Part 26

About this time, as I remember, it was that some bickerings happening between some Baptists and some of the people called Quakers, in or about High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, occasioned by some reflecting words a Baptist preacher had publicly uttered in one of their meetings there, against the Quakers in general, and William Penn in particular, it came at length to this issue, that a meeting for a public dispute was appointed, to be holden at West Wycombe, between Jeremy Ives, who espoused his brother’s cause, and William Penn.

To this meeting, it being so near me, I went, rather to countenance the cause than for any delight I took in such work; for indeed I have rarely found the advantage equivalent to the trouble and danger arising from those contests; for which cause I would not choose them, as, being justly engaged, I would not refuse them.

The issue of this proved better than I expected; for Ives, having undertaken an ill cause, to argue against the Divine light and universal grace conferred by God on all men, when he had spent his stock of arguments which he brought with him on that subject, finding his work go on heavily and the auditory not well satisfied, stepped down from his seat and departed, with purpose to have broken up the assembly. But, except some few of his party who followed him, the people generally stayed, and were the more attentive to what was afterwards delivered amongst them; which Ives understanding, came in again, and in an angry, railing manner, expressing his dislike that we went not all away when he did, gave more disgust to the people.

After the meeting was ended, I sent to my friend Isaac Penington, by his son and servant, who returned home, though it was late, that evening, a short account of the business in the following distich:—

Prævaluit veritas: inimnici terga dedere; Nos sumus in tuto; laus tribuenda Deo.

Which may be thus Englished:

Truth hath prevailed; the enemies did fly; We are in safety; praise to God on high.

But both they and we had quickly other work found us: it soon became a stormy time. The clouds had been long gathering and threatening a tempest. The Parliament had sat some time before, and hatched that unaccountable law which was called the Conventicle Act; if that may be allowed to be called a law, by whomsoever made, which was so directly contrary to the fundamental laws of England, to common justice, equity, and right reason, as this manifestly was. For,

First, It broke down and overrun the bounds and banks anciently set for the defence and security of Englishmen’s lives, liberties, and properties—viz., trial by juries; instead thereof, directing and authorizing justices of the peace, and that too privately out of sessions, to convict, fine, and by their warrants distrain upon offenders against it; directly contrary to the Great Charter.

Secondly, By that Act the informers, who swear for their own advantage, as being thereby entitled to a third part of the fines, were many times concealed, driving on an underhand private trade; so that men might be, and often were, convicted and fined, without having any notice or knowledge of it till the officers came and took away their goods, nor even then could they tell by whose evidence they were convicted; than which what could be more opposite to common justice, which requires that every man should be openly charged and have his accuser face to face, that he might both answer for himself before he be convicted, and object to the validity of the evidence given against him?

Thirdly, By that Act the innocent were punished for the offences of the guilty. If the wife or child was convicted of having been at one of those assemblies which by that Act was adjudged unlawful, the fine was levied on the goods of the husband or father of such wife or child, though he was neither present at such assembly, nor was of the same religious persuasion that they were of, but perhaps an enemy to it.

Fourthly, It was left in the arbitrary pleasure of the justices to lay half the fine for the house or ground where such assembly was holden, and half the fine for a pretended unknown preacher, and the whole fines of such and so many of the meeters as they should account poor, upon any other or others of the people who were present at the same meeting, not exceeding a certain limited sum; without any regard to equity or reason. And yet, such blindness doth the spirit of persecution bring on men, otherwise sharp-sighted enough, that this unlawful, unjust, unequal, unreasonable, and unrighteous law took place in almost all places, and was rigorously prosecuted against the meetings of Dissenters in general, though the brunt of the storm fell most sharply on the people called Quakers; not that it seemed to be more particularly levelled at them, but that they stood more fair, steady, and open, as a butt to receive all the shot that came, while some others found means and freedom to retire to coverts for shelter.

No sooner had the bishops obtained this law for suppressing all other meetings but their own, but some of the clergy of most ranks, and some others too who were overmuch bigoted to that party, bestirred themselves with might and main to find out and encourage the most profligate wretches to turn informers, and to get such persons into parochial offices as would be most obsequious to their commands, and ready at their beck to put it into the most rigorous execution. Yet it took not alike in all places, but some were forwarder in the work than others, according as the agents intended to be chiefly employed therein had been predisposed thereunto.

For in some parts of the nation care had been timely taken, by some not of the lowest rank, to choose out some particular persons—men of sharp wit, close countenances, pliant tempers, and deep dissimulation—and send them forth among the sectaries, so called, with instructions to thrust themselves into all societies, conform to all or any sort of religious profession, Proteus-like change their shapes, and transform themselves from one religious appearance to another as occasion should require. In a word, to be all things to all—not that they might win some, but that they might, if possible, ruin all; at least many.

The drift of this design was, that they who employed them might by this means get a full account what number of Dissenters’ meetings, of every sort, there were in each county, and where kept; what number of persons frequented them, and of what rank; who amongst them were persons of estate, and where they lived; that when they should afterwards have troubled the waters, they might the better know where with most advantage to cast their nets.

He of these emissaries whose post was assigned him in this county of Bucks adventured to thrust himself upon a Friend under the counterfeit appearance or a Quaker, but being by the Friend suspected, and thereupon dismissed unentertained, he was forced to betake himself to an inn or alehouse for accommodation. Long he had not been there ere his unruly nature, not to be long kept under by the curb of a feigned society, broke forth into open profaneness; so true is that of the poet,

Naturam expellas furca licet, usque recurret.

To fuddling now falls he with those whom he found tippling there before, and who but he amongst them in him was then made good the proverb, in vino veritas, for in his cups he out with that which was no doubt to have been kept a secret. ’Twas to his pot companions that, after his head was somewhat heated with strong liquors, he discovered that he was sent forth by Dr. Mew, the then Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, on the design before related, and under the protection of Justice Morton, a warrant under whose hand and seal he there produced.

Sensible of his error too late, when sleep had restored him to some degree of sense, and discouraged with this ill success of his attempt upon the Quakers, he quickly left that place, and crossing through the country, cast himself among the Baptists at a meeting which they held in a private place, of which the over-easy credulity of some that went among them, whom he had craftily insinuated himself into, had given him notice. The entertainment he found amongst them deserved a better return than he made them; for, having smoothly wrought himself into their good opinion, and cunningly drawn some of them into an unwary openness and freedom of conversation with him upon the unpleasing subject of the severity of those times, he most villainously impeached one of them, whose name was — Headach, a man well reputed amongst his neighbours, of having spoken treasonable words, and thereby brought the man in danger of losing both his estate and life, had not a seasonable discovery of his abominable practices elsewhere, imprinting terror, the effect of guilt, upon him, caused him to fly both out of the court and country at that very instant of time when the honest man stood at the bar ready to be arraigned upon his false accusation.

This his false charge against the Baptist left him no further room to play the hypocrite in those parts; off therefore go his cloak and vizor. And now he openly appears in his proper colours, to disturb the assemblies of God’s people, which was indeed the very end for which the design at first was laid.

But because the law provided that a conviction must be grounded upon the oaths of two witnesses, it was needful for him, in order to the carrying on his intended mischief, to find out an associate who might be both sordid enough for such an employment and vicious enough to be his companion.

This was not an easy task, yet he found out one who had already given an experiment of his readiness to take other men’s goods, being not long before released out of Aylesbury gaol, where he very narrowly escaped the gallows for having stolen a cow.

The names of these fellows being yet unknown in that part of the country where they began their work, the former, by the general voice of the country, was called the Trepan; the latter, the Informer, and from the colour of his hair Red-hair. But in a little time the Trepan called himself John Poulter, adding withal that Judge Morton used to call him John for the King, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury had given him a deaconry. That his name was indeed John Poulter, the reputed son of one — Poulter, a butcher in Salisbury, and that he had long since been there branded for a fellow egregiously wicked and debauched, we were assured by the testimony of a young man then living in Amersham, who both was his countryman and had known him in Salisbury, as well as by a letter from an inhabitant of that place, to whom his course of life had been well known.

His comrade, who for some time was only called the Informer, was named Ralph Lacy, of Risborough, and surnamed the Cow-stealer.

These agreed between themselves where to make their first onset, which was to be, and was, on the meeting of the people called Quakers, then holden at the house of William Russell, called Jourdan’s, in the parish of Giles Chalfont, in the county of Bucks; that which was wanting to their accommodation was a place of harbour, for assistance wherein recourse was had to Parson Philips, none being so ready, none so willing, none so able to help them as he.

A friend he had in a corner, a widow woman, not long before one of his parishioners; her name was Anne Dell, and at that time she lived at a farm called Whites, a bye-place in the parish of Beaconsfield, whither she removed from Hitchindon. To her these fellows were recommended by her old friend the parson. She with all readiness received them; her house was at all times open to them; what she had was at their command.

Two sons she had at home with her, both at man’s estate. The younger son, whose name was John Dell, listed himself in the service of his mother’s new guests, to attend on them as their guide, and to inform them (who were too much strangers to pretend to know the names of any of the persons there) whom they should inform against.

Thus consorted, thus in a triple league confederated, on the 24th day of the fifth month, commonly called July, in the year 1670, they appeared openly, and began to act their intended tragedy upon the Quakers’ meeting at the place aforesaid, to which I belonged, and at which I was present. Here the chief actor, Poulter, behaved himself with such impetuous violence and brutish rudeness as gave occasion for inquiry who or what he was? And being soon discovered to be the Trepan, so infamous and abhorred by all sober people, and afterwards daily detected of gross impieties and the felonious taking of certain goods from one of Brainford, whom also he cheated of money—these things raising an outcry in the country upon him, made him consult his own safety, and leaving his part to be acted by others, quitted the country as soon as he could.