" [Footnote: _Mass. Rec._ vol. iv. pt. 2, p. 413.]
The shock was felt even in England. In March, 1669, thirteen of the most
influential dissenting ministers wrote from London earnestly begging for
moderation lest they should be made to suffer from retaliation; but their
remonstrance was disregarded. [Footnote: Backus, i. 395.] What followed is
not exactly known; the convicts would seem to have lain in jail about a
year, and they are next mentioned in a letter to Clark written in
November, 1670, in which he was told that Turner had been again arrested,
but that Gould had eluded the officers, who were waiting for him in
Boston; and was on Noddle's Island. Subsequently all were taken and
treated with the extremest rigor; for in June, 1672, Russell was so
reduced that it was supposed he could not live, and he was reported to
have died in prison. Six months before Gould and Turner had been thought
past hope; their sufferings had brought them all to the brink of the
grave. [Footnote: Backus, i. 398-404, 405.] But relief was at hand: the
victory for freedom had been won by the blood of heretics, as devoted, as
fearless, but even unhappier than they; and the election of Leverett, in
1673, who was opposed to persecution, marks the moment when the hierarchy
admitted their defeat. During his administration the sectaries usually met
in private undisturbed; and soon every energy of the theocracy became
concentrated on the effort to repulse the ever contracting circle of
enemies who encompassed it.
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