1 Tolles and Alderfer, eds., The Witness of William Penn, 174; others accused the Quakers of being sexual “libertines,” but this opinion arose from a confusion of the Friends with other radical sects; for one such episode in New England see Christine Leigh Heyrman, Commerce and Culture, The Maritime Communities of Colonial Massachusetts, 1690-1750 (New York, 1984), 99-103.

2 Daniel Langstaff was disowned for many offenses, among them, making his wife “great with child by fornication.” Joseph Siddall was punished in the same way for “taking his wife before a priest, and his evill practice of knowing her before marriage.” A “troubled friend” named Emanuel Lapage was chastised for “not taking due care” in his “evil actions to commit fornication with his servant.” See Jean and Russell Mortimer, eds., Leeds Friends’ Minute Book, 1692-1712 (Leeds, Publications of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, vol. 139, 1980), 38, 63, 107-10.