Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/341

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ANNE BRADSTREET.
325

made the Puritan submit to any penalty rather than give up his faith, being the common possession of both.

In an address made to the King, partly aggressive partly apologetic in tone, the wretched story sums itself up in a single paragraph: "Twenty-two have been banished upon pain of death. Three have been martyred, and three have had their right ears cut. One hath been burned in the hand with the letter H. Thirty-one persons have received six hundred and fifty stripes. One was beat while his body was like a jelly. Several were beat with pitched ropes. Five appeals made to England were denied by the rulers of Boston. One thousand, forty-four pounds worth of goods hath been taken from them (being poor men) for meeting together in the fear of the Lord, and for keeping the commands of Christ. One now lieth in iron fetters condemned to die."

That Massachusetts felt herself responsible for not only her own safety but that of her allies, and that this safety appeared to be menaced by a people who recognized few outward laws, was the only palliation of a course which in time showed itself as folly, even to the most embittered. The political consequences were of a nature, of which in their first access of zeal, they had taken no account. The complaints and appeals of the Quakers had at last produced some effect, and there was well-grounded apprehension that the sense of power which had brought the Colony to act with the freedom of an independent state, might result in the loss of some of their most dearly-prized privileges. The Quakers had conquered, and the magistrates suddenly became conscious that such