QUAKERS, or Fainwns. The tenets more pecu liarly held by this society were first promulgated by George Fox, about the year 1647. Ile, on this account, often suffered persecution. In the year 1650 he was imprisoned at Derby, and it was here that the name of QUAKERS was first given to George Fox and his friends, by one of the Justices who committed him, because be bad bid them to " tremble at the word of the Lord." This appellation soon became, and has since continued to be, their usual denomination; but they themselves adopted the appellation of Frtivigns.
During the time of the Commonwealth much per sonal abuse was bestowed on them; imprisonment was common ; and stripes, under pretence of vagrancy, were inflicted without regard to sex, and on persons of unimpeachable character, and of good circumstances in the world. Although the practice of inflicting cor poral punishment on this people seems in England to have fallen into disuse at the restoration, yet the reign of Charles II. must he considered as the time of their greatest suffering. Their imprisonments were long, often terminating only with the life of the prisoner. The crowds shut up together increased, in many places, the ordinary sufferings of confinement ; which, in some cases, were augmented by the barbarity of gaol ers. The fines imposed were exacted with a rigour that generally oppressed the sufferer, and sometimes left him nearly destitute of household goods; and several families experienced a separation of the nearest connexions of life, by the execution of a law which subjected the members of this society to banishment. The king, as a branch of the legislature, joined in the enactment of these laws ; nevertheless, he did not seem in all cases to countenance severity, for he was the means of affording relief in the most sanguinary perse cution which the Friends ever experienced. This was in New England, where it was made penal for a Quaker even to reside. The government of that province first imprisoned them, next employed the scourge, which was followed up by cutting off their ears; but all this proving insufficient to deter the Friends from return ing to New England in order to preach the Gospel, which they believed to be a duty required of them by the divine will, a law was enacted to banish them on pain of death. Their constancy, however, was not
thus to be shaken, and four Friends, one of whom was a woman, were hanged at Boston. In this extremity, application was made to Charles II. who willingly granted his mandamus, dated 9th September, 1661, to stop these severities. The Quakers, in common with other dissenters, were relieved by the suspension of the penal laws under James II. But it was not until the reign of King William that they obtained any de gree of legal protection. In the year 1681 Charles IL granted to William Penn the province of Pennsylvania. Penn's treaty with the Indians on this occasion, re flects honour on his memory, and forms a striking con trast with the conduct of other colonists. In the go vernment which he formed, he allowed that full liberty of conscience, which he and his friends had themselves claimed from their fellow professors of the Christian name. if the Independents have the credit of being the first who held the principles of toleration, the Friends have the credit of being the first who reduced those principles to practice. In the early times of this Society, a few individuals belonging to it were charge able with irregularity and impropriety in some parts of their conduct, but we believe that, on examination, it will be found that such conduct was disapproved of by the Society at large. The most notorious instance of the kind is that of James Naylor, who was condemn ed on a charge of blasphemy by Cromwell's parlia ment ; but when it is considered that he was disowned as a member by the society, and was not reinstated un til he had publicly acknowledged his error, and given signs of sincere repentance, it is certainly unfair to af fix any stigma to the Friends on his account ; yet this has been done by several writers.