3 88 CHARACTER OF FOTHERGILL CHAP. 



for the classes that profit by war, the people were not 

 prosperous. Moral corruption if less obvious than in 

 earlier decades was still great. It was no wonder that 

 some of the finer minds took a pessimistic view of the 

 world, either in its political conditions or in its moral and 

 religious progress. To quote two friends of Fothergill : 

 " I have taken my leave of politics," wrote Dr. William 

 Hunter in 1778, " and am sorry to say that as far as I 

 am a judge this country deserves humiliation, or rather 

 a scourge." 1 Esther Tuke of York wrote in the same 

 year of the evil to come, and of her trust that " the little 

 preserved remnant may be exercised in stemming the 

 torrent, and preventing further desolation." 2 Fothergill 

 himself was more hopeful. It was his business as a 

 physician to inspire men with hope : it was part of the 

 secret of his success that he was able to do so. As physi- 

 cian too to the body politic, his mind was ever firmly 

 bent upon the cure of the maladies of the city, of the 

 state and of mankind at large. Although he lived and 

 worked under the cloud of war, he was not himself without 

 light. His was the faith of those who believe that God 

 has a kingdom of righteousness and love to establish 

 among all nations, that the co-operation of men is needed 

 in setting it up, and that in the end the purpose shall be 

 accomplished. 



The times were strenuous. War is a scourge, and 

 under its touch, rude and evil though it be, much of the 

 pretence, the convention and the varnish of life must 

 needs disappear. Men had to face stern reality. And 

 yet as years passed they became indifferent, the pursuit 

 of folly revived, and a sort of lethargy prevailed, which 

 even affected the Quaker church. It was in such a world 

 that Fothergill moved and laboured. He bore many 



1 MS. Letter in possession of Miss Hunter-Baillie. 



2 MS. Letter to Ann Fothergill, 23.xii.i778, Frds. Ref. Lib. Esther Tuke, 

 nee Maud, was the wife of William Tuke, a well-known Friend, the founder of 

 the Retreat at York, and a pioneer in the humane treatment of the insane. 

 She visited the " Men's Meeting " about 1784, to solicit the setting up of a 

 Yearly Meeting for women. It is told that the words, " What is thy petition, 

 Queen Esther, and it shall be granted thee ? " rose to the mind of a Friend 

 present as her stately form passed up the meeting. 



