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14 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL SOCIETY. at Mount Holly, but [they] behaved very civilly to the people, excepting only a few persons, who were actually in rebellion, as they termed it, whose goods, etc., they injured. This evening every gondola man sent on board, with strict orders not to set a foot on the Jersey shore again. So far so good. Dec. 18. This morning gives us hope of a quiet day ; but my mind still anxious for my son, not yet returned. Our refugee gone off to-day out of the reach of gondolas and Tory hunters— much talk of the enemy ; two Hessians had the assurance to appear in town to-day ; they asked if there were any rebels in town, and desired to be shown the men of war; what a burlesque on men of war! My son returned to-night, and to his mortification saw not one Hessian, light-horse, or anything else worth seeing, but had the consolation of a little adventure at York Bridge, being made to give an account of himself as he went out yesterday, his horse detained, and he ordered to walk back to town and get a pass from General Reed ; this he readily agreed to; but instead of a pass, Colonel Cox accompanied him back to the bridge, and Don Quixote, Jr., mounted his horse, and rode through their ranks in triumph. Two field-pieces said to be mounted at Bristol. (To be continued.) A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REQUEST FOR A MEETING. The following document is from the George S. Gibson collection of Quakeriana, and was copied by permission, many years ago, from the original, which is most carefully written, with heading adorned with many flourishes.1 As no meetings of the names given exist to-day, the resuscitation asked for, if granted, was not lasting. South Mimms is about fifteen miles north of London on the road to St. Albans 1 As the Gibson collection was acquired by the Friends' Reference Library, Devonshire House, London, the original document doubtless will be found there. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REQUEST FOR A MEETING. 15 from which it is distant about five miles. Endfield or more usually Enfield, is now considered a suburb of London. It is about eight miles southeast of South Mimms. The Enfield rifle, long a well-known weapon, was manufactured near by. The literary associations of Enfield are interesting. Charles Lamb resided there from 1827 to 1833, and the poet Keats, and the novelist Captain Marryat were educated there. But this district has special interest for students of Quaker history, particularly of George Fox. " In this locality George Fox found not only his peaceful retreats, but also one of his most successful fields of service." " Many of his richest and most influential adherents had their country residences in the district, . . . and hither would he often come, especially in his later years, to escape from incessant labor and recruit his exhausted frame in rural homes that were always ready to receive him." 2 It was at Waltham Abbey in 1654, Fox tells us, that he held a meeting, " but the people were very rude, and gathered about the house and broke the windows, whereupon I went out to them, with the Bible in my hand, and desired them to come in, and told them I would show them Scripture both for our principles and practices." s . . . It was at Waltham that Fox, thirteen years later, " advised the setting up a school there for teaching boys . . .for instructing them in whatsoever things were civil and useful in the creation ." * It was at Enfield (or Endfield) that Fox spent the winter of 1667 at the house of Elizabeth Dry ; and that " all that winter " (of 1670-1671) he " lay . . . warring in spirit with the evil spirits of the world that warred against truth and friends." 5 Many incidents in early Quaker history are clustered in this region north of London. Of Waltham, Epping, South Mimms, Chipping Barnet, Winchmore Hill, Enfield, Flamstead End, and Totten2 Beck and Ball, London Friends' Meetings, p. 29s. 8 Journal, Bicent. ed., 1, 213. * Journal, Bicent. ed., 2, 89. 5 Journal, Bicent. ed., 2, 132, 135; Brayshaw, Personality of...

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