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138 In reading Elizabeth Drinker's journal, we cannot but be struck with the absence of invective, and, for the most part, of comment. Anxiety and irritation are alike powerless to overcome the lifelong habit of restraint. Her husband appears to have been a stubborn and consistent Tory, though the restrictions of his creed compelled him to play an idle part, and to suffer for a lost cause without striking a blow in its behalf. He was one of forty gentlemen, nearly all Friends, who were banished from Philadelphia in the summer of 1777; and his wife, with two young children, was left unprotected, to face the discomforts and dangers of the times. She was more than equal to the task. There is as little evidence of timidity as of rancour in the quiet pages of her diary. She describes the excitement and confusion which the news of General Howe's approach awakened in Philadelphia, and on the 26th of September writes: "Well! here are ye English in earnest. About two or three thousand came in through Second Street, without opposition or interruption,—no plundering on ye one side or ye other. What a satisfaction would it be