savage wilderness
for the purpose of planting therein a church and a commonwealth,
fashioned in all their parts after a narrow but cherished pattern, they
felt that the domain thus conquered was all their own, and that they had
the right to regulate the internal affairs according to their own notion
of things. They boldly proclaimed the right to the exercise of private
judgment in matters of conscience, and so tacitly invited the persecuted
of all lands to immigrate and settle among them. This invitation brought
"unsettled persons," libertines in unrestrained opinions, from abroad to
disseminate their peculiar views. The Puritans, fearing the
disorganization of their church, early took alarm and, with a mistaken
policy, resisted such encroachments upon the domain and into their
society with fiery penal laws implacably executed.

Among the sects of the time dangerous to Puritanism, were the Quakers or
Friends. The first of the sect who appeared conspicuously in New England
were Mary Fisher and Anna Austin, who arrived at Boston in the summer of
1656, when John Endicott was governor. There was no special law against
them; but under a general act against heretics, they were arrested;
their persons were searched to find marks of witchcraft, with which they
were suspected; their trunks were searched, and their books were burned
publicly by the hangman. After several weeks of confinement in prison,
they were sent back to England. Mary Fisher, a violent religious
enthusiast, afterward visited the Sultan of Turkey and, being mistaken
for a crazy woman, was permitted to go everywhere unmolested.

The harsh treatments of the first comers fired the zeal of the more
enthusiastic of the sect in England, who sought martyrdom as an honor
and a passport to the home of the righteous. They flocked to New England
and fearfully vexed the souls of the Puritan magistrates and ministers.
One woman came from London to warn the authorities against persecutions.
Others came to revile, denounce and defy the powers of the church. From
the windows of their houses they would rail at the magistrates, and
mock the institutions of the country, while some fanatical young women
appeared nude on the streets and in the churches, as emblems of
"unclothed souls of the people." Others with loud voices proclaimed that
the wrath of the Almighty was about to fall like destructive lightning
on Boston and Salem. The Quakers of 1659 were quite different from that