court into the street; but we were true and steady prisoners, and
looked upon this liberty, arising from their confidence in us, to be
a kind of parole upon us; so that both conscience and honour stood
now engaged for our true imprisonment.

Adjoining to this room wherein we were was such another, both newly
fitted up for workhouses, and accordingly furnished with very great
blocks for beating hemp upon, and a lusty whipping-post there was in
each. And it was said that Richard Brown had ordered those blocks
to be provided for the Quakers to work on, resolving to try his
strength with us in that case; but if that was his purpose, it was
overruled, for we never had any work offered us, nor were we treated
after the manner of those that are to be so used. Yet we set
ourselves to work on them; for being very large, they served the
tailors for shop-boards, and others wrought upon them as they had
occasion; and they served us very well for tables to eat on.

We had also, besides this room, the use of our former chamber above,
to go into when we thought fit; and thither sometimes I withdrew,
when I found a desire for retirement and privacy, or had something
on my mind to write, which could not so well be done in company.
And indeed about this time my spirit was more than ordinarily
exercised, though on very different subjects. For, on the one hand,
the sense of the exceeding love and goodness of the Lord to me, in
His gracious and tender dealings with me, did deeply affect my
heart, and caused me to break forth in a song of thanksgiving and
praise to Him; and, on the other hand, a sense of the profaneness,
debaucheries, cruelties, and other horrid impieties of the age, fell
heavy on me, and lay as a pressing weight upon my spirit; and I
breathed forth the following hymn to God, in acknowledgment of His