they were such great professors (for they were independents and presbyterians) they were without the possession of that which they professed. So after a large examination they committed me to prison as a blasphemer, an heretic, and a seducer; though they could not justly charge any such thing against me. The jail at Carlisle had two jailers, an upper and an under, which looked like two great bear-wards. Now when I was brought in, the upper jailer had me up into a great chamber, and told me I should have what I would in that room; but I told him he should not expect any money from me, for I would neither lie in any of his beds, nor eat any of his victuals. Then he put me into another room, where after awhile 1 got something to lie upon. There I lay till the assizes came; and then all the talk and cry was that I was to be hanged. And the high sheriff, whose name was Wilfrey Lawson, stirred them much up to take away my life, and said he would guard me to my execution himself. They were in a black, dark rage, and set three musketeers for guard upon me, one at my chamber door, another at the stairs foot, and a third at the street door: and none they would let come at me, except one sometimes, to bring me some necessary things. At night they would bring up priests to me, sometimes as late as the tenth hour in the night; and they would be exceeding rude and devilish. There were a company of bitter Scotch priests, presbyterians, made up of envy and malice, who were not fit to speak of the things of God, they were so foul-mouthed: but the Lord, by his power, gave me dominion over them all, and I let them see both their fruits and their spirits. Great ladies' also (as they were called) came to see the man that they said was to die. Now, while both the judge, justices, and sheriff, were contriving together how they might put me to death, the Lord disappointed their design by an unexpected way; for the judge's clerk (as I was informed) started a question among them, which confounded all their counsels: so that after that they had not power to call me before the judge.

Anthony Pearson being then in Carlisle, and perceiving that they did not intend to bring me (as was expected) upon my trial, he writ a letter to the judges, directed as followeth :

To the Judges of Assize and Jail-delivery for the Northern Parts, sitting at Carlisle.

"You are raised up to do righteousness and justice, and

sent forth to punish him that doth evil, and to encourage him that doth well, and to set the oppressed free. I am therefore moved to lay before you the condition of him, who is called George Fox, whom the magistrates of this city have cast into prison, for words that he is accused to have spoken, which they call blasphemy. He was sent to the jail, till he should be delivered by due course of law; and it was expected he should have been proceeded against in the common law-course at this assizes. The informations against him were delivered into court; and the act allows and appoints that way of trial. How hardly and unchristianly he hath been hitherto dealt with, I shall not now mention; but you may consider, that nothing he is accused of is nice and difficult. And, to my knowledge, he utterly abhors and detests every particular, which by the act against blasphemous opinions is appointed to be punished; and differs as much from those people against whom the law was made, as light from darkness. Though he be committed, judgment is not given against him; nor have his accusers been face to face, to affirm before him what they have informed against him: nor was he heard as to the particulars of their accusations: nor doth it appear, that any word they charge against him is within the act. But, indeed, I could not yet so much as see the information, no, not in court, though I desired it both of the clerk of the assizes and of the magistrates' clerk: nor hath he had a copy of them. This is very hard: and that he should be so close restrained, that his friends may not speak with him, I know no law nor reason for. I do therefore claim for him a due and lawful hearing, and that he may have a copy of his charge, and freedom to answer for himself; and that rather before you, than to be left to the rulers of this town, who are not competent judges of blasphemy; as by their mittimus appears, who have committed him upon an act of parliament; and mention words as spoken by him at his examination, which are not within the act, and which he utterly denies. The words mentioned in the mittimus he denies to have spoken; and hath neither professed nor avowed them.'

Anthony Pearson.

But notwithstanding this letter, the judges were resolved not to suffer me to be brought before them; but reviling and scoffing at me behind my back, left me to the magisstrates of the town; giving them what encouragement they could to exercise their cruelty upon me. Whereupon (though I had been kept up so close in the jailer's house

that friends were not suffered to come at me, and colonel Benson and justice Pearson were denied to see me, yet) the next day, after the judges were gone out of town, an order was sent to the jailer to put me down into the dungeon amongst the moss-troopers, thieves, and murderers, which accordingly he did. A filthy nasty place it was, where men and women were put together in a very uncivil manner, and never a house of office to it; and the prisoners so lousy that one woman was almost eaten to death with lice. Yet, as bad as the place was, the prisoners were all made very loving and subject to me; and some of them were convinced of the truth, as the publicans and harlots were of old; so that they were able to confound a priest, that might come to the grates to dispute. But the jailer was very cruel, and the under-jailer very abusive to me and to friends that came to see ine; for he would beat friends with a great cudgel, that did but come to the window to look in upon me. I could get up to the grate, where sometimes I took in my meat, at which the jailer was often offended. One time he came in a great rage, and fell a beating me with a great cudgel, though I was not at the grate at that time; and as he beat me, he cried, Come out of the window,' though I was then far enough from it. Now, while he struck me, I was made to sing in the Lord's power, and that made him rage the more. Then he went and fetched a fiddler, and brought him in where I was, and set him to play, thinking to vex me thereby; but while he played, I was moved in the everlasting power of the Lord God to sing; and my voice drowned the noise of the fiddle, and struck and confounded them, and made them give over fiddling and go their ways.

Justice Benson's wife was moved of the Lord to come to visit me, and to eat no meat but what she eat with me at the bars of the dungeon window. She was afterwards herself imprisoned at York, when she was great with child, for speaking to a priest; and was kept in prison, and not suffered to go out, when the time of her travail was come; so she was delivered of her child in the prison. She was an honest tender woman, and continued faithful to the truth until she died.

Whilst I was in the dungeon at Carlisle, one James Parnel, a little lad of about sixteen years of age came to see me, and was convinced: and the Lord quickly made him a powerful minister of the word of life, and many were turned to Christ by him; though he lived not long for travelling into Essex, in the work of the ministry, in the year 1655, he was committed to Colchester castle, where VOL. 1.

he endured very great hardships and sufferings, being put by the cruel jailer into a hole in the castle-wall, called the oven, so high from the ground, that he went up to it by a ladder; which being six feet too short, he was fain to climb from the ladder to the hole by a rope that was fastened above. And when friends would have given him a cord and a basket, to have drawn up his victuals in, the inhuman jailer would not suffer them, but forced him to go down and up by that short ladder and rope, to fetch his victuals, (which for a long time he did) or else he might have famished in the hole. At length, his limbs being much benumbed with lying in that place, yet being constrained to go down to take up some victuals, as he came up the ladder again with his victuals in one hand, and catched at the rope with the other, he missed the rope, and fell down from a very great height upon the stones; by which fall he was exceedingly wounded in his head and arms, and his body much bruised; and he died in a short time after. And when he was dead, the wicked professors, to cover their own cruelty, writ a book of him, and said he fasted himself to death; which was an abominable falsehood, and was manifested so to be by another book, which was written in answer to that, and was called The Lamb's Defence against lies.'

Now when I saw that I was not like to be brought forth to a public hearing and trial (although I had before answered in writing the particular matters charged against me, at the time of my first examination and commitment) I was moved to send forth the following paper, as a public challenge to all those, that did belie the truth and me behind my back, to come forth and make good their charge.

'If any in Westmoreland, or Cumberland, or elsewhere, that profess Christianity, and pretend to love God and Christ, are not satisfied concerning the things of God, which I, who am called George Fox, have spoken and declared, let them declare and publish their dissatisfaction in writing, and not back-bite, nor lie, nor persecute, in secret: this I demand of you all in the presence of the living God, as ye will answer it to him. For the exaltation of the truth, and the confounding of the deceit, is this given forth: to that of God in your consciences I speak; declare or write your dissatisfactions to any of them whom you call Quakers, that truth may be exalted, and all may come to the light, with which Christ hath enlightened every one that cometh into the world: that nothing may be hid in darkness, in prisons, holes, or corners, but that all things

may be brought to the light of Christ, and by the light of Christ may be tried. This am I moved of the Lord to write, and send forth to be set upon the market-crosses in Westmoreland, and elsewhere. To the light of Christ in you I speak, that none of you may speak evil of the things of God, which you know not; nor act contrary to the light, that gave forth the scriptures; lest you be found fighters against God, and the hand of the Lord be turned against you.' G. F.

While I thus lay in the dungeon at Carlisle, the report that was raised at the time of the assize, that I should be put to death, was gone out far and near; insomuch that the parliament then sitting (which, I think, was called the little parliament) hearing, that a young man at Carlisle was to die for religion, caused a letter to be sent down to the sheriff and magistrates concerning me. And much

about the same time I wrote also to the justices at Carlisle, that had cast me into prison, and that persecuted friends at the instigation of the priests for tithes, expostulating the matter with them thus:

Friends, Thomas Craston and Cuthbert Studholm, "Your noise is gone up to London before the sober people what imprisoning, what gagging, what havock and spoiling the goods of people have you made within these few years, unlike men; as though you had never read the scriptures, or had not minded them! Is this the end of Carlisle's religion; is this the end of your ministry; and is this the end of your church, and of your profession of Christianity? you have shamed it by your folly and madness, and blind zeal. Was it not always the work of the blind guides, watchmen, leaders, and false prophets, to prepare war against them that would not put into their mouths? And have not you been the priests' pack-horses and executioners? When they spur you up, to bear the sword against the just, do not you run on against the creatures, that cannot hold up such, as the scriptures did always testify against? Yet will you lift up your unholy hands, and call upon God with your polluted lips, and pretend a fast, who are full of strife and debate. Did your hearts never burn within you? Did you never come to question your conditions? Are you wholly given up to do the devil's lusts, to persecute? Where is your loving enemies? Where is your entertaining strangers? Where is your overcoming evil with good? Where are your teachers