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magistrates, who, considering her youth and good behavior hitherto, did not proceed against her so far as many of the people desired.
A fine was laid upon her, which both she and her father did profess they could not in conscience pay, whereupon she was ordered to be set in the stocks; but this Mr. Sewall, Robert Pike, and my brother would by no means allow, but paid the fine themselves, so that she was set at liberty, whereat the boys and rude women were not a little disappointed, as they had thought to make sport of her in the stocks.
Mr. Pike, I hear, did speak openly in her behalf before the magistrates, saying that it was all along of the cruel persecution of these people that did drive them to such follies and breaches of the peace.
Mr. Richardson, who hath heretofore been exceeding hard upon the Quakers, did, moreover, speak somewhat in excuse of her conduct, believing that she was instigated by her elders; and he therefore counselled the court that she should not be whipped.
August 1.
Captain Sewall, R. Pike, and the minister, Mr. Richardson, at our house to-day.
Captain Sewall, who lives mostly at Boston, says that a small vessel loaded with negroes, taken on the Madagascar coast, came last week into the harbor, and that the owner thereof had offered the negroes for sale as slaves, and that they had all been sold to magistrates, ministers, and other people of distinction in Boston and thereabouts.
He said the negroes were principally women and children, and scarcely