It was not customary for women to be lashed in Ipswich, so the crowd was large and appreciative. They watched approvingly as the nine cords cut into her back on the first three lashes, and then a whisper of suppressed excitement swept through the crowd as the fourth lash fell.
“She’s bleeding in front!” a woman in the crowd shouted, and the spectators pressed forward to see for themselves where the tips of the lashes had laid open the breasts.
“Good blow, Robert,” a man called. “Hit her again!”
“Oh,” the beaten woman moaned as the last two blows fell.
“Well struck, Robert. Now the man.”
Paxmore would not remember his punishment at Ipswich. The first blow pulled his face sideways, and all he could see was the Quaker woman beside him, a small, dark-haired woman limp and faint, with blood dripping from her breasts. That night they were parted, he to exile in Rhode Island, she to her final installment in Duxbury.
The subsequent history of Edward Paxmore in Massachusetts seems a grotesque nightmare. After his final whipping in Ipswich, the constable led him to the border of Massachusetts, and in the cold weeks of late March 1661, stole every piece of clothing he had and shoved him naked into Rhode Island. The citizens of the first village he came to were accustomed to receive such exiles from the theocracy to the north, and quickly dressed him in clothes too small. He was given a set of carpenter’s tools and within four weeks was back in Massachusetts, a gangling carpenter preaching the Quaker doctrine and keeping himself in jeopardy.
Records show that he was arrested in Ipswich in 1662 and lashed through four towns before he was expelled once more into Rhode Island. The records do not show this, but again he arrived completely naked.
He returned to Massachusetts in 1663 and was again whipped through three towns and exiled, naked. In January 1664 he was back, his shoulders a mass of crisscrossing scars, his voice deepened and impassioned in the work of conversion. This time he was apprehended in Boston and taken before Judge Goddard, who was appalled at his appearance: he was emaciated from meals missed while fleeing; borrowed clothes many sizes too small hung curiously from shoulders which sagged as if borne down by unseen burdens; his eyes no longer flamed; and his deportment was much altered. He was not deferential to authority, he sought argument, and his colloquy with Judge Goddard, recorded both by officers of the colony and by crypto-Quakers eavesdropping at the court, was vigorous:
GODDARD: Why have you come back, when you have already received an even hundred lashes? Is your back so stout it can withstand everything?
PAXMORE: Why does thee persist in persecutions? Is thy heart so black it is impervious to a sense of guilt?
GODDARD: Why would guilt be upon me?
PAXMORE: Because thee acts in defiance of God’s law and the king’s.
GODDARD: Are you presuming to claim that the just law of the king is bad?
PAXMORE: I do so claim, but I am not required to, for the law itself states that it is bad.
GODDARD: Do you know that you speak treason? As well as heresy?
PAXMORE: If I speak against the king, I speak treason, this I confess, but the king himself will declare thy law void, because it is against his intentions and is bad.
GODDARD: Do you think that the King of England will alter a law because some fractious Quaker asks him to?
PAXMORE: No, because the reasoning of a just God asks him to, and he will obey.
GODDARD: You truly believe that the great law of Massachusetts will be changed to suit you.
PAXMORE: Not to suit me. To suit the everlasting laws of God.
GODDARD: You presume to interpret the wishes of God. What college in England did you attend? Did you study theology at Harvard? If so, what bishop ordained you to interpret God’s law?
PAXMORE: I studied at night, in the cell of thy prison, and my teacher was Thomas Kenworthy, whom thee murdered.
(Everyone who attended this trial, Puritans and Quakers alike, remarked that when Edward Paxmore made this statement a pronounced change came over Judge Goddard. He dropped his sarcasm and lost his self-assurance. He also lowered his voice, leaned forward more, and engaged the prisoner in debate on a new level.)
GODDARD: You know that I do not want to order you whipped again.
PAXMORE: I am sure thee doesn’t, good Judge, for the terror of Kenworthy’s death rests on thy conscience.
GODDARD: Then why don’t you remove your hat, as a sign of respect for this court?
PAXMORE: Jesus instructed us to remain covered.
GODDARD: If I send you in peace to Rhode Island, will you stay there?
PAXMORE: I must go where God sends me.
GODDARD: Thomas Paxmore, don’t you realize that you’re making it very difficult for the Massachusetts Colony to deal with you? Won’t you leave us in peace?
PAXMORE: I bring peace.
GODDARD: A strange kind of peace. We have a good colony here, a good religion that suits us perfectly. All we ask is that you leave us alone, and all you do is preach treason and sedition and heresy.
PAXMORE: I come back to thy court, Judge Goddard, because I am instructed of the Lord.
GODDARD: What constructive message could you possibly bring?
PAXMORE: That thy sin of tenth March 1661 can be expiated. (At this strange statement the judge shuffled his papers.)
GODDARD: I did not sentence you on that date. Nor Thomas Kenworthy, neither.
PAXMORE: Thee sentenced the Quaker woman Ruth Brinton to be whipped through Boston and Ipswich and Duxbury. A woman ... to be lashed naked. (There was a long pause.)
GODDARD: We must defend ourselves. Sedition and heresy eat at the roots of our society. Our colony and our church must defend themselves.
PAXMORE: The burden of that defense sits most heavily on thee, good Judge. I see in thy face the marks of sin. I shall pray for thee.
GODDARD: You leave me no escape, Edward Paxmore. I sentence you to be lashed to the wheel of the great cannon and to be whipped forty times, and then to be taken down and hanged.
PAXMORE: I forgive thee, good Judge. Thee bears a heavy burden.
The carpenter was dragged away to the cell in which his conversion had taken place, and he would have been hanged except that an unprecedented event took place. Late on the Wednesday night before the Friday hanging, Judge Goddard, tall and lonely, sought out the sheriff and directed that officer to open the cell door and then to lock it securely after the judge had entered to talk with the condemned man.
“Edward Paxmore,” the stern judge began, “I cannot have your blood on my hands.”
“Good Judge, thee should have no blood on thy hands.”
“But suppose a citizen gives secrets to the French and by this act delivers the colony to the enemy?”
“That would be treason.”
“Or if a tax collector murders a merchant to take his wife?”
“He has committed an offense against God’s law.”
“Do you not confess that your treason is as great? A destruction of the church God has ordained for Massachusetts?”
“Does thee truly believe that God has personally ordained thy harsh and horrid church, so devoid of love?”
“I do. God is a stern taskmaster, as you have learned.”
“God is love, and if He does condemn the tax collector for murdering the merchant and hangs him, He does so in a forgiving mood, just as He forgave King David for a similar crime.”
“Paxmore, I cannot see you die. If I commit an illegal act, will you swear by the God you love not to reveal it?”
This offer presented Paxmore with a double difficulty: as a Quaker, he was forbidden to swear—that is, to use God’s existence as security for what he, a mortal, was affirming; and as a Christian, he did not want to be the cause of another man’s committing an unlawful act. But he felt deep sympathy for the travail Judge Goddard was undergoing, so he said quietly, “I am forbidden to swear, good Judge, but I know thy torment, and I will affirm.”
“I accept.”
“I do so affirm.”
“And as to the illegality, the act is mine alone, Paxmore, and does not require your participation.”
“So be it.”
The judge summoned the jailer and caused the cell door to be unlocked. He then surprised that official by leading Paxmore from the cell and into a waiting carriage. Before the judge climbed aboard, he handed the jailer a handful of coins and swore him to secrecy. With that, the carriage headed for the harbor.
“You are to go to Maryland,” the judge said. “There they are more tolerant.”
“Is not Maryland a part of Virginia? There they whip Quakers, too.”
“The two have broken apart,” the judge said, “or so I am told.”
“There will be work in Maryland,” Paxmore said. But then he gripped the judge’s hand. “I am not fleeing death, for I am not afraid. Thee is sending me away.”
“I am,” the judge agreed, and after a pause he confided, “The death of Thomas Kenworthy strangles me at night. Not the hanging, for he was a heretic and deserved hanging. But the whipping prior ... the wheels of that great cannon ...”
“Yet thee sentenced me to that same cannon. Forty lashes ... I would not have lived.”
“I did it because ...” Goddard could find no logical explanation; perhaps he had done it to curry favor with the mob, more likely to justify the action he was about to take.
In the era when Massachusetts backed Parliament, and Maryland the king, it was not easy to travel from one to the other. Few ships sailed, for neither place produced goods required by the other and there were no roads, or carriages to ride upon them. On the other hand, it was easy to reach London, for it was the center of government, of manufacturers and learning; large ships, some surprisingly swift, crossed back and forth constantly and inexpensively, and many captains formed the habit of stopping en route at the fairest of the Caribbean Islands.
In 1664 Barbados was a lively metropolitan center, with ships from many nations in its harbor and fine stores along its waterfront. Books could be obtained and choice stuffs from France and Spain. Here legal papers could be cleared as easily as in London, and there were schools which the children of the American colonists could attend.
“I’m placing you aboard a ship to Barbados,” Judge Goddard said. “From there you can easily get to Maryland.” The judge gave the captain money for passage, then handed Paxmore a purse, and while the carpenter tucked the money into his belt, the driver of the carriage rummaged in the boot of his vehicle to produce Paxmore’s saws and adzes.
“It’s better this way,” Goddard said. “If you ever reappear in Massachusetts, I shall hang you before nightfall.”
“Why?”
“Because you are a threat to the tranquility of our colony.”
“I would that I could rock it from its base.”
“I know. There will be others like you, but we shall prevail. Now go.”
Paxmore took his tools, bowed gravely to the judge who had saved his life, and climbed aboard the Barbados boat. At dawn the captain lifted anchor and the long, pleasant journey to the island paradise was under way.
In Barbados, Paxmore was kept in his cabin until inquiries had been made ashore, and after a while a bustling ship’s chandler named Samuel Spence came aboard demanding in a stern voice, “Where is this Edward Paxmore?” and when the carpenter was produced, Spence embraced him, crying, “I am one of thy persuasion.”
“A Quaker? Is it possible?”
“In Barbados anything is possible,” and he led the bewildered carpenter down onto the quay and into a world Paxmore could not have imagined. There was a richness here that Boston had never known, and a freedom of spirit that was remarkable.
“Are not Quakers beaten here?” Paxmore asked.
Spence laughed and said, “Who would bother? There’s money to be made and work to be done, and each man prays as he will.”
“Thee meets in public?”
“Of a certainty.”
“Could we go to the meeting place?”
“On Sunday, yes. At least thirty will be there.”
“I mean now.”
“It would be to no purpose, Friend Edward. Is thee a good carpenter?”
“I do good work.”
“I can believe it. Thy tools are in excellent condition. We need a carpenter, and the wages are generous.”
“Wages?” In his entire life up to now, and he was thirty-five years old that year, he had never worked for wages, always as an indentured servant.
Spence moved him from ship to ship, mending spars, shaving away doors that had stuck and building cupboards in new spots. Within days Paxmore had three offers of permanent positions, and he had not yet seen the meeting house, but on Sunday, Spence took him to a shed attached to the home of a prosperous merchant, and there the Quakers of Barbados showed Paxmore for the first time what worship in the new style consisted of.
Four plain chairs were set against one wall, and on them sat three older men and a woman, all wearing hats. In the body of the shed benches were lined, with a rope down the middle indicating that men were to sit on one side, women on the other. The rest of the shed was severely plain, with no adornment of any kind, and as the meeting got under way the benches filled, and the Quakers kept their hands folded in their laps, looking straight ahead.
No one spoke. This was the holy time of which Thomas Kenworthy had told him, the time when the spirit of God descended and occupied both the meeting place and the hearts of those gathered therein.
Forty minutes passed, and in the solemn silence Edward Paxmore reflected on the curious destiny that had brought him here and would soon cause him to move on. His physical being cried out for him to stay here, in comfort and convenience, with an assured job and new friends who wanted him to stay, but the inner voice of which Kenworthy had spoken urged him to Maryland and the duties awaiting him there.
Eighty minutes passed, and still the Quakers sat in silence. Then one of the men on the facing chairs rose and said in a high voice, “We have amongst us this day a friend from Massachusetts. How goes it there?”
For more than a minute Paxmore was unable to realize that he was being called upon to speak in a Quaker meeting, and he did not know what to do. He sat dumbly, whereupon the man with the high voice rose again and said, “Friend Edward, thee would deprive us of needful knowledge. I pray thee, speak.”
So Paxmore rose and looked at the four silent figures on the facing chairs. He wanted to tell them what life in Massachusetts was like for a Quaker, to share with them the whippings, and the loneliness, and the exile of spirit. But in the churches of New England he had heard enough of ranting and of self-appointed men who had the answer for everything. He would never speak like that, nor raise his voice and shout God’s thunder. He was done with ranting.
“In Massachusetts we do not meet like this” he said quietly. “There is a law, written down, which determines that Quakers are heretical and treasonous, and when caught they are tied to the tailgate of carts and dragged from village to village and whipped as they go.” He dropped his voice and added, “Women and men alike, stripped naked to the waist and whipped.”
He stood silent, trying to control his emotions so that his voice would not rise, and no one in the shed made a sound. Finally he coughed ever so slightly and concluded, “A meeting like this, in peace, sitting with Friends, is beyond the imagination of Quakers in Massachusetts, who sit in jail with their feet bound by chains. This is not only the First Day of the week. It is the First Day of my new life.”
No one else spoke, but when the meeting broke, the Quakers of Barbados clustered about Paxmore to ask if he had knowledge of this or that Quaker who had passed through the island on the way to Boston, and he was able to recite a doleful litany: “He was hanged. She was tied to the great cannon and whipped. He is preaching in the fields near Ipswich, but I fear for him.”
And then an older man took him by the arm, and
when they were apart, said, “Thank thee, Friend Edward, for thy spiritual message, which heartened us. But did thee have to say, in public meeting, the word naked?” Paxmore said, “I think it was necessary,” and the old Quaker said, “Perhaps so, but to speak of a woman naked ... even though it was not of her doing ...” He was not at all sure.
On Monday, Paxmore became involved with a task that made little impression on him at the time but which would later exert an indelible influence on his life. An English ship put into Barbados carrying as passenger the captain of another vessel, and this man hurried to Spence’s chandlery complaining that while approaching the neighboring island of St. Lucia he had been attacked by pirates. With ample muskets and fixed guns his crew had been able to hold off the pirates and even to inflict substantial damages.
“If no harm to thy ship, what’s the problem?” Spence asked.
“During the fight, while the crew was occupied, our cargo of slaves revolted and ripped chains from the moorings.”
“They can be fixed.”
“But when we unloaded them they tore up the barracoon.”
“That’s serious,” Spence said gravely. “Can’t have slaves rioting.” And he arranged for Paxmore and two other carpenters to return with the captain to St. Lucia to repair the ship and the barracoon.
It was a pleasant sail over the beautiful green-blue waters of the Caribbean, and Paxmore was in a happy frame of mind when the ship approached Marigot Bay, where the damaged vessel rested. He was not prepared for the beauty that awaited him: the entrance to the bay was scarcely visible from the open sea, but once attained, it spread before Paxmore’s eyes a wonderland of green mountains, tropical valleys and blue water. It was one of the finest small harbors in the world, a place of enchantment, and here the wounded vessel waited.
It required only two days for the carpenters to repair the damage done by the pirates and the rioting slaves; then everyone moved ashore to mend the barracoon. This was a high-walled enclosure in which slaves from all ships putting into Marigot were deposited prior to re-shipment to either Brazil or the English colonies of North America. Useless ones, or those who looked as if they might not survive passage to America, were jammed into whatever ship passed and sold in Haiti for six or eight months’ service before they died.
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