An Eighteenth Century View of the Quakers

no BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL SOCIETY. In 1799 he removed to a tract of land which he had purchased in Jefferson County, New York State, then considered far west. This land was a few miles southwest of the outlet of Lake Ontario. The settlement prospered and the village of Brownville (not Brownsville)3 sprung up and flourished. This village is about ten miles northwest of Watertown. The account of Jacob Brown's military career is apparently correct. There is no evidence adduced to show that Jacob Brown held any specially Quaker views. The statement, " He was brought up on his father's farm with Quaker views and habits," seems to be an inference only. As he entered college at twelve years of age, supported himself from the age of sixteen, and left Pennsylvania certainly at eighteen, the home influence cannot have been very great. He was practically away from even Quaker surroundings after he was twenty-one, if not before ; and there is nothing to show that he was more than a nominal Friend, and even that, so far as known, he did not claim to be. To call him "A Fighting Quaker " is very much of an assumption, unless nominal membership makes a true Quaker, a position which George Fox would have emphatically disclaimed. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VIEW OF THE QUAKERS. " The war of 1755 . . . occasioned heavy expenses, which the colonies were obliged to pay. The Quakers were subjected to them, as well as others ; but they not only refused, as a society, to pay taxes, of which war was the object, but they excommunicated those who paid them. They persevered in this practice in the last war [that of Independence]. " At this time an animosity was kindled against them, which is not yet extinguished. Faithful to their principles, they declared , that they would take no part in this war, and they excom3 The " [Ohio] " in Journal of Friends' Historical Society, XV, 47, is an error in the reprint. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VIEW OF THE QUAKERS, in municated all such as joined either the American or the British army. " I am well convinced of the sacred and divine principle which authorises resistance to oppression; and I am well convinced that oppression was here manifest ; I must therefore blame the neutrality of the Quakers on this occasion, when their brethren were fighting for independence. But I believe, likewise, that it was wrong to persecute them so violently for their pacific neutrality . " If this instance of their refusal had been the first of the kind or if it had been dictated by secret attachment to the British cause certainly they would have been guilty, and this persecution would perhaps have been legitimate. But this neutrality was commanded by their religious opinions, constantly professed, and practiced by the society from its origin. " No person has spoken to me with more impartiality respecting the Quakers than General Washington, that celebrated man, whose spirit of justice is remarkable in every thing. He declared to me, that, in the course of the war, he had entertained an ill opinion of this society; he knew but little of them, as at that time there were but few of that sect in Virginia ; and he had attributed to their political sentiments, the effect of their religious principles. He told me that since having known them better, he acquired an esteem for them ; that, considering the simplicity of their manners, the purity of their morals, their exemplary economy, and their attachment to the Constitution, he considered this society as one of the best supports of the new government , which requires a great moderation, and a total banishment of luxury." From " New Travels in the United States of America," etc. By J. P. Brissot de Warville. London, 1797. Vol. I, pp. 356358 . [Note.—The above extract has been reprinted more than once in Friends' periodicals, but it seems worth while to reprint it again.— Editor.] ...