A Declaration of the General Court Sent to London to Explain and Justify Treatment of Quakers (November 18, 1659)

Although the justice of our proceedings against William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Mary Dyer, supported by the authority of this Court, the lawes of the country; and the law of God, may rather persuade us to expect incouragement and commendation from all prudent and pious men, then convince us of any necessity to Apologize for the same, yet for as much as men of weaker parts, out of pity and comiseration (a commendable Christian virtue yet easily abused, and susceptible of sinister and dangerous impressions) for want of full information, may be left satisfied, and men of perverser principles, may take occasion hereby to columniate us, and render us as bloody persecutors, to satisfy the one, and stop the mouths of the other, we thought it requisite to declare,

That about three years since, divers persons, professing themselves Quakers (of whose pernicious Opinions and Practices we have received intelligence from good hands from Barbados to England) arrived at Boston whose persons were only secured, to be sent away by the first opportunity, without censure or punishment, although their professed tenents, turbulent and contemptuous behavior to Authority would have justified a severer animadversion, yet the prudence of this Court, was exercised only in making provision to secure the Peace and order here established, against their attempts, whose design (we were well assured of by our own experience, as well as by the example of their predecessors in Munster) was to undermine and ruine the same.

And accordingly a law was made and published prohibiting all Masters of Ships, to bring any Quaker into his jurisdiction, and themselves from coming in, on penalty of the House of Correction, till they could be sent away; notwithstanding which, by a back Door, they
found entrance, and the penalty inflicted on themselves, proving insufficient to restrain their impudent and insolent obtrusions, was increased by the loss of the ears of those that offended the second time, which also being too weak a defence against their impetuous frantick fury, necessitated us to endeavor our security, and upon serious consideration, after the former experiments, by their incessant assaults, a Law was made, that such persons should be banished, on pain of Death, according to the example of England in their provision against Jesuits, which sentence being regularly pronounced at the last Court of Assistant against the parties above named, and they either returning, or continuing presumptuously in this Jurisdiction, after the time limited, were apprehended, and owning themselves to be persons banished, were sentenced (by the Court) to death, according to the law aforesaid, which hath been executed upon two of them;

Mary Dyer upon the petition of her Son, and the mercy and clemency of this Court, had liberty to depart within two days, which she had accepted of the consideration of our gradual proceeding, will vindicate us from the clamorous accusations of severity, our own just and necessary defence, calling upon us (other means fayling) to offer the poynt, which these persons have violently, and willfully rushed upon, and thereby become ‘felons de se,’ which might it have been prevented, and the sovereign law’s alue opouli’ been preserved, our former proceedings, as well as the sparing of Mary Dyer, upon an inconsiderable intercession, will manifestly evince.

We desire their lives absent, rather than their death present.

November 18, 1659    Edward Rawson, secretary