Excerpt from The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Margaret Moore
Excerpt from Sidney Perley's The History of Salem, Massachusetts, Vol.
3, pp. 235-36. 1928
That Quakers were active in defending themselves against the persecution of the Puritans is clearly illustrated by this account of the advocacy of the elderly Samuel Shattock.
"There was sorrow when Samuel Shattock passed on, June 6, 1689, in
his seventieth year. It was twenty-eight years before that he had been banished,
on pain of death, because he was one of the Friends of Salem, and had sailed
for England to secure an audience with Charles II, who was then preparing for
his coronation. Through the influence of some people there, he succeeded in
securing a conference with the king, who listened to Shattock's statement concerning
affairs in the colony, particularly in reference to taking the lives of his
subjects on the plea of difference in religious belief. The king caused to be
prepared a letter, addressed to Governor Endecott, prohibiting the prosecution
of the Quaker cases further, and entrusted it to Shattock for delivery to the
governor. Shattock immediately returned to New England and hastened to the governor
in Boston. This order ended this course here. Shattock's body was laid in the
Charter Street burying ground, and today his gravestone
marks the spot, while the burial places of the principal persecutors are forgotten."
