Away to the Yorkshire coast we must go, and once more find ourselves
looking up at the bold headland of Scarborough Cliff, as it juts out
into the North Sea. Away again in time, too, to the year 1665, when
George Fox still lay in prison up at the Castle, with his room full of
smoke on stormy days when the wind 'drove in the rain forcibly,' while
'the water came all over his bed and ran about the room till he was
forced to skim it up with a platter.'
Happily there is no storm raging this time. Our story begins on a
still, warm afternoon late in the summer, when even the prisoner up at
the Castle can hardly help taking some pleasure in the cloudless blue
sky and shining sea spread out above and around him.
But it is not to the Castle we are bound to-day. We need not climb
again the steep, worn steps that lead to the top of the hill. Instead,
we must descend an equally narrow flight that leads down, down, down
with queer twists and turns, till we find ourselves close to the
water's edge. Even in the fiercest gales there is shelter here for the
red-roofed fishing village that surrounds the harbour, while on a warm
afternoon the air is almost oppressively hot. The brown sails of the
fishing smacks and the red roofs of the houses are faithfully
reflected in the clear water beneath them as in a looking-glass.
Outside the door of one of the houses a rough fisherman is seated on a
bench, his back against the house wall, mending his nets. At first
sight he looks almost like an old man, for his hair is grey, though
his body is still strong and active. His hands are twisted and bear
the marks of cruel scars upon them, but his face is peaceful, though
worn and rugged. He handles the nets lovingly, as if he were glad to
feel them slipping through his fingers again. Evidently the nets have
not been used for some time, for there are many holes in them, and the
mending is a slow business. As he works the fisherman sings in a low
voice, not loud enough for the neighbours to hear but just humming to
himself.
Every now and then the door of the house half opens, and a little girl
looks out and asks, 'Thou art really there, Father? truly safe back
again?' The man looks up, smiling, as he calls back, 'Ay, ay, my maid.
Get on with thy work, Margery, and I'll get on with mine.'
'Art thou sure thou art safe, Father?'
He does not answer this question in words, but he raises his voice and
sings the next verse of his song a little more loudly and clearly--
'Because on Me his love is set,
Deliver him I will,
And safely bring him higher yet
Upon My holy hil.'
Later on, when the nets are mended and the sun is sinking above the
Castle Cliff in a fiery glow, Margery comes out and sits on her
father's knee; the lads, home from school, gather round and say, 'Now
then, Master Sellar, tell us once more the story of thy absence from
us, and about how thou wast pressed and taken on board the _Royal
Prince_. Tell us about the capstan and the lashings; about how they
beat thee; what the carpenter and the boatswain's mate did, and how
the gunner went down three times on his bare knees on the deck to beg
thy life. Let us hear it all again.' 'Yes, please do, Father dear,'
chimes in Margery, 'only leave out some of the beatings and the
dreadful part, and hurry on very quickly to the end of the story about
all the sailors throwing up their caps and huzzaing for Sir Edward,
the merciful man.'
The fisherman smiles and nods. He puts his arm more tenderly than ever
round his small daughter as he says, 'Ay, ay, dear heart, never thou
fear.' Then, drawing Margery closer to him, he begins his tale. It is
a long story. The sun has set; the crescent moon has disappeared; and
the stars are stealing out, one by one, before he has finished. I wish
you and I could listen to that story, don't you? Well, we can! Someone
who heard it from the fisherman's own lips has written it all down for
us. He is telling it to us in his own words to-day, as he told it to
those children in Scarborough village long ago.
Now and then we must interrupt him to explain some of the words he
uses, or even alter the form of the sentences slightly, in order fully
to understand what it is he is talking about.
But he is telling his own story.
'My name,' begins the fisherman, 'is Richard Sellar. It was during the
war between the Dutch and English that I was pressed at Scarborough in
1665.'
'Pressed' means that he was forced to go and fight against his will.
When the country is in danger men are obliged to leave their peaceful
employments and learn to be soldiers and sailors, in order, as they
think, to defend their own nation by trying to kill their enemies. It
is something like what people now call 'conscription' that Richard
Sellar is talking of when he speaks of 'being pressed.' He means that
a number of men, called a 'press-crew,' forced him to go with them to
fight in the king's navy, for, as the proverb said, 'A king's ship and
the gallows refuse nobody.'
'I was pressed,' Richard continues, 'within Scarborough Piers, and
refusing to go on board the ketch [or boat] they beat me very sore,
and I still refusing, they hoisted me in with a tackle on board, and
they bunched me with their feet, that I fell backward into a tub, and
was so maimed that they were forced to swaddle me up with clothes.'
Richard Sellar could not help himself. Bound, bruised, and beaten he
was carried off in the boat to be taken to a big fighting ship called
the _Royal Prince_, that was waiting for them off the mouth of the
Thames and needing more sailors to man her for the war.
The press-crew however had not captured enough men at Scarborough, so
they put in at another Yorkshire port, spelled Burlington then but
Bridlington now. It was that same Burlington or Bridlington from which
Master Robert Fowler had sailed years before. Was he at home again
now, I wonder, working in his shipyard and remembering the wonderful
experiences of the good ship _Woodhouse_? Surely he must have been
away on a voyage at this time or he would if possible have visited
Richard Sellar in his confinement on the ketch. Happily at Bridlington
there also lived two kind women, who, hearing that the ketch had a
'pressed Quaker' on board, sent Richard Sellar a present of
food--green stuff and eatables that would keep well on a voyage: these
provisions saved his life later on. After this stay in port the ketch
sailed on again to the Nore, a big sand-bank lying near the mouth of
the Thames.
'And there,' Richard goes on to say, 'they haled me in at a gunport,
on board of the ship called the _Royal Prince_. The first day of the
third month, they commanded me to go to work at the capstan. I
refused; then they commanded me to call of the steward for my
victuals; which I refused, and told them that as I was not free to do
the king's work, I would not live at his charge for victuals. Then the
boatswain's mate beat me sore, and thrust me about with the capstan
until he was weary; then the Captain sent for me on the quarter-deck,
and asked me why I refused to fight for the king, and why I refused to
eat of his victuals? I told him I was afraid to offend God, for my
warfare was spiritual, and therefore I durst not fight with carnal
weapons. Then the Captain fell upon me, and beat me first with his
small cane, then called for his great cane, and beat me sore, and
felled me down to the deck three or four times, and beat me as long as
his strength continued. Then came one, Thomas Horner (which was
brought up at Easington), and said, "I pray you, noble Captain, be
merciful, for I know him to be an honest and a good man." Then said
the captain, "He is a Quaker; I will beat his brains out." Then
falling on me again, he beat me until he was weary, and then called
some to help him; "for" said he, "I am not able to beat him enough to
make him willing to do the king's service."'
There Richard lay, bruised and beaten, on the deck. Neither the
sailors nor the Captain knew what to do with him. Presently up came
the Commander's jester or clown, a man whose business it was to make
the officers laugh. 'What,' said he, 'can't you make that Quaker work?
Do you want him to draw ropes for you and he won't? Why you are going
the wrong way to work, you fool!'
No one else in the whole ship would have dared to call the Captain
'You fool!' No one else could have done so without being put in
chains. But the jester might do as he liked. His business was to make
the Captain laugh; and at these words he did laugh. 'Show me the right
way to make him work, then,' said he. 'That I will gladly,' answered
the jester, 'we will have a bet. I will give you one golden guinea if
I cannot make him draw ropes, if you will give me another if I do
compel him to do so.'
'Marry that I will,' answered the Captain, and forthwith the two
guineas were thrown down on the deck, rattling gaily, while all the
ship's company stood around to watch what should befall.
'Then the jester called for two seamen and made them make two ropes
fast to the wrists of my arms, and reeved the ropes through two blocks
in the mizen shrouds on the starboard side, and hoisted me up aloft,
and made the ropes fast to the gunwale of the ship, and I hung some
time. Then the jester called the ship's company to behold, and bear
him witness, that he made the Quaker hale the king's ropes; so
veering the ropes they lowered me half-way down, then made me fast
again. "Now," said the jester, "noble Captain, you and the company see
that the Quaker haleth the king's ropes"; and with that he commanded
them to let fly the ropes loose, when I fell on the deck. "Now," said
the jester, "noble Captain, the wager is won. He haled the ropes to
the deck, and you can hale them no further, nor any man else."'
Not a very good joke, was it? It seems to have pleased the rough
sailors since it set them a-laughing. But it was no laughing matter
for Richard Sellar to be set swinging in the air strung up by the
wrists, and then to be bumped down upon deck again, fast bound and
unable to move. The Captain did not laugh either. The thought of his
lost money made him feel savage. In a loud, angry voice he called to
the boatswain's mate and bade him, 'Take the quakerly dog away, and
put him to the capstan and make him work.'
Only the jester laughed, and chuckled to himself, as he gathered up
the golden guineas from the deck, and slapped his thighs for pleasure
as he slipped them into his pockets.
Meantime the boatswain's mate was having fine sport with the 'Quaker
dog,' as he carried out the Captain's orders. Calling the roughest
members of the crew to help him, they beat poor Richard cruelly, and
abused him as they dragged him down into the darkness below deck.
'Then he went,' says Richard, 'and sat him down upon a chest lid, and
I went and sat down upon another beside him; then he fell upon me and
beat me again; then called his boy to bring him two lashings and he
lashed my arms to the capstan's bars and caused the men to heave the
capstan about; and in three or four times passing about the lashings
were loosed, no man knew how, nor when, nor could they ever be found,
although they sought them with lighted candles.'
The sailors had tied their prisoner with ropes to the heavy iron wheel
in the stern of the boat called a capstan; so that as he moved he
would be obliged to drag it round and thus help to work the ship. They
had made their prisoner as fast as ever they could. Yet, somehow, here
he was free again, and his bonds had disappeared! The boatswain's mate
couldn't understand it, but he was determined to solve the mystery. He
sent for a Bible and made the sailors swear upon it in turn, in that
dark, ill-smelling den, that not one of them had loosed Richard. They
all swore willingly, but even that did not content the mate. He
thought they were lying, and would not let them go till he had turned
out all their pockets, and found that not one of them contained the
missing lashings that had mysteriously disappeared. Then, at last,
even the rough mate felt afraid. Richard seemed to be in his power and
defenceless: was he really protected by Something or Someone stronger
than any cruel men, the mate wondered?
So he called the sailors round him again, and spoke to them as
follows: 'Hear what I shall say unto you; you see this is a wonderful
thing, which is done by an invisible hand, which loosed him, for none
of you could see his hands loosed, that were so near him. I suppose
this man' (said he) 'is called a Quaker, and for conscience' sake
refuseth to act, therefore I am afflicted, and do promise before God
and man that I will never beat, nor cause to be beaten, either Quaker
or any other man that doth refuse, for conscience' sake, to fight for
the king. And if I do, I wish I may lose my right hand.' That was the
promise of the boatswain's mate.
* * * * *
Three days later the Admiral of the whole fleet, Sir Edward Spragg,
came on board the _Royal Prince_. He was a very fine gentleman indeed.
At once every one began to tell him the same story: how they had
pressed a Quaker up at Scarborough in the North; how the Quaker had
refused to work, and had been given over to the boatswain's mate to be
flogged; how the boatswain's mate had fallen upon him and had beaten
him furiously, but now refused to lay a finger upon him, saying that
he would no longer beat a Quaker or any other man for conscience'
sake.
'Send that boatswain's mate to me that he may answer for himself,'
said the Admiral. 'Why would you not beat the Quaker?' he demanded in
a terrible voice, when the boatswain's mate was brought before him. 'I
have beat him very sore,' the mate answered, 'I seized his arms to the
capstan bars, and forced them to heave him about, and beat him, and
then sat down; and in three or four times of the capstan's going
about, the lashings were loosed, and he came and sat down by me; then
I called the men from the capstan, and took them sworn, but they all
denied that they had loosed him, or knew how he was loosed; neither
could the lashings ever be found; therefore I did and do believe that
it was an invisible power which set him at liberty, and I did promise
before God and the company, that I would never beat a Quaker again,
nor any man else for conscience' sake.' The Admiral told the mate that
he must lose both his cane of office and his place. He willingly
yielded them both. He was also threatened with the loss of his right
hand. He held it out and said, 'Take it from me if you please.' His
cane was taken from him and he was displaced; but mercifully his right
hand was not cut off: that was only a threat.
The Commander had now to find some one else to beat Richard Sellar. So
he gave orders to seven strong sailors (called yeomen) to beat Richard
whenever they met him, and to make him work. Beat him they did, till
they were tired; but they could not make him work or go against his
conscience, which forbade him in any way to help in fighting. Then an
eighth yeoman was called, the strongest of all. The same order was
given to him: 'Beat that Quaker as much as you like whenever you meet
him, only see that you make him work.' The eighth yeoman promised
gladly in his turn, and said, 'I'll make him!' He too beat Richard for
a whole day and a night, till he too grew weary and asked to be
excused. Then another wonderful thing happened, stranger even than the
disappearance of the lashings. After all these cruel beatings the
Commander ordered Richard's clothes to be taken off that he might see
the marks of the blows on his body. 'He caused my clothes to be stript
off,' Richard says, 'shirt and all, from my head to my waist downward;
then he took a view of my body to see what wounds and bruises I had,
but he could find none,--no, not so much as a blue spot on my skin.
Then the Commander was angry with them, for not beating me enough.
Then the Captain answered him and said, "I have beat him myself as
much as would kill an ox." The jester said he had hung me a great
while by the arms aloft in the shrouds. The men said they also had
beaten me very sore, but they might as well have beaten the main mast.
Then said the Commander, "I will cause irons to be laid upon him
during the king's pleasure and mine."'
A marvellous story! After all these beatings, not a bruise or a mark
to be seen! Probably it is not possible now to explain how it
happened. Of course we might believe that Richard was telling lies all
the time, and that either the sailors did not beat him or that the
bruises did show. But why invent anything so unlikely? It is easier to
believe that he was trying to tell the truth as far as he could, even
though we cannot understand it. Perhaps his heart was so happy at
being allowed to suffer for what he thought right, that his body
really did not feel the cruel beatings, as it would have done if he
had been doing wrong and had deserved them. Or perhaps there are
wonderful ways, unknown to us until we experience them for ourselves,
in which God will, and can, and does protect His own true servants who
are trying to obey Him. That is the most comforting explanation. If
ever some one much bigger and stronger than we are tries to bully us
into doing wrong, let us remember that God does not save us _from_
pain and suffering always; but He can save us _through_ the very worst
pain, if only we are true to Him.
Anyhow, though Richard's beatings were over for the time, other
troubles began. He was 'put in irons,' heavily loaded with chains, a
punishment usually kept for the worst criminals, such as thieves and
murderers. All the crew were forbidden to bring him food and drink
even though he was beginning to be ill with a fever--the result of all
the sufferings he had undergone. Happily there was one kind, brave man
among the crew, the carpenter's mate. Although Sir Edward Spragg had
said that any one giving food to Richard would have to share his
punishment, this good man was not afraid, and did give the prisoner
both food and drink. All this time, Richard had been living on the
provisions that the two kind Friends, Thomasin Smales and Mary
Stringer, had sent him at Bridlington, having refused to eat the
king's food, as he could not do the king's work.
Thankful indeed he must have felt when this kind carpenter's mate came
and squeezed up against him among a crowd of sailors, and managed to
pass some meat and drink out of his own pocket and into Richard's. His
new friend did this so cleverly that nobody noticed. Pleased with his
success, he whispered to Richard, 'I'll bring you some more every day
while you need food. You needn't mind taking things from me, for they
are all bought out of my own money, not the king's.'
'What makes thee so good to me?' whispered back Richard. He was
weakened by fever and all unused to kindness on board the _Royal
Prince_. Very likely the tears came into his eyes and his voice
trembled as he spoke, though he had borne all his beatings unmoved.
The carpenter's mate told him in reply that before he came on board,
both his wife and his mother had made him promise that if any Quakers
should be on the ship he would be kind to them. Also, that quite
lately he had had a letter from them asking him 'to remember his
promise, and be kind to Quakers, if any were on board.' How much we
should like to know what put it into the two women's hearts to think
of such a thing! Were they Quakers themselves, or had they Quaker
friends? Once more there is no answer but: 'God will, and can, and
does protect His own.'
Unfortunately this kind man was sent away from the ship to do work
elsewhere, and for three days and nights Richard lay in his heavy
irons, with nothing either to eat or drink. Some sailors who had been
quarrelling in a drunken brawl on deck were thrown into prison and
chained up beside Richard. They were sorry for him and did their best
to help him. They even gave him something to drink when they were
alone, though for his sake they had to pretend that they were trying
to hurt and kill him when any of the officers were present. These
rough sailors pretended so well that one lieutenant, who had been
specially cruel to Richard before, now grew alarmed, and thought the
other prisoners really would kill the Quaker.
He went up to Sir Edward's cabin and knocked at the door. 'Who is
there?' asked the cabin-boy.
'I,' said the lieutenant, 'I want to speak to Sir Edward.' When he was
admitted he said, 'If it please your highness to remember that there
is a poor Quaker in irons yet, that was laid in two weeks since, and
the other prisoners will kill him for us.'
'We will have a Court Martial,' thought Sir Edward, 'and settle this
Quaker's job once for all.'
He told the lieutenant to go for the keys and let Richard out, and to
put a flag at the mizen-mast's head, and call a council of war, and
make all the captains come from all the other ships to try the Quaker.
It was not yet eight o'clock on a Sunday morning. At the signal, all
the captains of all the other ships came hurrying on board the _Royal
Prince_, the Admiral's flag-ship. Richard was fetched up from his
prison and brought before this council of war--or Court Martial as it
would be called now. The Admiral sat in the middle, very grand indeed;
beside him sat the judge of the Court Martial, 'who,' says Richard,
'was a papist, being Governor of Dover Castle, who went to sea on
pleasure.' He probably looked grander still. Around these two sat the
other naval captains from the other ships. Opposite all these great
people was Quaker Richard, so weakened by fever and lame from his
heavy fetters that he could not stand, and had to be allowed to sit.
The Commander, to give Richard one more chance, asked him if he would
go aboard another ship, a tender with six guns. Richard's conscience
was still clear that he could have nothing to do with guns or
fighting. He said he would rather stay where he was and abide his
punishment.
What punishment do you think the judge thought would be suitable for a
man who had committed only the crime of refusing to fight, or to work
to help those who were fighting?
'The judge said I should be put into a barrel or cask _driven full of
nails with their points inward and so rolled to death_; but the
council of war taking it into consideration, thought it too terrible a
death and too much unchristianlike; so they agreed to hang me.'
'Too much unchristianlike' indeed! The mere thought of such a
punishment makes us shiver. The Governor of Dover Castle, who
suggested it, was himself a Roman Catholic. History tells how fiercely
the Roman Catholics persecuted the Protestants in Queen Mary's reign,
when Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, and many others were burnt at
the stake for their religion. Since then times had changed, and when
the Protestants were in power they too had often persecuted the Roman
Catholics in their turn. Perhaps someone whom this 'papist' judge had
loved very much had been cruelly put to death, and perhaps that was
the reason he suggested this savage punishment for Quaker Richard. We
do not know how that may be. But we do know that cruelty makes
cruelty, on and on without end. The only real way to stop it, is to
turn right round and follow the other law, the blessed law, whereby
love makes love.
Richard Sellar was only a rough, ignorant fisherman, but he had begun
to learn this lesson out of Christ's lesson book: and how difficult a
lesson it is, nobody knows who has not tried to carry it out.
Richard heard his sentence pronounced, that he was to be hanged. When
he heard that he was being wrongfully accused of various crimes that
he had not committed, he longed to rise and justify himself, but he
could only sit or kneel because he was too weak to stand. In vain he
tried to rise, and tried to speak. He could neither move nor say a
word. He could not even say: 'I am innocent.' He could not even pray
to God to help him in his difficulty. Again he tried to rise, and then
suddenly in his utter weakness he felt God's power holding him, and a
Voice said quite distinctly, three times over, in his heart: 'BE
STILL--BE STILL--BE STILL.'
'Which Voice,' says Richard, 'I obeyed and was comforted. Then I
believed God would arise. And when they had done speaking, then God
did arise, and I was filled with the power of God; and my spirit
lifted up above all earthly things; and wonderful strength was given
me to my limbs, and my heart was full of the power and wisdom of God;
and with glad tidings my mouth was opened, to declare to the people
the things God had made manifest to me. With sweat running down, and
tears trickling from my eyes, I told them, "The hearts of kings were
in the hand of the Lord; and so are both yours and mine; and I do not
value what you can do to this body, for I am at peace with God and all
men, and with you my adversaries. For if I might live an hundred and
thirty years longer, I can never die in a better condition: for the
Lord hath satisfied me, that He hath forgiven me all things in this
world; and I am glad through His mercy, that He hath made me willing
to suffer for His name's sake, and not only so, but I am heartily
glad, and do really rejoice, and with a seal in my heart to the same."
Then there came a man and laid his hand upon my shoulder, and said,
"Where are all thy accusers?" Then my eyes were opened, and I looked
about me, and they were all gone.'
The Court Martial was over. Every one of the captains had disappeared.
His accusers were gone; but Richard's sentence remained, and was still
to be carried out on the following morning. One officer, the same
lieutenant who had been cruel to him before, was still unkind to him
and called him 'a hypocrite Quaker,' but many others on board ship did
their best to save him.
First of all there came up an ancient soldier to the Admiral on the
quarter-deck. He 'loosed down his knee-strings, and put down his
stockings, and put his cap under his knees, and begged Sir Edward's
pardon three times' (this seems to have been the correct behaviour
when addressing the Admiral), and the ancient soldier said, 'Noble Sir
Edward, you know that I have served His Majesty under you many years,
both in this nation and other nations, by the sea, and you were always
a merciful man; therefore I do entreat you, in all kindness, to be
merciful to this poor man, who is condemned to die to-morrow; and only
for denying your order for fear of offending God, and for conscience'
sake; and we have but one man on board, out of nine hundred and
fifty--only one which doth refuse for conscience' sake; and shall we
take his life away? Nay, God forbid! For he hath already declared
that, if we take his life away there shall a judgment appear upon some
on board, within eight and forty hours; and to me it hath appeared;
therefore I am forced to come upon quarter-deck before you; and my
spirit is one with his; therefore I desire you, in all kindness, to
give me the liberty, when you take his life away, to go off on board,
for I shall not be willing to serve His Majesty any longer on board of
ship; so I do entreat you once more to be merciful to this poor
man--so God bless you, Sir Edward. I have no more to say to you.'
Next came up the chief gunner--a more important man, for he had been
himself a captain--but he too 'loosed down his knee-strings, and did
beg the Admiral's pardon three times, being on his bare knees before
Sir Edward.'