n to his wife, Oct. 4, 1655, "through the
loving-kindness of God, I have met with a more clear, plain, and
evident knowledge of God, and myself, and His gracious outgoings to
my soul, than ever I had in all my lifetime, not excepting my
glorying and rejoicing condition under the Bishops." Again, in a
later letter: "I particularly can, and do hereby, witness that I am
already dead or crucified to the very occasions and real grounds of
outward wars, and carnal sword-fightings, and fleshly bustlings and
contests, and that therefore confidently I now believe that I shall
never hereafter be a user of the temporal sword more, nor a joiner
with those that do. And this I do here solemnly declare, not in the
least to avoid persecution, or for any politic ends of my own, or in
the least for the satisfaction of the fleshly wills of any of my
great adversaries, or for satisfying the carnal will of my poor weak
afflicted wife, but by the special movings and compulsions of God now
upon my soul ... and that thereby, if yet I must be an imprisoned
sufferer, it may from this day forward be for the truth as it is in
Jesus, which truth I witness to be truly professed and practised by
the savouriest of people, called Quakers." This had not at once
procured his release, for he remained in Dover Castle through at
least part of 1656. At length, however, after some proposal to let
him go abroad again, or to send him and his wife to the Plantations,
security had been accepted for his good behaviour, and he had been
allowed to live as he liked at Eltham in Kent. Here, and elsewhere,
he sometimes preached, and was in much esteem among the Quakers; and
here, on Saturday the 29th of August, 1657, he died. On the following
Monday his corpse was removed to London and conveyed to the house
called "The Bull and Mouth" at Aldersgate, the chief meeting-place of
the London Quakers. "At this place, that afternoon, assembled a
medley of people, among whom the Quakers were most eminent for
number; and within the house a controversy Was whether the ceremony
of a hearse-cloth should be cast over his coffin; but, the major
part, being Quakers, not assenting, the coffin was about five o'clock
in the evening brought forth into the street. At its coming out,
there stood a man on purpose to cast a velvet hearse-cloth over the
coffin, and he endeavoured to do it; but, the crowd of Quakers not
permitting it and having gotten the body on their shoulders, they
carried