effort of my own towards the effecting of this good work, I shall now proceed to relate two or three remarkable instances of the cruelty of the Whigs, and of the fidelity and fortitude of the Quakers. All the oppressive measures which I have mentioned above, did not induce one single Quaker to take the hateful test. The members of the Congress, irritated at this obstinate loyalty, which, while it was very convenient in itself, was a living satire on their own conduct, fell upon a new mode of persecution, which, as well as most of their other tyrannical inventions, has been improved upon by the republicans of France. On the 28th of August, 1777, they passed a resolve, in compliance with which the EXECUTIVE COUNCIL (another instrument of oppression that the French have borrowed from them) of Pennsylvania, of which Thomas Wharton, jun. was president, George Bryan, vice-president, and Timothy Matlack, secretary, issued an order to arrest all persons who had, in their general conduct and conversation, evinced a disposition inimical to the cause," and particularly several persons who were named in the same warrant. The execution of this order was committed to twenty-four Whigs (composed chiefly of Presbyterians) remarkable for their violence and cruelty. These men were empowered to seize persons and papers, "particularly the records and papers of the Meeting of Sufferings of the society 66 *William Bradford, Sharpe Delany, James Claypole, William Heysham, John Purviance, Joseph Blever, Paul Cox, Adam Kemmel, Wiliam Graham, William Hardy, Charles Wilson Peale, Captain M'Cullock, Nathaniel Donnell, Robert Smith, William Carson, Lazarus Pine, Birney Captain, John Gallaway, John Lile, James Longhead, James Cannon, James Kerr, William Tharpe, Thomas Bradford. of the people called Quakers." A similar order respecting the Quakers was extended to all the colonies, the leading rebels in each being requested to transmit all the papers of the Quakers for the inspection of the Congress. In Philadelphia and its vicinity the order was executed with great rigour. Houses and chambers were broken open, desks and scrutoires were rifled; the most atrocious acts of violence and fraud were perpetrated under the pretence of preserving the liberty of the people. Finally, after loading themselves with the papers and spoils of hundreds of families, after driving great numbers of men from their homes, after extorting forbearance-money from some and reluctant promises from others, the Committee of Philadelphia, whose names I have above recorded, seized on between forty and fifty of the richest and most reputable men in that city and its neighbourhood, whom they placed under a military guard. To these men, thus seized and imprisoned, the Whigs offered their freedom upon certain conditions, one of which was, that they should take a test, renouncing all allegiance, to their King. Some of the prisoners had been released upon various grounds, soon after their confinement, and of those who remained, some took the test; but amongst these there was not one Quaker. The number was now reduced to twenty-two, to whom was reserved the honour of giving a most memorable proof of their loyalty and resolution. They were informed, that, unless they took the test before a certain day, they would be banished to a distant part of the Continent. They remonstrated strongly against a proceeding which dragged them from their homes, and sent them into banishment, without confronting them with their accusers, and even without specifying their crime; but they they continued steady in their refusal to take any test, whereby they should abjure their Sovereign, or acknowledge allegiance to those who had usurped their rights and his authority. On the 9th of September, the tyrannical Execu tive Council issued an order for their banishment, which order was, without delay, carried into execution. The prisoners were placed in a barricadoed wagggon, and were thus conveyed under a military escort, [forming altogether a perfect prototype of the Cayenne Diligence], from the city of Philadelphia to Stanton in Virginia. Their route was rendered as long and as painful as possible. They were taken through the back parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and did not perform a journey of less than five hundred miles, before they reached their new place of imprisonment, where, when the disposition of the people was considered, the Whigs of Philadelphia must have expected, that the exiles would not long escape death. Those who have travelled on the roads in the back parts of the American States, and who consider the cooped up situation of these loyal prisoners, together with the almost unbearable heat of the season in which they were compelled to travel, will be astonished that one half of them did not perish on the way. The danger to which they were necessarily exposed, was increased by the cruelty of their guards, who, when they stopped to regale themselves in the towns and villages through which they passed, spared nothing to inflame the populace against them. Arrived in Virginia, they were confined to certain limits, and were prohibited from all manner of correspondence, even with their friends and relations. In this most cruel situation they remained till near the close of the war, constantly refusing to forswear their King: a refusal which they repeated H 3 peated as often as the path or affirmation was tendered to them. The names of these men should be recorded in your loyal publication; I therefore insert them here; and it will, I am persuaded, give you no small satisfaction to perceive, that those who were not Quakers, were of the Church of England. Q. Israel Pemberton, Q. Owen James, jun. The fate of Moseley must not be forgotten. This young man, who was a Quaker, had been absent from the city of Philadelphia, for some weeks. Upon his return, he was falsely charged by the Whigs, with having conveyed intelligence to the British Army; for which offence, though no proof appeared against him, they hanged him, and buried him under the gallows. Soon after they committed. this murder, the near approach of General Howe's army compelled them to seek for their own safety in flight. The reign of justice and of real liberty having been once more restored by the actual arrival of the army, two of poor Moseley's friends took up his body, and interred it in the buryingground of the sect of which he had been a member. But, after the subsequent evacuation of the city, the Whigs resumed their former sway, and, ever as cruel as they are cowardly, they ordered the the two friends of Moseley, on pain of instant death, to dig up his body a second time, to replace it at the foot of the ignominious tree, and to give notice, in the public papers, that they had so done, and that the body and the empty grave were ready for the "inspection of the friends of liberty" nor could the tears and entreaties of the friends and relations of their innocent townsman, whom they had murdered, prevail on them to desist from their purpose, or to abate one jot of the gratification of their base and black hearted revenge. This abominable, act has been imitated by no republican Frenchman, except the ferocious Victor Hugues, who, after he had recaptured Guadaloupe, ordered the body of General Dundas to be dug up, and to be suspended on a gibbet. How little difference is there between the heart of a Whig and that of a Jacobin! Suffer me, Sir, to give you one instance more of the cruelty of the Whigs, and of the sufferings of the people, whose conduct I have taken upon me to defend. Wherever the melancholy story of John Roberts and Abraham Carlisle shall be related, there will the principles and the practices of Whigs be held in abhorrence. These two Quakers fell a sacrifice to their loyalty in the city of Philadelphia: a city of which their forefathers were amongst the founders, in which they themselves were born, and in which they had long been universally respected and beloved. The alleged crime of Carlisle was, his having kept one of the barrier-gates, while General Howe held the city a post which he had accepted at the request of all those who wished for mild measures, and in which he had conducted himself with so much moderation and humanity, towards men of all parties and descriptions, that every disinterested H 4 person, |