" [Footnote: _New
England Judged_, ed. 1703, p. 67.]
After this the Southwicks, being still unable to obtain their freedom,
sent the following letter to the magistrates, which is a good example of
the writings of these "coarse, blustering, ... impudent fanatics:"--
[Footnote: _As to Roger Williams_, p. 138.]
* * * * *
_This to the Magistrates at Court in Salem._
FRIENDS,
Whereas it was your pleasures to commit us, whose names are under-written,
to the house of correction in Boston, altho' the Lord, the righteous Judge
of heaven and earth, is our witness, that we had done nothing worthy of
stripes or of bonds; and we being committed by your court, to be dealt
withal as the law provides for foreign Quakers, as ye please to term us;
and having some of us, suffered your law and pleasures, now that which we
do expect, is, that whereas we have suffered your law, so now to be set
free by the same law, as your manner is with strangers, and not to put us
in upon the account of one law, and execute another law upon us, of which,
according to your own manner, we were never convicted as the law
expresses. If you had sent us upon the account of your new law, we should
have expected the jaylor's order to have been on that account, which that
it was not, appears by the warrant which we have, and the punishment which
we bare, as four of us were whipp'd, among whom was one that had formerly
been whipp'd, so now also according to your former law.
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