_
VI. 692. The words are Franklin's.]
[Footnote 352: _Message of the Governor to the Assembly, 22 Nov. 1755_,
in _Colonial Records of Pa._, VI. 714.]
But now the Assembly began to feel the ground shaking under their feet.
A paper, called a "Representation," signed by some of the chief
citizens, was sent to the House, calling for measures of defence. "You
will forgive us, gentlemen," such was its language, "if we assume
characters somewhat higher than that of humble suitors praying for the
defence of our lives and properties as a matter of grace or favor on
your side. You will permit us to make a positive and immediate demand of
it."[353] This drove the Quakers mad. Preachers, male and female,
harangued in the streets, denouncing the iniquity of war. Three of the
sect from England, two women and a man, invited their brethren of the
Assembly to a private house, and fervently exhorted them to stand firm.
Some of the principal Quakers joined in an address to the House, in
which they declared that any action on its part "inconsistent with the
peaceable testimony we profess and have borne to the world appears to us
in its consequences to be destructive of our religious liberties."[354]
And they protested that they would rather "suffer" than pay taxes for
such ends. Consistency, even in folly, has in it something respectable;
but the Quakers were not consistent. A few years after, when heated
with party-passion and excited by reports of an irruption of incensed
Presbyterian borderers, some of the pacific sectaries armed for battle;
and the streets of Philadelphia beheld the curious conjunction of musket
and broad-brimmed hat.
Pages:
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382