118 QUAKERISM IX GUERNSEY. 



Report said he was going to preach on the New Ground* the 

 following Sunday, and people flocked from all parts of the 

 Island to hear him, but he did not appear: "As he was staying 

 with one of our neighbours, who had been his servant in 

 England, my grandfather met him and reproached him for 

 disappointing the people, but he said it was a mistake and the 

 people had deceived themselves. But he preached several 

 times in a large roomj and also distributed several books. 

 Soon after he left a soldier offered us one of them, namely 

 ' No Cross, no Crown ' : this book was written by William 

 Penn while a prisoner in the Tower in 1669. My grandfather 

 read part of it and then lent it to a priest of the Church of 

 England who soon returned it, saying it was a good book, but 

 if followed would lead to great singularities. However the 

 book was put in an attic and there my brother, who had always 

 been of a studious turn of mind, read it, and it made such an 

 impression on his mind that we all observed the change in him 

 — whereupon our relations began to fear that if he became a 

 Quaker he would lose his business, and my grandfather very 

 properly, as he had a great regard for the Dean of Guernsey 

 (Elie Crespin by name), consulted him about Quakerism—but 

 the Dean, being an Englishman by birth and well acquainted 

 with Friends and their books, did not advise that my brother 

 should be discouraged." 



u I continued at the Ecrivain's Office till my grandfather's 

 death in 1776, and then went and hired myself to a Captain of 

 our acquaintance who sailed under the Dutch Flag, as we 

 were then at war both with America and France. So we 

 sailed for Rotterdam, and in going up Channel we were 

 overhauled one morning off Beachy Head, first by a Freneh 

 privateer, soon after by an English one, and then off Dover, 

 by a King's Revenue Cutter. Early in the spring of 1779 I 

 again went to sea, but the vessel I sailed in was captured by 

 the French and brought into Cherbourg, and I and the rest of 

 the crew were put into prison. While I was there a French 

 Merchant, named Maugeur, was very kind to me. We were 

 then all marched further inland, but the peasantry, looking at 

 us and seeing that we both spoke and understood their language, 

 said ' lis sont comme nous.' We were marched to Fougeres, 

 under the guard of the Regt. of Normandy with their black 

 facings, but afterwards we were transferred to the custody of 

 Corsican soldiers, and finally arrived at the City of Angers 

 and were handed over to the care of the Irish Brigade (who 



* Now known as Cambridge Park. 



+ Probably the large room at the bottom of the Pollet which was used as a 

 ballroom before the Assembly rooms were built. 



