On the morning of November 5, 1645, John Buxford insists his son "prepare himself for to goe along with him to Crediton," in order to bind himself as an apprentice to the weaver, Simon Culsver. Joseph Buxford, the boy, refuses to go, "saying he would rather go to the Devill," causing his father to beat him, and force him to come along. This continued "for above halfe a miles distance from the Towne."(2)

While taking his fifteen year old son, Joseph Buxford, to Crediton to apprentice him to the weaver Simon Culsver, John Buxford and Joseph Buxford encounter a carrier (Anonymous 390) "halfe a miles distance from the Towne." This carrier has four horses, "loaden with packes of Cloath," and is very familiar to John Buxford as "one whome he had often observed to frequend the Roade." When the Carrier stops to inquire as to why John Buxford is forcing his son further along the road by beating him, John Buxford explains his son's "refractory behaviour in running from his Master." The carrier replied that he could find a master for the boy, "and such employment as would put him in the way so gaine a compleat estate to maintaine himself," a proposition John Buxford agrees to, under the condition that the boy should return in eight days at the latest. They agree that if Joseph Buxford does not like the work he will undertake with the carrier, he must return to his old master, the weaver.(2-3)

Joseph Buxford, a fifteen year old boy whose father has signed him on to work with a carrier after threatening to apprentice the boy to the Devil, is witness to the "stupendious Miracle," which begins with the horses and packs of the carrier vanishing, and the carrier "metamorphosed in a trice from a man to a flying Hourse in a black and ugly shape and colour."(3)

After Joseph Buxford's new master, a carrier, turns into a "flying Hourse in a black and ugly shape and colour," he takes the boy unto his back, and "snatches him up forthwith into the aire," with "violence and motion swifter then imagination." Joseph Buxford and the flying horse rise so far above the earth, that "London and other magnificent Cities on greater then small Cottages." They fly past the moon, and under the "watrie dominions" of the earth, where "the Boy observed the most strange and unutterable wonders of the deepe diversified," before finally entering a cave which is like "the earth seeming to open it selfe." All the sights the boy sees are greater than what astrologers, Neptune, and philosophers have seen, and the entering of the cave is likened to "the swallowing up of Korah, Datham and Abiram." All this is described as part of a "stupendious Miracle."(3-4)

Having spent eight days in Hell, observing the torments of those who were "in the Malignant Army," that he himself once wished to join, Joseph Buxford was "so full of dread and horrour," that he retracted his earlier desire to join the army. Instead, "he earnestly wished himselfe out of this place, to undergoe any servitude."(4)