The Virginia Gazette

To the PRINTER.

SIR,

Protestant Subjects.

The Writer, after mentioning several Cruelties says, —" What Wrong had these People done the King? had they not always been faithful to him? That was not their Crime; for it must be acknowledged, to the Shame of the Catholick Religion, while the greatest Part of us sided with the Princes in the late civil Wars, they stood always firm to the King: and it was to them only that the King was indebted for his Crown: That which made them criminal was their Religion, and their Refusal to yield
Obedience to his imperious Commands in turning Catholics; tho' they humbly and dutifully remonstrated to him, that they should act against their Consciences, if they abandoned the Doctrines of their Reformation.

But the King was absolute, and would not be denied; and, because they refused him immediate Obedience, his Fury kindled against them; so that neither Age, nor Sex, nor Merit, nor Quality, escaped it: He let loose his Dragoons upon them; he set up Villains and Robbers to be their Converters; and, like another Mahomet, he made Use of Fire and Sword to force them to receive his Doctrine.

With what Colours shall I draw the hideous Picture of these abominable Conversions, at which even the holy See trembled, and which have drawn so many Tears from the Eyes of all real Catholics? This implacable Prince no sooner heard that his Protestant Subjects had declared they would die in their Religion, because they believed it to be the Truth, and that, excepting in that single Point, they were ready to sacrifice their Lives for his Honour, than he thundered out his Orders for his butcherly Converters to pour into all the Provinces, and force the Consciences of those innocent People at all Events. His Orders were attended with a Declaration, that he was resolved to have his Pleasure put in Execution whatever it cost him; and that his Converters should stand indemnified for all Barbarities whatever they should commit in enforcing Obedience to his Commands.

Thus animated, these infernal Legions hastened to execute the bloody Mandate of their cruel Monarch: Nor was there any Sort of Inhumanity they did not practise. The Oppositions and Violences of these lewd Converters, and the unheard-of Torments which they invented to preach up the King's Religion, would swell up into many bulky Volumes. On their entering a City, some seized upon the Gates and all the Avenues, while others beat about the Streets to seize upon Fugitives, and force them to attend to the Documents of these abominable Apostles. They were quartered at Discretion, by Order of the Intendants of the Provinces, and sometimes of the Bishops themselves, to the Shame of the Episcopal Dignity: and they no sooner entered into a House, but they filled it with horrible Cries, accompanied with a thousand Blasphemies. They appeared like so many Devils let loose and broke out of Hell, to make War upon Mankind. Neither Tears nor Submission could move them: They hanged both Men and Women by the Feet or Hair of their Head to the Ceiling, or on Hooks in the Chimnies. They plunged them into Wells or Sloughs full of Mud and Filth. They half-roasted and basted their naked Limbs with melted Grease. They thrust red-hot Coals into the Palms of their Hands, then closed them by Force. They poured Wine into their Bodies with Funnels: They blew them up with Bellows 'til their Bellies burst. They tore the Hair from their Chins and Head, and their Nails from their Fingers and Toes. They stripped them naked, and, after they had offered them a thousand Indignities, they stuck Pins into them from Head to Foot. They pinched and gashed their Skins with a Penknife, and sometimes with red-hot Pincers nipped the Flesh from their Arms, or else took them by the Nose and led them from Room to Room.

Modesty will not permit me to tell the Ignominies the Women were constrained to undergo. They ravished several, and some in the Presence of their Husbands and Fathers, whom they had tied to the Bed-posts. 'Tis impossible to recount the various Torments which those infernal Miscreants invented to plant the Catholick Faith in the Hearts of the King's Subjects. They committed those Cruelties, which, perhaps, the Devils themselves would not have thought of; and when they observed, that those whom they so tormented, endured all, they bethought themselves at length how to make them mad, by hindering them from Sleep for whole Weeks together. Rich and poor, Men and Women, young and old, sick and sound, all without Distinction, deeply experienced their Barbarity; while the King and his Confessor laughed at these Inhumanities, which drew so much Blood and such Showers of Tears from those religious People, who however supported themselves with a wonderful Constancy of Mind; and then it was that the frantic Monarch filled all the Cloisters, Dungeons, and Gallies, with an infinite Number of these miserable People; who, in Regard to the good Services they had done him, were worthy of a better Reward.

Thus France was a Theatre full of Dread and Horror; the Hangman at Work at all Hours; and they that died in Contempt of the King's Orders, were dragged along the Streets as a Spectacle to the People, and then thrown into the common Sewers.