346 THE WAR OF SEPARATION CHAP. 



joined the American army they might be heard exer- 

 cising : "Shoulder thy firelock" 1 and a very few 

 joined the British. The Quaker discipline, consistently 

 maintained throughout, though with much patience, 

 cast off at least 140 members in Philadelphia for these 

 causes. A small schism indeed occurred, and a body 

 called the " Free Quakers " Friends who approved of 

 military duties established itself, and long maintained 

 an existence ; the meetings ceased about 1836, but a list 

 of members was kept up for many years afterwards. Its 

 meeting-house still stands at the south-west corner of 

 Arch and Fifth Streets. 2 Pennsylvanian Friends suffered 

 much at the hands of the new government, an arbitrary 

 council : they lost large sums of money by fines and 

 distraints ; their meeting-houses were taken for barracks ; 

 seventeen Friends, including the three Pemberton brothers, 

 were banished to Virginia in 1777, some of them dying in 

 exile ; whilst two Friends were hanged in Philadelphia 

 in 1778 for helping the British. It must be added that 

 the Friends bore all their troubles with quiet submission 

 and a certain dignity, that they upheld their principles 

 without faltering, and were ever ready to put forth 

 letters or addresses to maintain the cause of truth, and 

 to advise and support their fellow-members. In the 

 early days of the conflict they raised a subscription of 

 about 2000 for the sufferers of all parties in Massa- 

 chusetts, undertaking themselves the arduous and diffi- 

 cult work of its distribution ; and Fothergill and the 

 English and Irish Quakers emulated their charity, on a 

 generous scale, later in the war on behalf of American 

 Friends who were suffering. As a body the society 

 prospered, and its numerous meeting-houses in the 

 period succeeding the revolution were well frequented ; 

 this period probably saw the high-water mark of Quaker 

 expansion in America. 3 



1 Ellen Chase, op. cit. 



* C. Wetherill, Hist, of Religious Soc. of Friends called by some the Free 

 Quakers, Phila. 1894, privately printed. 



3 See Rufus M. Jones, Quakers in Amer. Col. ; Sharpless, op. cit. ; MS. 

 Letters from James Pemberton, 1763, 1/74, Frds. Ref. Lib. 



