George Rofe in These American Parts

GEORGE ROFE IN THESE AMERICAN PARTS By Henry J. Cadbury NEW ENGLAND Yearly Meeting is usually accounted one of the oldest among Friends and George Rofe is often spoken of as its founder in 1661. Its reestablishment in 1945 out of several groups as a general or united Yearly Meeting for all Friends in those parts makes an appropriate excuse for publishing for the first time an account of Rofe written about two and a half centuries ago. George Rofe * was a glazier of Halstead in Essex. He was converted to Quakerism at the age of about twenty by some Quakers who visited the town.2 Of the few years between that event, probably in 1655, and his departure for America some time was spent in preaching in England and Holland and much of it in English prisons. On the latter one may consult his own pamphlets and the entries indexed under his name in Besse's Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers. All that is known of his work in Europe has been lately compiled by William I. Hull in his monograph on the Rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam 1655-1665? As will appear later Rofe learned to speak Dutch. In June 1659 he wrote to George Fox that he was hoping soon to take shipping from Amsterdam to America.4 He visited Bermuda in 1660 and his treatment by the authorities there is described in Besse's Collection? Also, though Besse does not 1 Also spelled Rolf, Rolfe, Roffe, Roofe, and misspelled Rose, Rosse. On his career see the article mentioned in note 24, and James Bowden, The History of the Society of Friends in America (London, 1850), i, pp. 360-362. 2 George Rofe, The Righteousness of God to Man (London, 1656), p. 16. 3 Swarthmore College Monographs on Quaker History, Number Four (Philadelphia, 1938), pp. 185-187. 4 A. R. Barclay MSS. 55. 5 Joseph Besse, A Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers (London, 1753), ii, p. 366. A letter written by Rofe from Bermuda is copied by Richard Pinder in Swarthmore MSS., iv, 39. Pinder was writing to George Fox from Barbados, August 17, 1660. For Rofe and Pinder in Bermuda see this Bulletin, vi (1914), pp. 20-21. 17 18 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION mention the matter, he visited the island of Nevis and was banished thence, as were many other Quaker visitors, usually by a verbal order from the Governor to the Marshal without any hearing or trial.' He spent the winter of 1660-61 in Maryland and Virginia according to a letter written to Richard Hubberthorne from Barbados on the 18th of November, 1661. This letter has been the source of our knowledge of his attendante at New England General Meeting. He continues: From thence I sailed in a small boat with only two Friends to New Netherland and so to New England, having good service amongst both Dutch and English; for I was in the chief city of the Dutch and gave a good sound but they forced me away. So we got meetings through the islands in good service and came in at Rhode Island, and we appointed a general meeting for all Friends in those parts, which was a very great meeting and very precious and continued four days together. And the Lord was with his people and blessed them and all departed in peace.7 Two or three days earlier Rofe had written to Steven Crisp that the Lord had made him an instrument of good to many in these countries. . . . But to mention passages at large I cannot now but this thou mayest understand that the Truth prevaileth through the most of all these parts and many settled meetings there are in Maryland, and Virginia and New England, and the islands thereabouts, and in the island of Bermuda; through all which places I have travelled in the power of the Spirit and in the great dominion of the Truth, having a great and weighty service for the Lord, in which I praise him he hath prospered me in all things to this day. And now I am in this fruitful...