ined in holes and dungeons. The seizing for
L20 a month has amounted to many thousands, and several who have
employed some hundreds of poor people in manufactures, are disabled to
do so any more, by reason of long imprisonment. They spare neither widow
nor fatherless, nor have they so much as a bed to lie on. The informers
are both witnesses and prosecutors, to the ruin of great numbers of
sober families; and justices of the peace have been threatened with the
forfeiture of one hundred pounds, if they do not issue out warrants upon
their informations." With this petition they presented a list of their
friends in prison, in the several counties, amounting to four hundred
and sixty.

During the reign of king James II. these people were, through the
intercession of their friend Mr. Penn, treated with greater indulgence
than ever they had been before. They were now become extremely numerous
in many parts of the country, and the settlement of Pennsylvania taking
place soon after, many of them went over to America. There they enjoyed
the blessings of a peaceful government, and cultivated the arts of
honest industry.

As the whole colony was the property of Mr. Penn, so he invited people
of all denominations to come and settle with him. A universal liberty of
conscience took place; and in this new colony the natural rights of
mankind were, for the first time, established.

These Friends are, in the present age, a very harmless, inoffensive body
of people; but of that we shall take more notice hereafter. By their
wise regulations, they not only do honour to themselves, but they are of
vast service to the community.

It may be necessary here to observe, that as the Friends, commonly
called Quakers, will not take an oath in a court of justice, so their
affirmation is permitted in all civil affairs; but they cannot prosecute
a criminal, because, in the English courts of justice, all evidence must
be upon oath.

_An account of the persecution of Friends, commonly called Quakers in
the United States._

About the middle of the seventeenth century, much persecution and
suffering were inflicted on a sect of protestant dissenters, commonly
called Quakers: a people which arose at that time in England some of
whom sealed their testimony with their blood.

For an account of the above people, see Sewell's, or Gough's history of
them.

The principal points upon which their conscientious nonconformity
rendered them obnoxious to t