it was a way often used, and without damage, being broad enough; but that it was not the common road, which yet lay not far from it, and was also good enough; wherefore my father bid his man drive home that way.

It was late in the evening when we returned, and very dark; and this quarrelsome man, who had troubled himself and us in the morning, having gotten another lusty fellow like himself to assist him, waylaid us in the night, expecting we would return the same way we came. But when they found we did not, but took the common way, they, angry that they were disappointed, and loth to lose their purpose (which was to put an abuse upon us), coasted over to us in the dark, and laying hold on the horses' bridles, stopped them from going on. My father asking his man what the reason was that he went not on, was answered, "That there were two men at the horses' heads, who held them back, and would not suffer them to go forward:" whereupon my father, opening the boot, stepped out, and I followed closely at his heels. Going up to the place where the men stood, he demanded of them the reason of this assault. They said, "We were upon the corn.” We knew, by the routes, we were not on the corn, but in the common way, and told them so; but they told us," They were resolved they would not let us go any farther, but would make us go back again." My father endeavoured, by gentle reasoning, to persuade them to forbear, and not run themselves farther into the danger of the law, which they were run too far into already; but they rather derided him for it. Seeing, therefore, fair means would not work upon them, he spake more roughly to them, charging them to deliver their clubs (for each of them had a great club in his hand, somewhat like those which are called quarter-staves): they thereupon, laughing, told him, "They did not bring them thither for that end." Thereupon my father, turning his head to me, said, "Tom, disarm them."

I stood ready at his elbow, waiting only for the word of command; for, being naturally of a bold spirit, full then of youthful heat, and that too heightened by the sense I had, not only of the abuse, but insolent behavior of those rude fellows, my blood began to boil, and my fingers itched, as the saying is, to be dealing with them: wherefore, stepping boldly forward to lay hold on the staff of him that was nearest to me, I said, "Širrah, deliver your weapon." He thereupon raised his club, which was big enough to have knocked down an ox, intending, no doubt, to have knocked me down with it, as probably he would have done, had I not, in the twinkling of an eye, whipped out my rapier, and made a pass upon him. I could not have failed running of him through up to the hilt, had he stood his ground; but the sudden and unexpected sight of my bright blade, glisten

ing in the dark night, did so amaze and terrify the man, that slipping aside, he avoided my thrust, and, letting his staff sink, hetook himself to his heels for safety, which his companion seeing, fled also. I followed the former as fast as I could, butTimor addidit Alas-fear gave him wings, and made him swiftly fly; so that, although I was accounted very nimble, yet the farther we ran the more ground he gained on me, so that I could not overtake him, which made me think he took shelter under some bush, which he knew where to find, though I did not. Meanwhile the coachman, who had sufficiently the outside of a man, excused himself from intermeddling, under pretence that he durst not leave his horses, and so left me to shift for myself: and I was gone so far beyond my knowledge, that I understood not which way I was to go, till by hallooing, and being hallooed to again, I was directed where to find my company.

We had easy means to have found out who these men were, (the principal of them having been in the day-time at the inn, and both quarrelled with the coachman, and threatened to be even with him when he went back), but since they came off no better in their attempt, my father thought it better not to know them, than to oblige himself to a prosecution of them.

At that time, and for a good while after, I had no regret upon my mind for what I had done, and designed to have done, in this case, but went on, in a sort of bravery, resolving to kill, if I could, any man that should make the like attempt, or put any affront upon us; and, for that reason, seldom went afterwards upon those public services without a loaded pistol in my pocket. But when it pleased the Lord, in his infinite goodness, to call me out of the spirit and ways of the world, and give me the knowledge of his saving truth, whereby the actions of my fore-past life were set in order before me, a sort of horror seized on me, when I considered how near I had been to the staining of my hands with human blood: and whensoever afterwards I went that way, and, indeed, as often since as the matter has come into my remembrance, my soul has blessed the Lord for my deliverance, and thanksgivings and praises have arisen in my heart (as now, at the relating of it, they do) to Him who preserved and withheld me from shedding man's blood: which is the reason for which I have given this account of that action, that others may be warned by it.

About this time my dear and honored mother, who was indeed a woman of singular worth and virtue, departed this life, having a little before heard of the death of her eldest son, who (falling under the displeasure of my father, for refusing to resign his interest in an estate which my father sold, and thereupon desiring that he might have leave to travel, in hopes that time and absence might work a reconciliation) went into Ireland with a

person powerful there in those times, by whose means he was quickly preferred to a place of trust and profit, but lived not long to enjoy it.

I mentioned before, that during my father's abode in London, in the time of the civil wars, he contracted a friendship with the Lady Springett, then a widow, and afterwards married to Isaac Penington, Esq., to continue which he sometimes visited them at their country lodgings, as at Datchet, and at Causham Lodge, near Reading; and having heard that they were come to live upon their own estate at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, about fifteen miles from Crowell, he went one day to visit them there, and to return at night, taking me with him.

But very much surprised we were when, being come thither, we first heard, then found, they were become Quakers; a people we had no knowledge of, and a name we had, till then, scarce heard of.

So great a change, from a free, debonair, and courtly sort of behavior, which we formerly had found them in, to so strict a gravity as they now received us with, did not a little amuse us, and disappoint our expectation of such a pleasant visit as we used to have, and had now promised ourselves. Nor could my father have any opportunity, by a private conference with them, to understand the ground or occasion of this change, there being some other strangers with them, (related to Isaac Penington), who came that morning from London to visit them also.

For my part I sought, and at length found means to cast myself into the company of the daughter, whom I found gathering some flowers in the garden, attended by her maid, who was also a Quaker. But when I addressed myself to her, after my accustomed manner, with intention to engage her in some discourse which might introduce conversation on the foot of our former acquaintance, though she treated me with a courteous mien, yet, as young as she was, the gravity of her look and behavior struck such an awe upon me, that I found myself not so much master of myself as to pursue any further converse with her: wherefore, asking pardon for my boldness, in having intruded myself into her private walks, I withdrew, not without some disorder (as I thought, at least,) of mind.

We staid dinner, which was very handsome, and lacked nothing to recommend it to me, but the want of mirth and pleasant discourse, which we could neither have with them, nor by reason of them, with one another amongst ourselves, the weightiness that was upon their spirits and countenances keeping down the lightness that would have been up in us. We staid, notwithstanding, till the rest of the company took leave of them, and then we also, doing the same, returned, not greatly satisfied with our journey, nor knowing what, in particular, to find fault with.

Yet this good effect that visit had upon my father, who was then in the commission for the peace, that it disposed him to a more favorable opinion of, and carriage towards, those people when they came in his way, as not long after one of them did; for a young man, who lived in Buckinghamshire, came on a Firstday to the church (so called), at a town called Chinner, a mile from Crowell, having, it seems, a pressure on his mind to say something to the minister of that parish. He being an acquaintance of mine, drew me sometimes to hear him, as it did then. The young man stood in the aisle before the pulpit all the time of the sermon, not speaking a word till the sermon and prayer after it was ended, and then spake a few words to the priest; of which all that I could hear was, "That the prayer of the wicked is abomination to the Lord, and that God heareth not sinners."

Somewhat more, I think, he did say, which I could not distinctly hear for the noise the people made; and more, probably, he would have said, had he not been interrupted by the officers, who took him into custody, and led him out, in order to carry him before my father.

When I understood that, I hastened home, that I might give my father a fair account of the matter before they came. I told him the young man behaved himself quietly and peaceably, spake not a word till the minister had quite done his service, and that what he then spake was but short, and was delivered without passion or ill language. This, I knew, would furnish my father with a fair ground, whereon to discharge the man if he would.

And accordingly, when they came, and made an high complaint against the man (who said little for himself), my father having examined the officers who brought him, what the words that he spake were, (which they did not well agree in), and at what time he spake them (which they all agreed to be after the minister had done), and then, whether he gave the minister any reviling language, or endeavored to raise a tumult among the people (which they could not charge him with)—not finding that he had broken the law, he counselled the young man to be careful that he did not make or occasion any public disturbances, and so dismissed him, which I was glad of.

Some time after this, my father having gotten some further account of the people called Quakers, and being desirous to be informed concerning their principles, made another visit to Isaac Penington and his wife, at their house called the Grange, in Peter's Chalfont, and took both my sisters and me with him.

It was in the Tenth month, in the year 1659, that we went thither, where we found a very kind reception, and tarried some days; one day, at least, the longer, for that while we were there,

a meeting was appointed at a place about a mile from thence, to which we were invited to go, and willingly went.

It was held in a farm-house called the Grove, which, having formerly been a gentleman's seat, had a very large hall, and that well filled.

To this meeting came Edward Burrough, besides other preachers, as Thomas Curtis and James Naylor, but none spake there, at that time, but Edward Burrough; next to whom (as it were under him) it was my lot to sit on a stool by the side of a long table on which he sat, and I drank in his words with desire, for they not only answered my understanding, but warmed my heart with a certain heat, which I had not, till then, felt from the ministry of any man.

When the meeting was ended, our friends took us home with them again; and after supper, the evenings being long, the servants of the family (who were Quakers) were called in, and we all sat down in silence. But long we had not so sat before Edward Burrough began to speak among us: and although he spake not long, yet what he said did touch, as I suppose, my father's (religious) copyhold, as the phrase is; and he having been, from his youth, a professor, (though not joined in that which is called close communion with any one sort), and valuing himself upon the knowledge he esteemed himself to have, in the various notions of each profession, thought he had now a fair opportunity to display his knowledge, and thereupon began to make objections against what had been delivered.

The subject of the discourse was, "The universal free grace of God to all mankind." To which he opposed the Calvinistical tenet of particular and personal predestination; in defence of which indefensible notion, he found himself more at a loss than he expected. Edward Burrough said not much to him upon it, though what he said was close and cogent: but James Naylor interposing, handled the subject with so much perspicuity and clear demonstration, that his reasoning seemed to be irresistible; and so I suppose my father found it, which made him willing to drop the discourse.

As for Edward Burrough, he was a brisk young man, of a ready tongue, and might have been, for aught I then knew, a scholar, which made me the less to admire his way of reasoning. But what dropped from James Naylor had the greater force upon me, because he looked but like a plain simple countryman, having the appearance of an husbandman or a shepherd.

As my father was not able to maintain the argument on his side, so neither did they seem willing to drive it on to an extremity on their side; but, treating him in a soft and gentle manner, did, after a while, let fall the discourse, and then we withdrew to our respective chambers.