Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/230

Poſſeſſed, as they became, of the powers of making, adminiſtering, and executing the laws, they ſhewed equal intolerance in this country with their Preſbyterian brethren, who had emigrated to the northern government. The poor Quakers were flying from perſecution in England. They caſt their eyes on theſe new countries as aſylums of civil and religious freedom; but they found them free only for the reigning ſect. Several acts of the Virginia aſſembly of 1659, 1662 and 1693, had made it penal in parents to refuſe to have their children baptized; had prohibited the unlawful aſſembling of Quakers: had made it penal for any maſter of a veſſel to bring a Quaker into the ſtate: had ordered thoſe already here, and ſuch as ſhould come thereafter, to be impriſoned till they ſhould abjure the country; provided a milder puniſhment for their firſt and ſecond return, but death for their third; had inhibited all perſons from ſuffering their meetings in or near their houſes, entertaining them individually, or diſpoſing of books which ſupported their tenets. If no execution took place here, as did in New-England, it was not owing to the moderation of the church, or ſpirit of the legiſlature, as may be inferred from the law itſelf; but to hiſtorical circumſtances which have not been handed down to us. The Anglicans retained full poſſeſſion of the country about a century. Other opinions began then to creep in, and the great care of the government to ſupport their own church, having begotten an equal degree of indolence in its clergy, two-thirds of the people had become diſſenters at the commencement of the preſent revolution. The laws indeed were ſtill oppreſſive on them, but the ſpirit of the one party had ſubſided