for six weeks' absence from worship on the Lord's day.
The next summer, Leddra, who was afterwards hanged, and William Brend went
to Salem, and several persons were seized for meeting with them, among
whom were the Southwicks. A room was prepared for the criminals in the
Boston prison by boarding up the windows and stopping ventilation.
[Footnote: _New England Judged_, ed. 1703, p. 64.] They were refused
food unless they worked to pay for it; but to work when wrongfully
confined was against the Quaker's conscience, so they did not eat for five
days. On the second day of fasting they were flogged, and then, with
wounds undressed, the men and women together were once more locked in the
dark, close room, to lie upon the bare boards, in the stifling July heat;
for they were not given beds. On the fourth day they were told they might
go if they would pay the jail fees and the constables; but they refused,
and so were kept in prison. On the morrow the jailer, thinking to bring
them to terms, put Brend in irons, neck and heels, and he lay without food
for sixteen hours upon his back lacerated with flogging.
The next day the miserable man was ordered to work, but he lacked the
strength, had he been willing, for he was weak from starvation and pain,
and stiffened by the irons. And now the climax came. The jailer seized a
tarred rope and beat him till it broke; then, foaming with fury, he
dragged the old man down stairs, and, with a new rope, gave him ninety-
seven blows, when his strength failed; and Brend, his flesh black and
beaten to jelly, and his bruised skin hanging in bags full of clotted
blood, was thrust into his cell.
Pages:
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355