1682-1763.] QUAKERS AND INDIANS. 83 



ment on the one hand and French seduction on 

 the other, the Indians began to assume a threaten- 

 ing attitude towards the province ; and many 

 voices urged the necessity of a resort to arms. 

 This measure, repugnant alike to their pacific 

 principles and to their love of the Indians, was 

 strenuously opposed by the Quakers. Their affec- 

 tion for the injured race was now inflamed into a 

 sort of benevolent fanaticism. The more rabid of 

 the sect would scarcely confess that an Indian 

 could ever do wrong. In their view, he was al- 

 ways sinned against, always the innocent victim of 

 injury and abuse; and in the days of the final 

 rupture, when the woods were full of furious war- 

 parties, and the German and Irish settlers on the 

 frontier were butchered by hundreds ; when the 

 western sky was darkened with the smoke of burn- 

 ing settlements, and the wretched fugitives were 

 flying in crowds across the Susquehanna, a large 

 party among the Quakers, secure by their Phila- 

 delphia firesides, could not see the necessity of 

 waging even a defensive war against their favorite 

 people.^ 



The encroachments on the part of the proprie- 

 tors, which have been alluded to above, and which 

 many of the Quakers viewed with disapproval, 



1 1755-1763. The feelings of the Quakers at this time may be gath- 

 ered from the following sources : MS. Account of the Rise and Progress of the 

 Friendly Association for gaining and preserving Peace with the Indians by 

 pacific Pleasures. Address of the Friendly Association to Governor Denny. 

 See Proud, Hist. Pa., appendix. Haz., Pa. Reg. VIII. 273, 293, 323. But 

 a much livelier picture of the prevailing excitement will be found in a 

 series of party pamplilets, published at Philadelphia in the year 1764. 



