e disappointed. The Friends
are men, formed with the same passions, and swayed by the same natural
principles and prejudices as others. In cases where the passions are
neutral, men will display their respect for the religious professions of
their sect. But where their passions are enlisted, these professions
are no obstacle. You observe very truly, that both the late and present
administration conducted the government on principles professed by the
Friends. Our efforts to preserve peace, our measures as to the Indians,
as to slavery, as to religious freedom, were all in consonance with
their professions. Yet I never expected we should get a vote from them,
and in this I was neither deceived nor disappointed. There is no riddle
in this, to those who do not suffer themselves to be duped by the
professions of religious sectaries. The theory of American Quakerism is
a very obvious one. The mother society is in England. Its members are
English by birth and residence, devoted to their own country, as good
citizens ought to be. The Quakers of these States are colonies or
filiations from the mother society, to whom that society sends its
yearly lessons. On these the filiated societies model their opinions,
their conduct, their passions, and attachments. A Quaker is, essentially
an Englishman, in whatever part of the earth he is born or lives. The
outrages of Great Britain on our navigation and commerce have kept us in
perpetual bickerings with her. The Quakers here have taken side against
their own government; not on their profession of peace, for they saw
that peace was our object also; but from devotion to the views of the
mother society. In 1797 and 8, when an administration sought war with
France, the Quakers were the most clamorous for war. Their principle of
peace, as a secondary one, yielded to the primary one of adherence to
the Friends in England, and what was patriotism in the original became
treason in the copy. On that occasion, they obliged their good old
leader, Mr. Pemberton, to erase his name from a petition to Congress,
against war, which had been delivered to a Representative of
Pennsylvania, a member of the late and present administration. He
accordingly permitted the old gentleman to erase his name. You must
not, therefore, expect that your book will have any more effect on the
society of Friends here, than on the English merchants settled among
us. I apply this to the Friends in general, not universally. I kn