ESTC records seven locations in the UK (the Library of the Religious Society of Friends apparently has six copies); thirteen copies in the USA; but other than the present copy, the last copy at auction recorded on Rare Book Hub was in 1968 at Sotheby’s.
A series of astonishing poems by the early Irish Quaker missionary John Perrot, largely written from a prison for mad men in Rome and whilst quarantined in a leper colony at Venice. This collection of verses forms an allegorical tale of Perrot’s experiences in captivity as well as his understanding of and unshakeable belief in Quaker theology, and notably contributed to a rift amongst the Quaker community due to its unusual style and loose adherence to gender norms.
Perrot’s ODNB entry, by Nigel Smith, describes the present work as, “an extra-ordinary series of contemplations and songs in a variety of poetic forms, totalling some 1448 lines … a significant and unusual example of radical religious writing [which shows] that Perrot was well read and familiar with poetic technique, and in its sublimation of his experiences of torture and abuse into a spiritual allegory built out of natural imagery (especially about the sea), the work bears some comparison with Milton’s Paradise Lost”. Elsewhere, in his book chapter “John Perrot and the Quaker Epic”, Smith adds that “during the course of the poem, Perrot is able to express his own sense of gradual regeneration, his sense of the enormity of God in the natural world, and, in an unusual way, his experience of torture at the hands of the officials in the Pazzarella”.
Perrot addresses different sections of his verse to different audiences: “To the simple Seeker” he writes, “I see thy face, thou seek’st for Grace,/my Lilly Seed come prove,/Whilst it is day, I’ll shew the Way,/the LIGHT’s my Joy and Love” (p. 43), while to the already convinced “Babes of Blessing” he cries, “Oh Lambs the fairest of all Flocks,/upon you drops/all Blessing from above,/Fresh streams of Oyl upon your head,/lay’n in the Bed/of Everlasting Love” (p.44). These joyful and encouraging messages are then interspersed with warnings: “To the Man of Lust” (If you’ve another love, then GOD’s forgotten,/Then the Affection’s lost, the Heart is rotten“ (p. 40), “To the Apostatized” (“But turning to their Vomit like the Dog,/And to the Mire, like to the unclean Hog,/Thy Judgment’s just to Wo and Misery,/Being double wrought under Iniquity” (p.41); and in more of a general denouncing of evil, “To the Black Power” (“Read this your doleful Doom, you that in darkness dwell,/The portion of the Wicked, the burning Lake and Hell./Your cursed wicked hearts, have rob’d GOD of his Right,/In that you’ve chosen Lust, and hated the true Light.” (p.35).
“The poem is not an epic in the strict and classical sense of the word. Rather, it is a series of contemplations and songs, in a variety of poetic forms, which form the representation of the ‘inner light’ epic of Perrot’s life”. Reminiscent of both the questioning dialogue of Job and the supplications of Psalm 22, Perrot’s verses cast both his torments and his expected salvation into imagery of the natural world: “How can it be conceiv’d, and much less spoken,/Hell’s strength and stratagems all to be broken?…Who can make Seas like unto the least Fountain?/And make a little Stone, a mighty Mountain?” (p.9). Ultimately, it showcases above all his belief in the presence of the divine inner light that forms the central tenet of Quaker theology, and how his ability to see this in himself, others, and the world around him carried him through his periods of imprisonment.
“So in this hour, dwell in the Power
which all the World doth chain,
Prosper in th’Light, conquer in fight,
and in Dominion reign“
John Perrot (?-1665) was an influential Irish Quaker who is best known for his missionary travels, particularly his ill-fated trip to Rome, and for his ideological clashes with Quaker founder George Fox (1624-1691). Perrot was a prolific writer, using letters and pamphlets in addition to travelling for missionary work to attempt to convert (or “convince” as the Quakers preferred to say) others to the beliefs of the Friends.
Enthusiastic and effusive in his preaching even by the standards of the early Quakers, Perrot believed fully in doing whatever he was directed by the spirit of God, and in 1657 this meant that he set off to Turkey with the intent of preaching directly to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. After a series of adventures and misadventures in Italy, Greece, and Turkey, including the stint in quarantine in the Lazaretto, he and fellow Quaker John Luffe turned their attention to Rome and Pope Alexander VII. Both were very quickly arrested by the Inquisition, and Luffe died not long after in prison. Perrot was thrown into the Pazzarella asylum, where he endured three years of torture. “He was chained by the neck for the first few days, and then by the ankle for the next fourteen weeks. He reported being regularly tortured—including being beaten with a pizzle, presumably in the belief that the insane could be beaten into sense.” Throughout both his travels and imprisonment, Perrot continued to write missives such as A Sea in the Seed’s Sufferings that were sent back to England to be printed.
After being released in 1661, Perrot returned to England with a new determination to preach obedience to the directions of the divine Spirit above any man-made laws. This quickly caused a feud with George Fox when Perrot began speaking out against the Quaker custom of men always removing their hats during prayer, saying that it made far more sense for this to only be done if the individual felt called to do so. Mandating the removal of the hat also went against the central stated Quaker belief of the equality of all people, since women were contrarily expected to always keep their heads covered while praying. Though this “hat-heresy” was the central point of contention between the two men, they also disagreed on other issues, including Perrot’s publishing of verse (such as A Sea in the Seed’s Sufferings), which Fox sneeringly denounced as “an offence to the principle of plainness”, though one that seemed to resonate with others, as shown by the increase in similar published Quaker verse following 1661. This dimension of their debate also connected back to the theme of gender- Smith notes that “in the light of the seed, womb, and blood imagery in A Sea, it might be conjectured that Perrot was attempting to cross or merge genders, perhaps as a means of expressing the universal significance of his suffering”.
The ill will between Fox and Perrot quickly spiralled out of control, causing widespread division amongst the Friends as many sided with one or the other. Eventually Perrot took himself into exile in Barbados, where he continued to preach and write about God but moved away from acting as a Quaker- even giving up the usual plain dress and distance from politics in order to become a royally appointed Captain, wearing a satin suit and sword and accepting diplomatic duties. Despite this, he retained many followers and his influence in Quaker communities on both sides of the Atlantic remained long after his death in 1665.
“For I am God’s and Yours in every Tryal,
The which you know full well without denial:
So read me, You, We, One, through Life’s infusion,
In the first Principle, and last Conclusion.“
Provenance: John Estaugh (1676-1742), signature on title-page alongside that of his great-niece Ann Hopkins (1757-1833). John Estaugh was an English Quaker preacher who moved as a young man to New Jersey, where he met his wife, Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh (1680-1762), after whom the area where they lived was named Haddonfield. As the story goes, John was at first hesitant to court Elizabeth despite his affection for her, so she took matters into her own hands and proposed to him, leading to a very happy marriage - Elizabeth herself reminisced that “few, if any, in a married State, ever lived in sweeter Harmony than we did”. Their love story is recounted in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn as “The Theologian’s Tale; Elizabeth”. Though the Estaughs had no children of their own, they informally adopted Ebenezer Hopkins Sr., the son of Elizabeth’s sister Sarah. Sadly, John passed away while on a mission trip to Tortola in the West Indies, leaving all he had to his wife. Elizabeth went on to outlive both him and her adopted son, and thus when she passed she bequeathed most of her belongings to Ebenezer’s widow Sarah and their children. So it must have been that when she willed to “My kinswoman, Sarah Hopkins, and her 4 daughters, my household goods, etc.”, this book passed into the hands of the youngest daughter Ann.
