Brend, William

Brend, William an English minister of the Society of Friends, was born in London about 1586, and was converted under the preaching of Burrough and Howgill. He did not enter the ministry until very late in life. He was in the second company of Quakers who visited New England in 1657, being carried thither under remarkable circumstances, in the little vessel named Woodhouse, of which Robert Fowler was the commander. He was engaged in "Gospel labors" in Rhode Island until November 1657. Subsequently, while in Plymouth, Massachusetts, he received a "severe scourging" for alleged contempt of the magistrates. After various fortunes in America and in the West Indies, he returned to England, reaching that country at a time when the Quakers were suffering the severest persecutions. For a time he was in the wretched Newgate prison, but escaped with many other Friends during the great plague in London in 1665, when the prison-doors were thrown open. He died July 7, 1676. See Bowden, Hist. of the Society of Friends in America, 1:129-134. (J.C.S.)