Note 73 — Chapter XIV

About this time persecution was very hot, and from estimates deduced from documents of the period, it is probable that, in 1661 or 1662, there were no less than 4,500 Friends in prison, in England and Wales, at one time, for meeting to worship God, refusing to swear, &c. And in such prisons too! They who would know what the miseries of prisoners have been in England, let them read Sewell’s History, which exhibits such a scene of savage persecution on the one hand, and firmness and patience in suffering on the other, as is not easily paralleled. Little known as these things are, it will hardly be credited now, that to such a length was hatred carried against the Quakers, that few of them, except those below the cognizance of the magistrates, were not in prison, at one time or other, for their religious faith.

The interruption of family ties, the breaking up of households, the loss to many of all means of support, were hard and cruel sufferings for conscience’ sake, but they were grievously aggravated at this period by the damp and filthy condition of the prisons, holes, and dungeons in which the sufferers were confined, as well as by their very crowded condition. And to all these circumstances of trial, must be added those of personal abuse, fines, distraints, and, it may strictly be said, of wholesale robberies they endured. Some died of the beatings which they received in the breaking up of their meetings, and many from the filthy and close state of the prisons, in some of which they were so closely packed that they had to take it by turns to stand up, whilst others sat or lay down. They were also often overrun with lice and other vermin.