From a concern that a good cause should be dishonored by the least
disunion among us, I said in my former paper, No. I. "That should
the enemy now be expelled, I wish, with all the sincerity of a
Christian, that the names of Whig and Tory might never more be
mentioned;" but there is a knot of men among us of such a venomous
cast, that they will not admit even one's good wishes to act in
their favor. Instead of rejoicing that heaven had, as it were,
providentially preserved this city from plunder and destruction, by
delivering so great a part of the enemy into our hands with so
little effusion of blood, they stubbornly affected to disbelieve it
till within an hour, nay, half an hour, of the prisoners arriving; and
the Quakers put forth a testimony, dated the 20th of December,
signed "John Pemberton," declaring their attachment to the British
government.* These men are continually harping on the great sin of our
bearing arms, but the king of Britain may lay waste the world in blood
and famine, and they, poor fallen souls, have nothing to say.
* I have ever been careful of charging offences upon whole societies
of men, but as the paper referred to is put forth by an unknown set of
men, who claim to themselves the right of representing the whole:
and while the whole Society of Quakers admit its validity by a
silent acknowledgment, it is impossible that any distinction can be
made by the public: and the more so, because the New York paper of the
30th of December, printed by permission of our enemies, says that "the
Quakers begin to speak openly of their attachment to the British
Constitution.
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