THE HISTORY OF NONCONFORMITY IN PLYMOUTH. 47 
Spaniard and Papist were to them one. They hated all that 
savoured of Popery, save golden candlesticks and jewelled shrines. 
Everything conspired to foster the Puritanic spirit within the 
community. Other foreign influence was not wanting. Francesco 
Diaz, a Spanish captain, found lying in Plymouth harbour, in 1568, 
eleven French cruisers, which, with half a dozen English, carried 
the flag of the Prince of Conde, and scoured the Channel in search 
of Catholic ships. One of these vessels was commanded by "William 
Hawkins, brother of Sir John, and himself a corporator. 
Plymouth, thus distinctively Puritan, was, as compared with the 
rest of the kingdom, Nonconformist in fact if not in name. But 
actual Nonconformity was not long wanting. The earliest separatist 
Protestant body was the Anabaptist ; or, as we now say, the Baptist. 
Save in the rite of adult baptism the Anabaptists differed widely. 
There were the bloodthirsty Anabaptists who seized Munster under 
John of Leyden, and carried out a reign of terror which reflected 
with lurid power the horrors of the Catholic persecution. There 
were the devout, sincere, liberal-minded Anabaptists, who seem to 
have got hold of the principles of religious liberty and toleration 
when all the rest of the Christian world was in more than heathen 
darkness thereon. There were the rationalistic Anabaptists, who 
brought all doctrines to the tribunal of their private judgment, and 
in the enjoyment of that freedom sought to live in peace with all 
men. The true Anabaptists persecuted nobody ; they were per- 
secuted of all. Henry and Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, each in 
turn sent them to the stake. There still exists at Moretonhamp- 
stead an ancient General Baptist congregation, which tradition 
carries back to the days of Mary, and associates with the sufferings 
of her reign. The early Baptists came from Holland ; and it is 
highly probable that the frequent intercourse between this port and 
that country led to Baptist opinions being implanted here. Much 
about the same time the views of Browne, from whom the early 
Independents took the name of Brownists, must have been received. 
I am not sure that Browne ever visited Plymouth, but the seed 
was sown by some one; for when in 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers 
came hither on their way to America, they " were kindly enter- 
tained and courteously used by divers friends there dwelling." The 
Pilgrim Fathers were Independents ; and the earliest recorded 
Nonconformist organization of Plymouth was such a mixed con- 
gregation of Independents and Baptists as was then common. 
