236 THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS CHAP. 



and on comfort and quiet, rather than on power. The 

 timid note, " we trust," replaces the tone of assurance. 

 They are " a peculiar people " a phrase which took on 

 a sense unworthy of the original and the purpose of the 

 annual assemblies is now " the care of the affairs of the 

 churches," rather than, as it was at first, the prosperity 

 and the " spreading of Truth." l Persecution and oppres- 

 sion were not quite over, but they had taken the form of 

 ridicule and obloquy rather than injury to person or to 

 goods, although distraint for tithes was to continue yet 

 for a century and a half. 2 From the Toleration Act of 

 1689 to the Affirmation Act of 1721, Friends had been 

 relieved step by step from many disabilities, and the 

 society had come to be regarded by the legislature as a 

 somewhat eccentric but respectable body of people, for 

 whom the state kindly made allowance in its laws. Much 

 searching of heart took place amongst the more scrupulous 

 members as to whether the use of an affirmation in lieu 

 of an oath could rightly be availed of. 



Years of comparative quiet followed, during which the 

 society did little to enlarge its borders ; the meetings of 

 Friends were often held in silence, and very few new 

 meetings were settled after the year 1700. The history 

 of this period in the life of the society has scarcely yet 

 been written, and only a few facts can be here set down 

 which may throw light on the development of its polity 

 and its place in the nation, a development in which 

 Fothergill took his part. During the earlier Georgian 

 period, the corruption of public manners and principles 

 combined with other influences to mark off the Quakers 

 as a body separate from the " world," and disallowed 

 by its testimonies and customs from holding any public 

 office or taking part in many worldly concerns. Member- 



1 Compare the Epistles from the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London ; 

 those of 1681-1691, with those of the following twenty-five years. 



2 The Epistle of 1779, signed by Fothergill as clerk, was challenged for 

 its reference to " sufferings " for distraint, since tithes were an impost properly 

 due. He had no difficulty in showing that, unlike taxes, tithes were not due 

 from Friends for value received, and that sufferings were caused by the distraint 

 of greatly augmented sums. Gent. Mag., 1779, p. 431. Sir R. Walpole sought 

 in vain to pass a law to modify the severity of the process. 



