62 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



of the many distinct religious sects, no exact register 

 is so far kept of births and deaths, which if attempted 

 might not be reliable. A strict enumeration of the in- 

 habitants is difficult in America, (and merely political 

 calculations are untrustworthy,) where people are con- 

 tinually moving about, leaving a place or coming in. 



I remember once reading in some book of travels 

 that Philadelphia was a city of Quakers and beautiful 

 gardens. Brief enough, and for the time probably true. 

 Quakers from the beginning have been the most numer- 

 ous, the most respectable, and the richest among the 

 inhabitants ; in the government of the state they have 

 had an important, perhaps the weightiest, influence ; 

 and their manners, through imitation, have become 

 general among the people. Quakers purchased and 

 peopled the country ; they made with the aborigines 

 peaceable treaties, as Voltaire observes, the only treaties 

 between Indians and Christians, unsworn-to and not 

 broken. The greatest part of the useful institutions 

 and foundations owe their origin to this sect. By it 

 chiefly was the police organized and maintained. This 

 temperate and originally virtue-seeking brotherhood 

 takes no part in impetuous and time-consuming pleas- 

 ures which worldliness and idleness bring other, baptized 

 Christians into. Their religion, giving them a coat 

 with no buttons or creases, denies them play and the 

 dance. Thus they gain much time for pondering use- 

 ful regulations which do honor to their society and are 

 advantageous to the community. For the same reason, 

 where circumstances are equally favorable, Quakers 

 are invariably better-off than their neighbors, because 

 they bring order into their domestic affairs, undertake 

 nothing without the most careful forethought, and 



