102 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



ings of the people which were not seldom the case with 

 their more northern neighbors. This advantageous 

 character (due, like everything else good, to the peace- 

 ful principles of the Quakers), was lost during the war, 

 when mobs often took possession of the city and par- 

 ticularly mishandled the Quakers in their quiet houses. 



To be industrious and frugal, at least more so than 

 the inhabitants of the provinces to the South, is the 

 recognized and unmistakeable character of the Phila- 

 delphians and in great part of all those inhabiting 

 Pensylvania. Without boasting, I daresay it is the fact 

 that, in conjunction with the Quakers, the German- 

 Pensylvania nation has had the largest share in the 

 forming of this praiseworthy folk-character. 



The German nation forms a considerable part, prob- 

 ably more than a third, of the state of Pensylvania. 

 The Quakers, who at first gave the tone in political 

 affairs, strove for that reason to win to their side the 

 Germans, who were scattered about the country and 

 commended themselves by their retired, industrious, 

 and frugal manner of life. The Quakers have never 

 gone very far from Philadelphia, individual members 

 of the sect not liking to settle far from the rest, but 

 preferring to draw together in little colonies. It was 

 therefore a policy with them to be on good terms with 

 the outlying inhabitants and they found it the easier 

 to come by their ends through a good understanding 

 with the Germans, since these together outnumbered 

 any one of the other nationalities among the colonists, 

 English, Scottish, Irish, and Swedish. The ancestors 

 of these Germans came to America all in similar cir- 

 cumstances, as indeed many have come during and 

 since the war. That is to say, they left the fatherland 



