It was, as I hinted before, a general storm which fell that day, but
it lighted most, and most heavily, upon our meetings; so that most
of our men Friends were made prisoners, and the prisons generally
filled. And great work had the women to run about from prison to
prison to find their husbands, their fathers, their brothers, or
their servants; for according as they had disposed themselves to
several meetings, so were they dispersed to several prisons. And no
less care and pains had they, when they had found them, to furnish
them with provisions and other necessary accommodations.
But an excellent order, even in those early days, was practised
among the Friends of that city, by which there were certain Friends
of either sex appointed to have the oversight of the prisons in
every quarter, and to take care of all Friends, the poor especially,
that should be committed thither.
This prison of Bridewell was under the care of two honest, grave,
discreet, and motherly women, whose names were Anne Merrick
(afterwards Vivers), and Anne Travers, both widows.
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