But

which he had already owned in court. the judge fined him about £40 in two amounts, one for contempt of the magistrates, the other for contempt of the ministry. Of course, Parnell would not pay one penny, which as he says in a letter written from prison to the judge, would be as much as if he paid the whole fine, and to own himself guilty where he was not.

He was conveyed back to Colchester, and admitted again within the massive castle walls. No " giddy-headed people" by which curious misnomer Judge Hill described the staid and serious followers of Fox, were to be permitted access to him in prison. He was allowed pen, ink and paper, and soon busied himself in writing more "Queries," a copy of which he sent to each of the clergymen who had been concerned in his conviction: John Samms, William Sparrow, John Willis and John Stalham. He also wrote letters to the Independents, and the Quakers, of Essex, with a detailed account of his conversion, imprisonment and trial, all of which were published together as The Fruits of a Fast," a year after

his death.

*Then the County Gaol. Reported on by John Howard in his "State of the Prisons," 4th ed., 1792, P. 261.

THE

CHAPTER VII.

IMPRISONMENt and DeatH.

HE Castle of the walled town of Colchester, the oldest and most important borough in the Eastern counties, was built by Eudo of Normandy, dapifer, or Mayor, of the palace, to William the Conqueror. Much land was granted to Eudo in the county, and here, upon the site of an ancient Roman temple, dedicated to the Emperor Claudius, in whose reign the first Roman Colony in Britain was founded here, he reared his stately castle. Although some considerable part has disappeared, the outer walls and a portion of the interior remain intact. Within is housed a valuable and interesting museum, and the Castle, it is not surprising to find, is daily visited by numbers of persons from far and near.

Among the chief objects of interest pointed out in the Castle itself are the cells where

prisoners were confined. James Parnell's

narrow, close-walled cell has been the goal of many pilgrims from America and all parts of this country for 250 years.

Upon his return thither from the forlorn journey to Chelmsford, after the miserable pretence at a fair trial, Parnell was abandoned to the mercy of the castle gaoler, Nicholas Roberts, a most vindictive and cruel man, married to an unfeeling and coarse woman as his wife. Nothing that this couple could do to deprive and annoy the poor youth was left undone. A trundle bed supplied by his friends, was never allowed to reach him, and he was compelled to lie night after night upon cold stones, which were often running with water.

The first few weeks of his imprisonment were probably passed in one of the two large dungeons in the South-eastern tower of the castle, where afterwards so many Friends were brought from all parts of Essex, to spend weary months and often years. The doorway leading to these dungeons forms one of our illustrations, from a drawing by Ernest Poppy, in the possession of Wilson Marriage, of Colchester. The chambers remain almost exactly in their former position. In the oak floors are massive rings