by a miracle the
Quaker was saved.

Seeing this wonderful escape of their leader, some of the other men's
courage returned. They rushed back to assist him. They threw
themselves upon his assailant and wrenched the pistol from his hand,
vowing he should do no further mischief. Fox, seeing in his adversary,
not an enemy who had just sought his life, but a fellow-man with a
'Seed of God' hidden somewhere within him and therefore a possible
soul to be won, was 'moved in the Lord's power to speak to him; and he
was struck with the Lord's power' (small wonder!) 'so that he went and
hid himself in a cellar and trembled for fear.

'And so the Lord's power came over them all, though there was a great
rage in the country.'

The Journal continues (but it was written many years later, remember,
when the account of what had happened could not bring anyone into
trouble): 'And ye next morning I went over in a boat to James
Lancaster's, and as soon as I came to land there rushed out about
forty men, with staffs, clubs, and fishing-poles, and fell upon me
with them, beating, punching, and thrust me backwards into the sea.
And when they had thrust me almost into the sea, I stood up and went
into the middle of them again, but they all laid on me again and
knocked me down and mazed me. And when I was down and came to myself,
I looked up and saw James Lancaster's wife throwing stones at my face,
and her husband lying over me, to keep the stones and blows off me.
For the people had persuaded James's wife that I had bewitched her
husband, and had promised her that if she would let them know when I
came hither they would be my death.

'So at last I got up in the power of God over them all, and they beat
me down into the boat. And so James Lancaster came into the boat to me
and so he set me over the water.

'And James Nayler we saw afterwards that they were beating of him. For
while they were beating of me, he walked up into a field, and they
never minded him till I was gone, and then they fell upon him, and all
their cry was "Kill him!" "Kill him!" When I was come over to the town
again, on the other side of the water, the townsmen rose up with
pitchforks, flails, and staves to keep me out of the town, crying,
"Kill him! knock him on the head! bring the cart and carry him to the
churchyard." And so they abused me and guarded me with all those
weapons a pretty way out of the town, and there at last, the Lord's
power being over them all,