Fox presented his other cheek to the officer, and begged him to give him another box for God’s sake.  The justice would have had him sworn before he asked him any questions.  “Know, friend,” says Fox to him, “that I never swear.”  The justice, observing he “thee’d” and “thou’d” him, sent him to the House of Correction, in Derby, with orders that he should be whipped there.  Fox praised the Lord all the way he went to the House of Correction, where the justice’s order was executed with the utmost severity.  The men who whipped this enthusiast were greatly surprised to hear him beseech them to give him a few more lashes for the good of his soul.  There was no need of entreating these people; the lashes were repeated, for which Fox thanked them very cordially, and began to preach.  At first the spectators fell a-laughing, but they afterwards listened to him; and as enthusiasm is an epidemical distemper, many were persuaded, and those who scourged him became his first disciples.  Being set at liberty, he ran up and down the country with a dozen proselytes at his heels, still declaiming against the clergy, and was whipped from time to time.  Being one day set in the pillory, he harangued the crowd in so strong and moving a manner, that fifty of the auditors became his converts, and he won the rest so much in his favour that, his head being freed tumultuously from the hole where it was fastened, the populace went and searched for the Church of England clergyman who had been chiefly instrumental in bringing him to this punishment, and set him on the same pillory where Fox had stood.

Fox was bold enough to convert some of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers, who thereupon quitted the service and refused to take the oaths.  Oliver, having as great a contempt for a sect which would not allow its members to fight, as Sixtus Quintus had for another sect, Dove non si chiamava, began to persecute these new converts.  The prisons were crowded with them, but persecution seldom has any other effect than to increase the number of proselytes.  These came, therefore, from their confinement more strongly confirmed in the principles they had imbibed, and followed by their gaolers, whom they had brought over to their belief.  But the circumstances which contributed chiefly to the spreading of this sect were as follows:—­Fox thought himself inspired, and consequently was of opinion that he must speak in a manner different from the rest of mankind.  He thereupon began to writhe his body, to screw up his face, to hold in his breath, and to exhale it in a forcible manner, insomuch that the priestess of the Pythian god at Delphos could not have acted her part to better advantage.  Inspiration soon became so habitual to him that he could scarce deliver himself in any other manner.  This was the first gift he communicated to his disciples.  These aped very sincerely their master’s several grimaces, and shook in every limb the instant the fit of inspiration came upon them, whence they were called Quakers.  The vulgar attempted to mimic them; they trembled, they spake through the nose, they quaked and fancied themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost.  The only thing now wanting was a few miracles, and accordingly they wrought some.