Some have been carried prisoners by armed mobs into distant provinces, where they were detained in close confinement for several weeks, and much insulted, witliout any crime being even alleged against them. Some have been flung into jails by committees for frivolous suspicions of plots, of which even their persecutors afterwards acquitted them. Some who were obliged to fly their own province to save their lives have been taken prisoners, sent back, and are threatened to be tried for tlieir lives because they fled from danger. Some have been pulled out of the reading desk because they prayed for the king, and that before independency was declared. Otliers have been warned to appear at militia musters with their arms, have been fined for not appearing, and threatened with imprisonment for not paying those fines. Others have had their houses plundered, and tlieir desks broken open under pretence of their containing treasonable papers.

I could fill a volume with such instances ; and you may rely on the facts I have mentioned as indubitable, for I can name the persons, and have these particulars attested in the simplest manner. The persons concerned are all my acquaintances, and not very distant ; nor did they draw this treatment on themselves by any imprudence, but for adhering to their duty, which gave offence to some demagogues, who raised mobs to persecute them

1053 STATE OF THE

on that vejy account. Wluitever reluctance or pain a benevolent heart may feel in recounting such tilings, wliich are, indeed a disgrace to humanity and religion, yet they ought to be held up to view, tlie more effectually to expose the baneful nature of persecution, make it detestable, and put mankind on tlieir guard against its first approaches. Were every instance of tliis kind faithfully collected, it is probable that the sufferings of tlie American clergy would appear, in many respects, not inferior to those of the English clergy in the great rebellion of last century; and such a work would be no bad supplement to " Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy."