Not even
Bradford or Brewster, afterward dignified figures in Plymouth
colony, were of the humble band, men, women, and children, that
the officers of Boston took from their vessel. "Pathetic but
splendid figures," my brave "R. N." calls them, and he tells how,
after a month's jail, they were "sent home broken men, to endure
the scoffs of their neighbors and the rigors of ecclesiastical
discipline."
VI
The dungeons which remain to witness of their hardships in Boston
are of thick-walled, iron-grated stone, and the captives were fed
on bread and water within smell of the roasting and broiling of
the Guildhall kitchens immediately beside them. I will not
conjecture with "R. N." that they were put there "by a refinement
of cruelty," so that they might suffer the more in that vicinage.
"The magistrates" who had "used them courteously and shewed them
what favour they could," would not have willed that; but perhaps
"the Counsell-table" did; and it was certainly a hardship that
the dungeons and the kitchens were so close together, as any man
may see at this day.
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