HERE IS THE TAX.

and as a proof, that the Jacobins of France were no more than imitators of the American Whigs.

“ The quantity of our paper money is too great, and the price of goods. can be only effeétually reduced by reducing the quantity of this money. The next point, then, to be considered is, the method to reduce it. [Mark well this method.] The circumstances of the times require, that the public characters of all men should now be fully understood, and the only general method of ascertaining it is by an oatb or afirmation, rinouncing all a legiance to the King of Great Britain, and to support the independency of the Criteit States, as declared by Congress. Let, at the same time, a tax of ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent. per annum, to be collected quarterly, be levied on the property of all those who refuse to take the oath. These alternatives, being perfeetly voluntary, will take in all sorts of people. HERE IS THE TEST; OR

Further, it would not only be good policy, but firiet jaftice, to raise fifty or an hundred thousand pounds, or more, if neceifary, out of the estates and property of the Quakers in Philadelphia, to be distributed as a reward to those inhabitants of the City and State who shall turn out against the enemy; and likewise to bind the property of the Tories, to make good the damages which that of the Whigs may sustain.”

These were the means recommended for giving freedom to America ! The advice was not thrown away. The intrigues of the leading Whigs, that is to say, rebels (the terms were, and are, synonymous) had so far succeeded, as to gain over a great number of the sturdy rabble to their fide, while the violence, with which they exercised the power they had usurped, ftruck terror into the hearts of the peaceable and the rich.

Now began a scene of pillage, of confiscation, of insult, of cruelty, of persecution of every species, in which the loyal and unfortunate Quakers were the principal suffers. They were robbed of their corn, their flour, their cattle, their shop goods, and sometimes of their household furnitue, and the very beds from under them, by virtue of those requisitions, on which the French have so greatly improved. This moveable property was generally seized by armed ruffians, fent by the Committees of Safety, (another institution which the French have borrowed from the Americans,) who generally accompanied the execution of their orders with the groffest indecencies towards the females of the families they plundered. The men they frequently beat and lacerated in the most unmerciful manner. Some they'ducked and pumped on; others they carried aftride upon a sharp rail, till they dropped off in a state of insensibility; others they dragged to prison, put them up with deferters or common thieves, giving them the cold earth to lie on, and bread and water for their only sustenance. Barely to enumerate the various modes which the ingenious cruelty of the Whigs discovered, for the tormenting of these inoffensive people, for their fidelity to their King, would occupy one half of the pages of your Review.

One regulation, which these inexorable rebels adopted, has not, as far as I have heard, been imitated by the regicides of France. It was this : They issued a decree, forbidding any person, who refused to take the tist, that is, who refused to abjure his King, and become a rebel, to go out of his township, or parish; and, as the houtes and inhabitants are so widely fcattered, this prohibition operated as a moft unbearable cruelty. A great portion of the loyalists, the Quakers in particular, were at once totally cut off from their places of worship, from their markets, their neighbours, their acquaintances, their friends, relations, parents, and children. If a man were at the point of death, his child, if a loyalitt, dared not cross the township boundary to see him. An old Quaker doctor, in Chester County, was

Hh3

called up in the night to come to the asistance of his daughter, who was suddenly taken in child-birth, in a townfirip where no midwife resided! It was ihought ihat the father, who also lived out of the township, might escape, if detected in pafling the boundary , but those who thought so were not yet fully acquainted with the barbarit: of Whigsism. The old mari was seized just before he reached the house of his daughter, who actually expired for want of help, while the father was dragged to Chester, and lodged in the common prilon, from the grates of which he afterwards fawhis daughter's corpse carned to the burying-ground. In fact, this cold-blooded, this lavage, this moft hellith decree, leveret the Quakers from all the felicities, all the comforts, all the charities of life. I myself knew a man in Bucks Couniy, who, during a part of the continuance of this decree, was, by its operation, 'e arated from all medical aid, at a time when a dysentery raged in the neighbourhood, and when he had ten children, together with his wife and bimtelf, stretched on their beds hy that moft dreadfal disease. A physician was at last found bold enough to cross the townthip line, and to come to this scene of human woe; but for want of timely aid, four of the children died in one and the same day. One would think, that diftreis like this would have foftened the hearts of tygers: it migbt, perhaps, but it produced no such effect on ibe Whigs, who, having heard that this Quaker had a Tory doctor of another township secreted in his house, fent a detachment of ruffians to search for him, and to carry lini 10 prison! I do not believe it possible for the Jaco' ins of France to furpass in cruelty the Whigs oAmerica. The fornier have been more violent, more fierce, they have discover d more of what may be called ferocioufo:ess ; but, that they have been more crue', that they have discovered greater del ght in tormenting the mind or the body of the objects of their perfecution, I utterly, deny.

These things ought not to be buried in oblivion. The success of the Anerican Whigs has ftified the voice of truth in that country, and the fingular fituation of parties here, it and since the end of the war, bas hitherto ftified it in this country also; but, Sir, I hope, we shall yet see the day, when all the crimes of this most font, unprovoked, and unnatural rebellion, and when all the criminals (whether British or American) therein con erned, shall be exposed to the abhorr nce of the present generation, and be so collected and recorded as to insure the abhorrence of pofterity. As an humble effort of my own towards the effecting of this good work, I shall now proceed 10 relat two or three remarkable inti of the cruelty of the Whigs, and of the fidelity and fortitude of the Quakers.

All the oppreflive measures which I have meritioned above, did not induce one single Qua er to take the hateful teft. The members of the Congress, irritaied ai this obftinatę loyaliy, which, while it was very convenient in itself, was a living fauire on their own c nduct, fell upon a new mode of persecution, whic, a: well as most of their ot'er tyrannical inver tions, ' as been improved upon by the republicans of France. On the Sih ef Auguft, 1777, they pafied a resolve, in compliance with which the ExecuTive Coucil (another instrument of oppreffion that the French have borrowed from them) of Pennsylvania, of which Thomas Warton, jun. was prefident, George Bryan, vice-president, and Timothy Matlack, fecretary, iffued an order to arrest “all perfons who had, in their general conduct and conversation evinced a ifpofition inimical to the cause," and articularly several persons who were named in the same warrant. The execution of this order was committed to twenty-four Whigs, (composed chiefly o. Pres

byterian

nces

byterians) 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 of the people, called Quakers.” A fimilar 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 them felves with the papers and ipoils of hundreds of families, after driving great pumbers of men from their homes, after extorting forbearance-money from some and reluctant promiles from others, the Committee of Philadelphia, whose names. I have above recorded, leized 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 thele men, thus seized and imprisoned, the Whigs offered their free. dom upon certain conditions, one of which was, that they should take a teft, renouncing all allegiance to their king, Sume of the prisoners had been released upon various grounds, foon 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 in formed, that, unlels 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 banilhment, without confronting them with their accusers, and even without specifying their crime; but they continued steady in their refusal to take any test, whereby they should abjure their Sovereign, or acknowledge allegiance to those who had ufurped their rights and his authority.

On the gth of September the tyrannical Executive Council islued an order for their banishment, which order was, wiihout delay, carried into execu« tion. The prisoners were placed in a barricadoed waggon, 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 exįles would not long escape death. Those who have travelled on the roads in the back parts of the American States, and who conlider the cooped up situation of ihefe l'oyal prisoners, together with the almost unbearable heat of the season in which they were compelled to travel, will be astonished that one half of

* William Bradford, Sharpe Delany, James Claypole, Willian Heysham, John Purviance, Joseph Blever, Paul Cox, Adam Kemmel, William Grahain, William Hardy, Charles Wilson Pea.e, Captain M‘Cullo k, Nathaniel Donnell, Robert Smith, Williain Carson, Lazarus Pine, Birney Captain, John Gallaway, John Lile, James Longhead, James Cannon, James Kerr, William Tharpe, Thomas Bradford.

H h 4

them did not perish on the way. The danger, to which they were necef. sarily exposed, was encreased by the cruelty of their guards, who, when they stopped to regale themselves, in the towns and villages, through which they paired, Ipared nothing to inflame the populace against them.

Arrived in Virginia, they were confined to certain limits, and were pro hibited 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 re, peated as often as the oath or affirmation was tendered to them.

The names of thele men should be recorded in your loyal publication ; ! therefore insert them here; and it will, I am persuaded, give you no fmall satisfaction to perceive, that those of them who were not Quakers, were of the Church of England. Q. Ilruel Pemberton,

Q. Owen James, jun. č. John Hunt,

Q. Thomas Gilpin, l. James Pemberton,

C. Charles Jervis, e. John Pemberton,

C. Phineas Bond,
l. Thomas Warton,

C. Thomas Affleck,
O. Edward Pennington,

C. Wm. Drewet Smith,
C. Thomas Coombe,

C. Thomas Pike,
l. Henry Drinker,

C. William Smith, 0. Thomas Fisher

Q. Elijah Brown, 0. Samuel Pleasants,

Ĉ. Charles Eddy, 0. Samuel R. Fisher,

Q. Miers Fisher. The fate of Moseley must not be forgotten. This young man, who was ą 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 burying ground of the fect, of which he had been a member. But, after the subsequent evacuation of the city, the Whigs resumed their fórmer sway, and, ever as cruel as they are cowardly, they ordered 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 intreaties of the friends and relations of their innocent townsman, whom they had murdered, prevail on them to defist from their purpose, or to abate one jot of the gratification of their base and blackhearted revenge.

This abominable act has been imitated by no republican Frenchman, except the ferocious Victor Hugues, who, after he had recaptured Gudaloupe, ordered the body of General Dundas to be dug up, and to be fulpended 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 pon me to defend.

Wherever the melancholy story of John Roberts and Abraham Carlile shall be related, there will the principles and the practices of Whigs bé

a

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 alledged crime of Carlisle was, his having kept one of the barriergates, 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 person, even amongst the Whigs, looked upon his possession of the post as a most fortunate circumstance.

Roberts's offence was of a nature equally trifling. His house in the coun. try, lay without the British lines, whence, being apprehensive of being taken, and probably murdered, by a party from Washington's army, who were continually spreading havock through his neighbourhood, he had made his escape into the city, leaving his wife and children behind. Some weeks after his arrival in the city, a foraging-party went out into the township where his house was situated. Anxious to see his family, who had been, in the mean time, expoled to the insults and violence of the rebels, he eagerly availed himself of the protection of the foraging-party, with whom he went out and returned, bringing in his family with him. Out of this circumstance, in which, one would have thought, matice itself could find nothing to blame, the Whigs trumped up an accusation against him, as a man who had volunteered his services as a spy and guide to the British army!

Yet, on charges so frivolous were these two respectable and inoffensive men dragged before the Supreme Court at Philadelphia, in which M'kean and Bryan sật as Judges, and of which the Revolutionary Tribunal of Robespierre was so striking an imitation, that, ever since the proceedings of the Tribunal have been heard of in America, MóKean has been honoured with the name of Fouquier Tinville. It was well known at the time, and has since been openly avowed by the Whigs themselves, that the putting of these men to death was a mere stroke of policy; a measure solely intended to terrify the Tories, and to commit the wavering Whigs beyond the poslibility of receding. The voice of justice and of mercy had long been silenced; but, they were again heard on this memorable occasion. The intention of the leading Whigs to take away the lives of Roberts and Carlisle was no Jess manifest than was the injustice of the act itself. The great mass of the people once more resumed their natural feelings, and the President of the Executive Council, Reid, together with the whole Council, and the Judges feemed to fear that, if they succeeded in procuring a condemnation, a rescue would be effected. Every measure was therefore taken to prevent the failure of their fanguinary project; but, notwithstanding the jury was packed for the purpose, notwithstanding no counsel of eminence was found bold enough to defend the prisoners, notwithstanding the number of witnesses that were fubborned, notwithstanding the partiality and violence of the judges, it has ever been believed that the jury would have refused to find them guilty, had it not been for fear of being murdered themselves, an apprehension which was artfully excited by the appearance and the dreadful menaces of a fet of miscreants who had been prepared for the purpose, and who came into the court just as the jury were retiring. Care was iaken in the mean time, to draw forth all the stauncheft of the Whigs under arms. The city had the bayonet placed to its throat, and, while every man was in hour\y dread of being inurdered himself, he thought lels of the judicial inurder