d for battle;
and the streets of Philadelphia beheld the curious conjunction of musket
and broad-brimmed hat.[355]

[Footnote 353: _Pennsylvania Archives_, II. 485.]

[Footnote 354: _Ibid_., II. 487.]

[Footnote 355: See _Conspiracy of Pontiac_, Chaps. 24 and 25.]

The mayor, aldermen, and common council next addressed the Assembly,
adjuring them, "in the most solemn manner, before God and in the name of
all our fellow-citizens," to provide for defending the lives and
property of the people.[356] A deputation from a band of Indians on the
Susquehanna, still friendly to the province, came to ask whether the
English meant to fight or not; for, said their speaker, "if they will
not stand by us, we will join the French." News came that the settlement
of Tulpehocken, only sixty miles distant, had been destroyed; and then
that the Moravian settlement of Gnadenhuetten was burned, and nearly all
its inmates massacred. Colonel William Moore wrote to the Governor that
two thousand men were coming from Chester County to compel him and the
Assembly to defend the province; and Conrad Weiser wrote that more were
coming from Berks on the same errand. Old friends of the Assembly began
to cry out against them. Even the Germans, hitherto their fast allies,
were roused from their attitude of passivity, and four hundred of them
came in procession to demand measures of war. A band of frontiersmen
presently arrived, bringing in a wagon the bodies of friends and
relatives lately murdered, displaying them at the doors of the Assembly,
cursing the Quakers, and threatening vengeance.[357]

[Footnote 356: _A Remonstrance_, etc., in _Colonial Records of Pa._, VI.
734.]

[Footnote 357: Mante, 47; Entick, I. 377.]

Finding some concession necessary, the House at length passed a militia
law,--probably the most futile ever enacted. It specially exempted the
Quakers, and constrained nobody; but declared it lawful, for such as
chose, to form themselves into companies and elect officers by ballot.
The company officers thus elected might, if they saw fit, elect, also
by ballot, colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and majors. These last might
then, in conjunction with the Governor, frame articles of war; to which,
however, no officer or man was to be subjected unless, after three days'
consideration, he subscribed them in presence of a justice of the peace,
and declared his willingness to be bound by them.[358]

[Footnote 358: This remarkable bill, dra