THE HISTORY OF NONCONFORMITY IN PLYMOUTH. 57 
unimportant to note that in the following year a whipping-post 
was set up in the workhouse, and the cucking-stool repaired. 
It may be said, indeed it has been said, that the ejections of 
1662 were but a retaliation for those of the Commonwealth. I 
would not defend persecution in any shape. I cannot say that all 
fault was on one side ; but this I must say, that, so far as Ply- 
mouth is concerned, these persecutions are almost without the 
miserable excuse of retaliation. Aaron Wilson, according to 
Walker, soon after the commencement of the civil war, was sent 
away prisoner in a ship to Portsmouth. I do not justify this ; 
but bear in mind that Wilson had been illegally thrust upon the 
town, that he had made himself obnoxious personally, and that 
his ill-treatment was connected with the great civil conflict. On 
Wilson's death the king, again illegally, appointed Bedford, and 
him the corporation sent prisoner to London. Then Hughes was 
appointed, or, as Walker says, "by the factious part of the town 
of Plymouth thrust into the vicaridge " — a statement utterly false 
in its implication, as the corporation only acted in their right. 
Hughes had episcopal ordination, and, according to Calamy, was 
duly instituted. Not a whisper can be breathed against his piety, 
consistency, and ability ; and the legality of his occupancy of the 
living can hardly be questioned. The illegality of his removal is 
clear. Doubts have been cast upon his institution. There is a 
story told in Calamy that one of the ruck of the time-servers, who 
looked on the restoration of the Stuarts as the prelude to a feast of 
fat things, obtained the gift of the vicarage, and came down to 
turn Hughes out. "Are you sure the place is vacant?" said he; 
and, showing his institution, " they went away with a flea in their 
ear." This is very likely to be true; since, in August, 1661, 
one Dr. Lionel Gatford was presented to the living because he had 
been chaplain at Pendennis, and this would account for his not 
having it. When I add to what I have said of Wilson and Bed- 
ford that one Hobbes was frightened to death (according to 
Walker) by being told he should be thrown into the grave if he 
came to the churchyard again with his mass-book, I have said all 
that can be said of the persecution of Episcopalians in Plymouth. 
When the appointed ministers were removed their adherents 
were not left utterly to themselves. There lived then in Plymouth 
a certain Nicholas Sherwill, member of a wealthy merchant family, 
an m.a. of Magdalen, a Presbyterian, who had received episcopal 
