Note 30 — Chapter V

This George Wilson, at whose house George Fox was entertained, is not mentioned elsewhere in the Journal. He was originally from Great Britain, and a great sufferer for the truth during the New England persecution. In 1661, it appears he was amongst twenty-seven other Friends in prison in Boston, who were liberated that year by an order from the home government. But these faithful messengers of the Lord, who were thus unexpectedly released from bondage, were concerned, almost immediately on leaving the jail, to preach to the inhabitants those truths for which they had suffered. The magistrates, already at their wits’-end, in fruitlessly endeavouring to arrest the spread of Quaker principles, being impatient at this fresh manifestation of devotedness, ordered a guard of soldiers to drive all the Friends out of their territory into the wilderness; an order which was speedily executed. George Wilson was among those who were thus forcibly expelled; but, undismayed by the new law for the application of the whip, they returned at once to their homes. There they were quickly apprehended, and sentenced to undergo a flogging through three towns, and to be put out of the limits of the colony. The executioner, desirous of lending his ingenuity to increase the severity of the sentence, provided himself with a singularly constructed whip, or as it is called, a “cruel instrument,” with which he “miserably tore” the bodies of the sufferers. Such was the new and barbarous character of the weapon used on this occasion, that Friends endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to obtain it to send to England, as another proof of the malignant cruelty which actuated the rulers of Massachusetts towards the new Society. At the conclusion of this whipping at Boston, George Wilson, in the midst of his persecutors, knelt in solemn supplication to the Most High.

Being on a gospel mission in Virginia, George Wilson became a victim to the reigning intolerance, and was incarcerated in the dungeon at James’ Town. The circumstances of his case evinced great barbarity on the part of his persecutors. The place of his imprisonment was an extremely loathsome one, without light or ventilation. Here, after being cruelly scourged and heavily ironed for a long period, he had to feel the heartlessness of a persecuting and dominant hierarchy; until, at last, his flesh actually rotted from his bones, and, within the cold damp walls of the miserable dungeon of James’ Town, he laid down his life a faithful martyr for the testimony of Jesus.

The patience and resignation with which George Wilson bore his aggravated sufferings, and his faithfulness unto death, form a striking instance of the inflexible adherence to conscientious conviction, which so remarkably characterized the early Friends. Living near to Him who is the fountain and fulness of love, his enemies also became the objects of his solicitude; and, whilst lingering in the wretched dungeon, his heart was lifted up in prayer for his persecutors. “For all their cruelty,” he writes, “I can truly say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”—Bowden’s History of Friends in America.