Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

266 GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES.
have been obliged to give audience to, and receive
letter from the hands of one whom they had banished.
the King's
The news of the King's letter fell like a thunderbolt on Barlow.
He had grown rich "on the spoils of the innocent," but in
after times he was very poor, and often wished for the return of
"the good times," as he called the four years from 1657 to 1661.
In Iiis old age he often craved Priscilla's charity; She always
administered to his wants, and though he never went from her
was always
door empty handed, yet he was never grateful ; and
sighing for the return of the "good old times."
Barlow died as he lived, a poor miserable drunkard. No
loving hand smoothed his brow in death, and no. stone tells where
he lies.
It is not surprising that the persecutions of the Quakers at
Sandwich should have aroused the indignation of such men as
Cudworth, Hatherly, and Robinson—it is surprising that the acts of
Barlow should have found an apologist in the Old Colony. William
Allen was not the greatest sufferer. Edward Perry, who resided at
East Sandwich, was wealthy, a man who had been well educated,
he suffered more. Robert Harper had his house and lands and all
that he had taken, and suffered many cruel imprisonments and
punishments. Thomas Johnson, the poor weaver, to whom Mr.
Cudworth refers, was strip't of all he had. Not only were their
goods taken from them, and cruel punishments inflicted ;
but they
were disfranchised, even those who were of the first settlers and
had lived in Sandwich, twenty years. Oct. 2, 1658, nine were
disfranchised by the Colony Court, for being, or sympathizing
with the Quakers, and it was farther ordered, that no man should
thereafter be admitted an inhabitant of Sandwich, or enjoy the
privileges thereof without the approbation of the church, Gov.
Prence, or one of the assistants.
During the Protectorates in England a similar feeling existed
there, and the injudicious legislation of New England was only
the echo of the Puritan opinion in the mother country. Mr.
Palfrey in his excellent history of New England, remarks on this
subject: "The Puritan's mistake at a later period was: that he
undertook by public regulation what public regulation can never
achieve, and by aiming to form a nation of saints, introduced
hypocrites among them to defeat their objects and bring scandal on
their cause, while the saints were made no more numerous and no
better."
The following letter of Mr. Cudworth to Mr. John Brown
was written in December 1658, and printed the next year in England,
and probably had an influence in determining King Charles
to issue his letter or mandamus. Mr. Deane, in his histf^ry of
Scituate, publishes the letter substantially, omitting many passages