A History of the Valley of Virginia by Samuel Kercheval (1833; 3rd ed. 1902)

60

RELIGION, HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PRIMITIVE SETTLERS.

AN ACT FOR THE SUPPRESSING THE QUAKERS. This act is transcribed exactly as shown, including old spellings-Editor.

Whereas there is an vnreasonable and turbulent sort of people, commonly called Quakers, who contrary to the laws do dayly gather together vnto them vnlaw'll assemblies and congregations of people, teaching and publishing lies, miracles, false visions, prophecies and doctrines, which have influence vpon the communities of men, both ecclesiasticall and civil, endeavouring and attempting thereby to destroy religion, lawes, communities, and all bonds of civil societie, leaving it arbitrarie to everie vaine and vitious person, whether men shall be safe, lawes, established, offenders punished, an governours rule, hereby disturbing the publique peace and just interest; to prevent and restrain which mischiefe, It is enacted, That no master or commander of any shipp or other vessell do bring into this colonie any person or persons called Quakers, vnder the penalty of one hundred pounds sterling, to be levied vpon him and his estate by order from the governour and council, or the commissioners in the severall counties where such ships shall arrive: That all such Quakers as have been questioned, or shall hereafter arrive, shall be apprehended, wheresoever they shall be found, and they be imprisoned without baile or mainprize, till they do adjure this country, or putt in security with all speed to depart from the collonie and not to return again: And if any should dare to presume to returne hither after such departure, be proceeded against as contemners of the lawes and magistracy, and punished accordingly, and caused again to depart the country, and if they should the third time be so audacious and impudent as to returne hither, to be proceeded against as ffelons: That noe person shall entertain any of the Quakers that have heretofore been questioned, by the governour and council, or which shall hereafter be questioned, not permit in or near his house any assemblies of Quakers, in the like penalty of one hundred pounds sterling: That commissioners and officers are hereby required and authorized, as they will answer the contrary at their perill, to take notice of this act, to see it fully effected and executed: And that no person do presume on their perill to dispose or publish their bookes, pamphlets or libells, bearing the title of their tenents and opinions.

This high-handed and cruel proceeding took place in the time of Oliver Cromwell's usurpation in England, and at a time when some glimmering {typo corrected} of {typo corrected} rational, civil, and religious liberty, manifested itself in the mother country. The preamble to this act is contradicted by the whole history of Quakerism, from its foundation to the present period. In all the writings and tradition accounts handed down to us, the Quakers are represented as a most inoffensive, orderly, and strictly moral people, in all their deportment and habits.

This unreasonable and unwise legislation, it is presumed, was suffered to die a natural death, as, in the progress of the peopling