116 QUAKERISM IN GUERNSEY. 



be wit once launched against the Volunteers, that " In Peace 

 they were invincible, and in War they were invisible" — well, 

 this might with justice be said of the Quakers. They also 

 disowned — as being of heathen origin — the ordinary names of 

 days and months (Bradshaw's Railway Guide— of Quaker 

 origin — shows this usage to this day), and used "thee" and 

 "thou" for "you " as being more consonant with accuracy. 

 Although the Quaker movement, like Methodism in the next 

 century, was iu no way intended as the beginning of a new sect, 

 yet its tenets spread all over Europe, and in spite of the frightful 

 persecutions the early Quakers in America had to endure, in 

 1682 William Penn, with "a Company of Friends," colonised 

 Philadelphia, the capital of Pennsylvania. 



Nicolas Naftel was a descendant of the family of Naftel 

 (or Navetel, as the name was originally written) who are 

 thought to have migrated to Guernsey from the village of 

 Navetel in Normandy. At any rate they were settled in 

 Guernsey early in the 16th Century, and in July 1556 a 

 J. Navetel was among the four insular clergy who signed Dean 

 Amy's decree of the Ecclesiastical Court that the unfortunate 

 Catherine Cauchcs and her two daughters, Perotine Massy and 

 Guillemette Guilbert, whose martyrdoms are recorded by Koxe, 

 were indeed heretics. 



Andrew Naftel, grandfather of the writer, was Captain of 

 a vessel trading from Guernsey to London. His son Thomas 

 married Elizabeth, only child of Nicholas Blondel our celebrated 

 clockmaker, whose grandfather clocks are still so much 

 esteemed over here, and still keep such excellent time. Thomas 

 Naftel died in 1764 leaving two sons, Thomas Andrew, and 

 Nicholas, aged five and two years respectively, and they were 

 taken by their widowed mother to live with their grandfather, 

 Nicholas Blondel — in the house in Cornet Street, which he had 

 bought from Mr. William Brock. His grandson describes him 

 as " a man fearing God, and hating covetousness, who took 

 upon himself to have us instructed according to his light and 

 knowledge. His wife, our grandmother, was a virtuous woman. 

 It was their practice to have the Scriptures read — according 

 to the order of the Church of England — every morning at 

 breakfast time, and as soon as we were able to read, my brother 

 and I read them in turn, which good practice gradually made 

 us acquainted with the Sacred Records. My grandfather was 

 a clockmaker, an art that he acquired after the 20th year of 

 his age, being obliged to seek his bread in a very different way 

 from that wherein he was brought up, as he was heir to one of 

 the best estates in St. Saviour's, but his father having married 



