154 RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [1764. 



of dignity that would have done him more honor 

 had he made it when the rioters were in arms 

 before the city, at which time he had shown an 

 abundant alacrity to negotiate. It was intimated 

 to Smith and Gibson that they might leave Phila- 

 delphia ; and the Assembly soon after became 

 involved in its inevitable quarrels with the gov- 

 ernor, relative to the granting of supplies for the 

 service of the ensuing campaign. The supply bill 

 passed, as mentioned in a former chapter ; and the 

 consequent military preparations, together with a 

 threatened renewal of the war on the part of the 

 enemy, engrossed the minds of the frontier people, 

 and caused the excitements of the winter to be 

 forgotten. No action on the two memorials was 

 ever taken by the Assembly ; and the memorable 

 Paxton riots had no other definite result than that 

 of exposing the weakness and distraction of the 

 provincial government, and demonstrating the folly 

 and absurdity of all principles of non-resistance. 



Yet to the student of human nature these events 

 supply abundant food for reflection. In the fron- 

 tiersman, goaded by the madness of his misery 

 to deeds akin to those by which he sufl'ered, 

 and half believing that, in the perpetration 

 of these atrocities, he was but the minister of 

 divine vengeance ; in the Quaker, absorbed by one 

 narrow philanthropy, and closing his ears to the 

 outcries of his wretched countrymen ; in the Pres- 

 byterian, urged by party spirit and sectarian zeal 

 to countenance the crimes of rioters and murder- 

 ers, — in each and all of these lies an embodied 



