1764, Feb.] PAXTON MEN AT GEBMANTOWN. 147 



rations within the city ; and the report made by the 

 adventurers, on their return, greatly tended to allay 

 the general excitement. 



The alarm, however, was again raised on the 

 following day ; and the cry to arms once more 

 resounded through the city of peace. The citizen 

 soldiers mustered with exemplary despatch ; but 

 their ardor was quenched by a storm of rain, which 

 drove them all under shelter. A neighboring 

 Quaker meeting-house happened to be open, and a 

 company of the volunteers betook themselves in 

 haste to this convenient asylum. Forthwith, the 

 place was bristling with bayonets ; and the walls, 

 which had listened so often to angry denunciations 

 against war, now echoed the clang of weapons, — 

 an unspeakable scandal to the elders of the sect, 

 and an occasion of pitiless satire to the Presbyte- 

 rians.^ 



This alarm proving groundless, like all the others, 

 the governor and council proceeded to the execu- 

 tion of a design which they had formed the day 

 before. They had resolved, in pursuance of their 

 timid policy, to open negotiations with the rioters, 

 and persuade them, if possible, to depart peacefully. 

 Many of the citizens protested against the plan, 

 and the soldiers volunteered to attack the Paxton 

 men; but none were so vehement as the Quakers, 

 who held that fire and steel were the only wel- 

 come that should be accorded to such violators of 

 the public peace, and audacious blasphemers of the 



1 Haz. Pa. Reg. XII. 12. 



