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An Address to the Rev. Dr. Alison - 16

Conestogoe and Lancaster, which you can, consistent with your Religion, even endeavour to justify. It was the same People that committed that daring Insult on the Government at Germantown, and have since that seized and destroyed the Goods of the CROWN, and impudently declared, "that they were better Judges of what was right to be done in America, than their Sovereign and the British Parliament united." You formerly join'd with the Proprietaries against the Assembly, contrary to your own and the Rights of your Fellow Subjects, and you now unite with the same Power against the Rights of His Majesty himself. Uniformly you have acted indeed, but with how much Reputation and Credit to yourselves and your Society, the candid Part of Mankind will hereafter determine.

BUT this Want of Charity in the Quakers proceeds as you alledge from an envious Temper, because the Frontier Inhabitants must share the Power with them. To prevent this, you say, "they have in forming the new Counties so ordered it, that but ten Representatives are sent from five frontier Counties, and twenty six from the three interior Counties under the Quakers Influence." It is no uncommon Thing to find Men who have invented a Falsehood to promote their wicked Designs, to lose themselves when they attempt to offer Reasons in Support of it. This certainly is your Circumstance; for can there be any Reason or Cause for envying a Power which the Frontiers do not enjoy, and which you declare the Quakers have so ordered, that they cannot exercise it.—This weak Reason for the Quakers Uncharitableness I shall leave at present for you to mend, or to invent a new One, as shall be most agreeable to you.— But why would you venture thus, without the least Foundation, to impute to the Quakers a Passion which it is here so well known, may, with the strictest Justice and Propriety, be charged to yourselves. Envy, and a Thirst after Power, are your characteristic Passions.

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