Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/35

 in various parts of England or Ireland, and attracted large audiences. He was arrested, with Luke Howard (1621–1699) [q. v.], at a meeting at Canterbury on 28 Aug. 1661, and again at the Bull and Mouth, Aldersgate Street, on a Sunday in June 1662, when he was brought before Sir Richard Browne (d. 1669) [q. v.], lord mayor.

In the autumn of 1662 Perrot and some of his followers emigrated to Barbados, where his wife and children joined him later, and where he was appointed clerk to the magistrates. He seems to have still called himself a quaker, but gave great offence by wearing ‘a velvet coat, gaudy apparel, and a sword,’ while he was now as strict in exacting oaths as he had formerly been against them. Proceeding on a visit to Virginia, he induced many quakers there to dispense with the formality of assembling for worship, and otherwise to depart from the judicious rules laid down by Fox.

Perrot formed many projects for improving the trade of Barbados by tobacco plantations; he built himself a large house, surmounted by a reservoir of water brought from a distance of some miles; he was also presented with a sloop, to carry freight to Jamaica. But his schemes came to no practical result. He died, heavily in debt, in the island of Jamaica, some time before October 1671. His wife Elizabeth and at least two children survived him.

Perrot's ‘natural gifts’ were, says Sewel, ‘great,’ and he possessed a rare power of fascination. His following was at one time considerable; but the attempts made by John Pennyman [q. v.] and others to give it permanence failed. His unbalanced and rhapsodical mysticism caused Fox, with his horror of ‘ranters’ and the warning of James Naylor's case fresh in his mind, to treat him as a dangerous foe to order and system within the quaker ranks. A believer in perfection, Perrot held that an inspired man, such as himself, might even be commanded to commit carnal sin. According to Lodowicke Muggleton [q. v.], with whom Perrot had many talks, he had no personal God, but an indefinite Spirit (Neck of the Quakers Broken, p. 22). Martin Mason [q. v.], although he declined to accept his vagaries, celebrated his talents in some lines—‘In Memoriam’—published in the ‘Vision.’

Perrot's works were often signed ‘John, the servant of God,’ ‘John, called a Quaker,’ and ‘John, the prisoner of Christ.’ Some are in verse, a vehicle of expression objected to by Fox as frivolous and unbecoming. To this objection Perrot cautiously replied that ‘he believed he should have taken it dearly well had any friend (brother-like) whom they offended turned the sence of them into prose when he sent them from Rome.’

Besides a preface to the ‘Collection of Several Books and Writings of George Fox the Younger’ [see under ], London, 1662, 2nd edit. 1665, his chief tracts (with abbreviated titles) are: 1. ‘A Word to the World answering the Darkness thereof, concerning the Perfect Work of God to Salvation,’ London, 4to, 1658. 2. ‘A Visitation of Love and Gentle Greeting of the Turk,’ London, 4to, 1658. 3. ‘Immanuel the Salvation of Israel,’ London, 4to, 1658; reprinted with No. 2 in 1660. 4. (With George Fox and William Morris) ‘Severall Warnings to the Baptized People,’ 4to, 1659. 5. ‘To all Baptists everywhere, or to any other who are yet under the shadows and wat'ry ellement, and are not come to Christ the Substance,’ London, 4to, 1660; reprinted in ‘The Mistery of Baptism,’ &c., 1662. 6. ‘A Wren in the Burning Bush, Waving the Wings of Contraction, to the Congregated Clean Fowls of the Heavens, in the Ark of God, holy Host of the Eternal Power, Salutation,’ London, 4to, 1660. 7. ‘J. P., the follower of the Lamb, to the Shepheards Flock, Salutation, Grace,’ &c., London, 4to, 1660, 1661. 8. ‘John, to all God's Imprisoned People for his Names-Sake, wheresoever upon the Face of the Earth, Salutation,’ London, 4to, 1660. 9. ‘John, the Prisoner, to the Risen Seed of Immortal Love, most endeared Salutation,’ &c., London, 4to, 1660. 10. ‘A Primer for Children,’ 12mo, 1660, 1664. 11. ‘A Sea of the Seed's Sufferings, through which Runs a River of Rich Rejoycing. In Verse,’ London, 4to, 1661. 12. ‘To all People upon the Face of the Earth,’ London, 4to, 1661. 13. ‘Discoveries of the Day-dawning to the Jewes,’ London, 4to, 1661. 14. ‘An Epistle to the Greeks, especially to those in and about Corinth and Athens,’ London, 4to, 1661. 15. ‘To the Prince of Venice and all his Nobles,’ London, 4to, 1661. 16. ‘Blessed Openings of a Day of good Things to the Turks. Written to the Heads, Rulers, Ancients, and Elders of their Land, and whomsoever else it may concern,’ London, 4to, 1661. 17. ‘Beames of Eternal Brightness, or, Branches of Everlasting Blessings; Springing forth of the Stock of Salvation, to be spread over India, and all Nations of the Earth,’ &c., London, 4to, 1661. 18. ‘To the Suffering Seed of Royalty, wheresoever Tribulated upon the Face of the whole Earth, the Salutation of your Brother Under the oppressive Yoak of Bonds,’ London, 4to, 1661. 19. ‘A Narrative of some of the