech; openly reviling magistrates and ministers of the Gospel with intemperate language; overriding the rights of all others in maintaining their own; making the most exalted pretensions to the exclusive possession of the gifts of the Holy Spirit; scorned all respect for human laws; mocked the institutions of the country; and two or three fanatical young women outraged decency by appearing without clothing in the churches and in the streets, as emblems of the "unclothed souls of the people "; while others, with loud voices, proclaimed that the wrath of the Almighty was about to fall like destructive lightning upon Boston and Salem. This conduct, and these indecencies, caused the passage of severe laws in Massachusetts against the Quakers.

stables and informers broke into their houses. The value of their property destroyed before the accession of William and Mary (1689) was estimated at $5,000,000. Besides this, they were fined to the amount of over $80,000, and their goods were continually seized because they refused to pay tithes, bear arms, or enroll themselves in the military force of the country. "The purity of their lives, the patience with which they endured insult and persecution (never returning evil for evil), their zeal, their devotedness, and their love for each other often compelled the admiration even of magistrates whose orders oppressed them."

The first of the sect who appeared there were Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, who arrived at Boston from Barbadoes in September (N. S.), 1656. Their trunks were searched, and their books were burned To escape persecution, many of them by the common hangman before they emigrated to the Continent, and some to were allowed to land. Cast into prison, the West Indies and North America. In their persons were stripped in a search for the latter places they found persecutors. body-marks of witches. None were found,

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and they, being mild-mannered women, and a more Christian spirit prevailed. In and innocent, were soon released and ex- Virginia, laws almost as severe as those pelled from Massachusetts as heretics." in Massachusetts were enacted against the Nine other men and women who came Quakers. In Maryland, also, where religfrom London were similarly treated. Oth- ious toleration was professed, they were ers sought martyrdom" in New England punished as vagabonds who persuaded and found it. Some reviled, scolded, and people not to perform required public dudenounced the authorities in Church and ties. In Rhode Island they were not interState, railing at the functionaries from fered with, and those who sought martyrwindows as they passed by. More and dom did not go there. Some of them who more severe were the laws passed against did so disgusted Roger Williams that he the Quakers. They were banished on tried to argue them out of the colony. pain of death. Three of them who returned were led to the scaffold-two young men and Mary Dyer, widow of the secretary of state of Rhode Island. The young were hanged; Mary was reprieved and sent back to Rhode Island. The next spring she returned to Boston, defied the laws, and was hanged. The severity of the laws caused a revulsion in public feeling. True Friends who came stoutly maintained their course with prudence, and were regarded by thoughtful persons as real martyrs for conscience' sake. A Governor Stuyvesant was a strict demand for the repeal of the bloody enact churchman, and guarded, as far as posments caused their repeal in 1661, when sible, the purity of the ritual and docthe fanaticism of both parties subsided trines of the Reformed Dutch Church in

men

In September, 1656, the authorities of Massachusetts addressed to President Arnold, of Rhode Island, an urgent letter, protesting against the toleration of Quakers allowed there, and intimating that, unless it was discontinued, it would be resented by total non-intercourse. There was then very little sympathy felt for the Quakers in Rhode Island, but the authorities refused to persecute them, and Coddington and others afterwards joined them.

New Netherland.

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The

He compelled the Lu- a banished Quaker, who appeared before therans to conform, and did not allow Governor Endicott with his hat on. other sects to take root there. In 1657 incensed governor was about to take the a ship arrived at New Amsterdam, having usual brutal steps to send him to prison, on board several of "the accursed sect after ordering an officer to remove Shatcalled Quakers." They had been banish- tuck's hat, when the latter handed the ed from Boston, and were on their way magistrate the order from the throne. from Barbadoes to Rhode Island, "where Endicott was thunderstruck. He handed all kinds of scum dwell," wrote Dominie back Shattuck's hat and removed his own Megapolenses, "for it is nothing else than in deference to the presence of the King's a sink of New England." Among the messenger. He read the papers, and, diFriends were Dorothy Waugh and Mary recting Shattuck to withdraw, simply reWitherhead. They went from street to marked, We shall obey his Majesty's A hurried conference was street in New Amsterdam, preaching their commands." new doctrine to the gathered people. Stuy- held with the other magistrates and minvesant ordered the women to be seized isters. They dared not send the accused and cast into prison, where, for eight days, persons to England, for they would be they were imprisoned in dirty, vermin- swift witnesses against the authorities of infested cells, with their hands tied be- Massachusetts; so they ordered William hind them, when they were sent on board Sutton, keeper of the Boston jail, to set the ship in which they came, to be trans- all the Quakers free. So ended their ported to Rhode Island. Robert Hodgson, severe persecution in New England; but who determined to remain in New Nether- the magistrates continued for some time land, took up his abode at Hempstead, to whip Quaker men and women, half where a few Quakers were quietly settled. There he held a meeting, and Stuyvesant ordered him to his prison at New Amsterdam. Tied to the tail of a cart wherein sat two young women, offenders like himself, he was driven by a band of soldiers during the night through the woods to the city, where he was imprisoned in "a filthy jail," under sentence of such confinement for two years, to pay a heavy fine, and to have his days spent in hard labor, chained to a wheel-barrow with a negro, who lashed him with a heavy tarred rope. He was subjected to other cruel treatment at the hands of the governor, until the Dutch people, as well as the English, cried "Shame!" There were no other persecutions of the Friends in New Netherland after Hodgson's release.

naked, through the streets of Boston and Salem, until peremptorily forbidden to do so by the King.

After Massachusetts had suspended its laws against Quakers, Parliament made a law (1662) which provided that every five Quakers, meeting for religious worship, should be fined, for the first offence, $25; for the second offence, $50; and for the third offence to abjure the realm on oath, or be transported to the American colonies. Many refused to take the oath, and were transported. By an act of the Virginia legislature, passed in 1662, every master of a vessel who should import a Quaker, unless such as had been shipped from England under the above act, was subjected to a fine of 5,000 lbs. of tobacco for the first offence. Severe laws against other sectaries were passed in Virginia, and many of the Non-conformists in that colony, while Berkeley ruled, fled deep into the wilderness to avoid persecution.

The executions of Mary Dyer in 1660 and William Leddra in 1661, both in Boston, caused an amazing addition to the number of converts to Quakerism. The same year monthly meetings were established in several places in New Eng- Because the Friends refused to perform land, and not long afterwards quarter- military duty or take an oath in Maryland ly meetings were organized. On hearing they were subject to fines and imprisonof the death of Leddra, Charles II. sent ment, but were not persecuted there on acan order to Endicott to stop the perse- count of their religious views. When, in cutions and to send all accused persons 1676, George Fox was in Maryland, his to England for trial. This order was preaching was not hindered. He might sent by the hand of Samuel Shattuck, be seen on the shores of the Chesapeake,