A brief history of the voyage of Katharine Evans and Sarah Cheevers, to the island of Malta (1715)

This book tells the remarkable story of two English Quaker Activists, Katharine Evans (1618-1692) and Sarah Cheevers (1608-1664), who were held captive by the Roman Inquisition on the Island of Malta from 1658 to 1662. In 1658 both women were independently inspired to carry the Quaker message to Alexandria. They met by chance in London, and decided to travel together. Cheevers had no previous experience of missionary work, but Evans had already preached in Portsmouth and Warminster, been publicly whipped in Salisbury, arrested in Ireland, and banished from the Isle of Man. When they landed at Malta in December 1658, their activities soon attracted the attention of the Inquisition. They were confined to the house of the British consul, and then imprisoned on a charge of blasphemy.

“The Lord Inquisitor would have them separated; and because Katherine was Weak, she should go into a cooler Room; but Sarah should abide there still. Then Katherine, taking Sarah by the Hand, said, The Lord hath joyned us together, and Wo be to them that shall part us. I had rather die here with my Friend, than part from her.”

During their three-year imprisonment, the two women endured intense physical and psychological torment. However, they resisted all attempts to convert them, or to turn them against each other. On the contrary, their shared suffering strengthened their emotional and spiritual connection. After their release in July 1662, they returned to England, and continued their missionary work together until Cheevers’s death.The letters describing their imprisonment in Malta were first published as This is a short relation to some of the cruel sufferings (for the truth’s sake) of Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers in the inquisition of the isle of Malta (1662). This 1715 edition, which reworks their letters into a more coherent history, came from the personal collection of Sarah Morgan, of Mount Radford. Morgan, a member of the local Quaker community, died in April 1865, aged 81. Her inheritors gifted this work and several others, including a unique medical recipe manuscript (MSS 17), to the Devon and Exeter Institution.

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