religious persuasion; we have no business with either, our part being
only to find them out and exhibit them to justice.

"A printed paper, dated the 20th of November, and signed 'John
Pemberton,' whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of this city, has
lately been dispersed abroad, a copy of which accompanies this. Had
the framers and publishers of that paper conceived it their duty to
exhort the youth and others of their society, to a patient submission
under the present trying visitations, and humbly to wait the event of
heaven towards them, they had therein shown a Christian temper, and
we had been silent; but the anger and political virulence with which
their instructions are given, and the abuse with which they
stigmatize all ranks of men not thinking like themselves, leave no
doubt on our minds from what spirit their publication proceeded: and
it is disgraceful to the pure cause of truth, that men can dally with
words of the most sacred import, and play them off as mechanically as
if religion consisted only in contrivance. We know of no instance in
which the Quakers have been compelled to bear arms, or to do any
thing which might strain their conscience; wherefore their advice,
'to withstand and refuse to submit to the arbitrary instructions and
ordinances of men,' appear to us a false alarm, and could only be
treasonably calculated to gain favor with our enemies, when they are
seemingly on the brink of invading this State, or, what is still
worse, to weaken the hands of our defence, that their entrance into
this city might be made practicable and easy.

"We disclaim all tumult and disorder in the punishment of offenders;
and wish to be governed, not by temper but by reason, in the manner
of treating them. We are sensible that our cause has suffered by the
two following errors: first, by ill-judged lenity to traitorous