Unlike other Tories, the Quakers were so passive that little positive evidence of their acting against the patriots could be
* The reason given for this measure by Congress was, "that when the enemy, in the month of December, 1776. were bending their progress toward the city of Philadelphia, a certain seditious publication, addressed "To our friends and brethren in religious profession in these and the adjacent provinces," signed John Pemberton, in and on behalf of the meeting of sufferings, held at Philadelphia, for Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the 26th of the 12th month, 1776," was published, and, as your committee is credibly informed, circulated among many members of the society called Quakers, throughout the different states." The paper originated in Philadelphia, and Joshua Fisher. Abel James, James Pemberton, Henry Drinker, Israel Pemberton. John Pemberton, John James, Samuel Pleasants, Thomas Wharton, senior, Thomas Fisher, and Samuel Fisher, of that city, leading members of the society, were banished to Fredericksburg, in Virginia. The Board of War was also instructed to remove the Honorable John Penn, the governor, and Benjamin Chew, the chief justice of Pennsylvania, thither, for safe custody.—See Journals of Congress, iii., 290. The papers and records of the yearly meeting of the Quakers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which were captured by Sullivan, in an expedition against the Loyalist regiments living on Staten Island, opposite Perth Amboy, gave Congress the first positive proof of the general disaffection of the sect.
Execution of Roberta and Carlisle.—Justice of their Punishment.—Carpenters' Hall.
obtained; and very few of them, suffering from confiscation of property or other penalties, became refugees at the close of the war. John Egberts and Abraham Carlisle, of Philadelphia, members of this sect, suffered death at the hands of the Whigs, in November, 1778.
This act has been cited a hundred times as evidence against the claims to the exercise of uniform humanity on the part of the patriots, and magnified into a foul murder, justified by no plea of public expediency. The facts prove otherwise; for if it was ever expedient to take the life of a dangerous citizen, then Roberts and Carlisle suffered justly. While they abstained from open hostility to the Revolutionary government, and refused to bear arms for the king, they gave secret aid, far more potent to the enemies of liberty. They were employed by Joseph Galloway and his loyal friends as secret agents in detecting foes to the government. While Howe had possession of Philadelphia, Carlisle granted permissions to pass the lines, watched at the entrance of the city to point out obnoxious persons coming from the country, and many were arrested and cast into prison on his bare suggestion.. Under the meek garb and demeanor of the Quaker was a Torquemada, exercising the functions of an inquisitor general. When Howe ordered a detachment, under Lieutenant-colonel Abercrombie, to go out upon the Frankford road, and fall upon a party of American militia, who, he was informed, were lying in the woods, Egberts and Carlisle, who would not bear arms for the wealth of the Indies, acted as guides in conducting Abercrombie to the massacre of their countrymen. According to the rules of war and of state policy, their execution was expedient and salutary in effect. It was a subject for bitter vituperation on the part of the Tories, and even those who would fain have saved them from death were charged with dishonorable motives. "Governor Livingston went to Philadelphia," wrote John Potts to Joseph Galloway, "and urged his endeavors to prevail on the banditti in power there to save Roberts and Carlisle, not from any principle of honor or conscience—you know him too well—but from motives, as he thought, of policy." I think it may be safely asserted that where one Tory lost his life at the hands of the Whigs during the Revolution, fifty Whigs were slain in cold blood by the Tories. The reason is obvious—a heart warmed with love of country is benevolent and humane; its active opposers may fairly be presumed to be mercenary, and consequently cruel.
The supper-bell has rung; let us close the chronicle for to-night, and in the morning go out in search of localities made memorable by events connected with our war for independence.
On Monday morning I visited November 27, 1848Carpenters' Hall, the building in which the first Continental Congress held its brief session. Having had no intimation concerning its appearance, condition, and present use, and informed that it was situated in "Carpenters' Court," imagination had invested its exterior with dignity, its interior with solemn grandeur, and its location a spacious area, where nothing "common or unclean" was permitted to dwell. How often the hoof of Pegasus touches the leafless tree-tops of sober prose when his rider supposes him to be at his highest altitude! How often the rainbow of imagination fades, and leaves to the eye nothing but the forbidding aspect of a cloud of plain reality! So at this time. The spacious court was but a short and narrow