Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/164

Rh 152 QUAKERS they have always been Christian in character, they have not to any considerable extent been used as a means of bringing proselytes within the body. Quakerism in Scotland. Quakerism was preached in Scotland very soon after its rise in England ; but in the north and south of Scotland there existed independently of and before this preaching groups of persons who were dissatisfied with the national form of worship and met together in silence for devotion. They naturally fell into this society. In Aberdeen the Quakers took considerable hold, and were there joined by some persons of influence, and position, especially Alexander Jaffray, some time pro- vost of Aberdeen, and Colonel David Barclay of Ury and his son Robert, the author of the Apology. Much light has been thrown on the history of the Quakers in Aber- deenshire by the discovery in 1826 at Ury of a MS. Diary of Jaffray, since published with elucidations (2nd ed., London, 1836). Ireland. The father of Quakerism in Ireland was William Edmondson ; his preachings began in 1653-54. The History of the Quakers in Ireland (from 1653 to 1752), by Wright and Rutty, may be consulted- America. The earliest appearance of Quakers in America is a remarkable one. In July 1656 two women Quakers, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, arrived at Boston. Under the general law against heresy their books were burnt by the hangman, they were searched for signs of witchcraft, they were imprisoned for five weeks and then sent away. During the same year eight others were sent back to England. In 1657 and 1658 laws were passed to prevent the introduction of Quakers into Massachusetts, and it was enacted that on the first conviction one ear should be cut off, on the second the remaining ear, and that on the third conviction the tongue should be bored with a hot iron. Fines were laid upon all who entertained Quakers or were present at their meetings. Thereupon the Quakers, who were perhaps not without the obstinacy of which Marcus Antoninus complained in the early Christians, rushed to Massachusetts as if invited, and the result was that the general court of the colony banished them on pain of death, and four Quakers, three men and one woman, were hanged for refusing to depart from the jurisdiction or obstinately returning within it. That the Quakers were irritating cannot be denied : some of them appear to have publicly mocked the institutions and the rulers of the colony and to have interrupted public worship ; and some of their men and women too acted with fanaticism and disorder. But even such conduct furnishes but a poor apology for inflicting stripes and death on men and women. The particulars of the proceedings of Governor Endicott and the magistrates of New England as given in Besse are startling to read. On the Restoration of Charles II. a memorial was presented to him by the Quakers in England stating the persecutions which their fellow-members had undergone in New. England. Even the careless Charles was moved to issue an order to the colony which effectually stopped the hanging of Quakers for their religion, though it by no means put an end to the persecution of the body in New England. It is not wonderful that the Quakers, persecuted and oppressed at home and in New England, should turn their eyes to the unoccupied parts of America, and nourish the hope of founding amidst their woods some refuge from oppression and some likeness of a city of God upon earth. In 1671-73 George Fox had visited the American planta- tions from Carolina to Rhode Island and had preached alike to Indians and to settlers ; and in 1674 a moiety of New Jersey was sold by Lord Berkeley to John Fenwick in trust for Edward Byllinge. Both these men were Quakers, and in 1678 Fenwick with a large company of his co-religionists crossed the Atlantic, sailed up the Dela- ware, and landed at a fertile spot which he called Salem. Byllinge, having become embarrassed in his circumstances, placed his interest in the State in the hands of Penn and others as trustees for his creditors, and they invited buyers, and companies of Quakers in Yorkshire and London were amongst the largest purchasers. In 1677-78 five vessels with eight hundred emigrants, chiefly Quakers, arrived in the colony (now separated from the rest of New Jersey under the name of West New Jersey), and the town of Burlington was established. In 1677 the fundamental laws of West New Jersey were published, and recognized in a most absolute form the principles of democratic equality and perfect freedom of conscience. Notwith- standing certain troubles from claims of the governor of New York and of the duke of York, the colony prospered, and in 1681 the first legislative assembly of the colony, consisting mainly of Quakers, was held. They agreed to raise an annual sum of 200 for the expenses of their commonwealth ; they assigned their governor a salary of 20 ; they prohibited the sale of ardent spirits to the Indians, and forbade imprisonment for debt. But beyond question the most interesting event in con- nexion with Quakerism in America is the foundation by William PENN (q.v.) of the colony of Pennsylvania, where he hoped to carry into effect the principles of his sect to found and govern a colony without armies or military power, to reduce the Indians by justice and kindness to civilization and Christianity, to administer justice without oaths, and to extend an equal toleration to all persons professing theism. Such was " the holy experiment," as Penn called it, which he tried, and which seemed as if it was destined to put Quakerism to practical proof. In 1681 he obtained a grant of the colony from Charles II., and in the following year settled the frame of government for the State and sailed for America. Here he entered into his celebrated treaty of unity with the Indians, " le seul trait6 entre ces peuples et les Chretiens qui n'est point e"te jure et qui n'est point e"te rompu." What was the result of this attempt to realize Quaker principles in a new country and on a virgin soil 1 The answer is in some respects indecisive. During the time that the Quaker influence was predominant, and for seventy years after the founda- tion of Pennsylvania, the Indians are said never to have taken the life of a white man ; and once when five hundred Indians were assembled to concert a massacre they were turned from their purpose by six unarmed Friends. From England and Wales, from Scotland and Ireland, from the Low Countries and the banks of the Rhine, where Penn's missionary visit had made a deep impression, emigrants crowded to Pennsylvania ; in two years Philadelphia had risen to be a town of six hundred houses, and in three years from its foundation that city had increased more than New York in fifty years ; and the first century of the life of the colony exhibited in an unusual degree a scene of happiness and peace. But, on the other hand, little progress was made in winning the Indians to Christianity, and the annals of the infant State were full of petty quarrels and jealousies. Penn was a feudal sovereign, having over him a Stuart king as his lord paramount at home, and the absolute democracy which he had estab- lished as his immediate dependents beneath him. In such relations there were necessarily elements of difficulty, and soon dissensions broke out between the governor and the colonists ; a popular party was headed by members of the Quaker body and opposed the founder, and the influx of members of other religious persuasions led to dissensions in the assembly. The officials of the Court of Admiralty set up claims at variance with Penn's notions ; differences