Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform

The Quaker Vindicated - 11

and thinking men. Thus, we have had several instances, at divers times, of men who have been educated Quakers, (unexceptionable, moral men) who have thought it no Crime to defend their King and Country, their Laws and Immunities against the violence of a foreign, or domestic enemy. Non-resistance, therefore, is not "a fundamental Principle" universal among Quakers. But if it is so "inexpressibly absurd" for a Quaker to be an Assemblyman, why in the name of sense are they not left out at the annual Elections? How few Quakers to Members of other Societies is there, in the Counties of Lancaster and York! and yet we find Quaker Assemblymen even in those places: What can be the reason of this? Is it that the people really think them the suitablest men, or are their Constituents under an "infatuation"? as the Declaration civily expresses it.

"Here", the Unmasker "observes, that the people whom the Quakers took up arms to destroy" (might not the Quakers, with equal justice, rejoin, the people that said they'd scalp them) "were those who preserved them from feeling the Severities and Contrivances of Indian Cruelty? "'Tis owing", says he, "to the brave stand which these unrequited Voluntiers have made against the inroads of Savages, that the Quakers are now able to treat their Protectors with such ingratitude." (Is that really the case then? God bless them for it! and may their King and Country amply reward them!)—Can the Unmasker seriously think that the Paxton Voluntiers expedition to the Great Island was the means of Philadelphia's not being laid waste by Savages, and its Inhabitants butchered? If this is not his meaning "feeling the Severities and Contrivances of Indian Cruelty," must be idle words. (That Expedition was unquestionably praise-worthy) but surely the Unmasker must be dreaming, or only means this for a flourish. Were the Quakers the only people that armed on the late occasion? Were there not Churchmen, Presbyterians, Roman Catholicks, &c

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