On the 6th of August, 1657, a ship arrived at New Amsterdam with several Quakers on board Two of them, women, began to preach publicly in the streets.  They were arrested and imprisoned.  Soon after they were discharged and embarked on board a ship to sail through Hell Gate, to Rhode Island, “where,” writes Domine Megapolensis, “all kinds of scum dwell, for it is nothing else than a sink for New England.”

One of the Quakers, Robert Hodgson, went over to Long Island.  At Hempstead he was arrested and committed to prison, and was thence transferred to one of the dungeons of fort Amsterdam.  He was brought before the Council, convicted of the crime of preaching contrary to the law, and was sentenced to pay a fine of six hundred guilders, about two hundred and forty dollars, or to labor two years at a wheelbarrow, with a negro.

After a few days’ imprisonment he was chained to the wheelbarrow and commanded to work.  He refused.  A negro was ordered to beat him with a tarred rope, which he did until the sufferer fell, in utter exhaustion, almost senseless to the ground.  The story of the persecutions which this unhappy man endured, is almost too dreadful to be told.  But it ought to be told as a warning against all religious intolerance.

“Not satisfied,” writes O’Callaghan,

“his persecutors had him lifted up.  The negro again beat him until he fell a second time, after receiving, as was estimated, one hundred blows.  Notwithstanding all this, he was kept, in the heat of the sun, chained to the wheelbarrow, his body bruised and swollen, faint from want of food, until at length he could no longer support himself and he was obliged to sit down.

“The night found him again in his cell, and the morrow at the wheelbarrow, with a sentinel over him, to prevent all conversation.  On the third day he was again led forth, chained as before.  He still refused to work, for he ’had committed no evil.’  He was then led anew before the director-general, who ordered him to work, otherwise he should be whipt every day.  He was again chained to the barrow and threatened, if he should speak to any person, with more severe punishment.  But not being able to keep him silent, he was taken back to his dungeon, where he was kept several days, ’two nights and one day and a half of which without bread or water.’

“The rage of persecution was still unsatiated.  He was now removed to a private room, stripped to his waist, and then hung up to the ceiling by his hands, with a heavy log of wood tied to his feet, so that he could not turn his body.  A strong negro then commenced lashing him with rods until his flesh was cut in pieces.  Now let down, he was thrown again into his loathsome dungeon, where he was kept ten days, in solitary confinement, after which he was brought forth to undergo a repetition of the same barbarous torture.  He was now kept like a slave to hard work.”

His case eventually excited so much compassion that Stuyvesant’s sister interfered, and implored her brother so importunately that he was at last induced to liberate the unfortunate man.  Let a firm Quaker resolve that he will not do something, and let a Governor Stuyvesant resolve that he shall do it, and it is indeed “Greek meeting Greek.”