Journal of Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker, February 2, 1777

H. D., David Bacon &c. went to Gloucester to visit Mark Miller and. Tho Redman, who are confined in the Jail, for reading a Testimony from the meeting for Sufferings, and for refusing to take the Test proposed to them.²

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² The government of Pennsylvania was in 1776 administered by the Assembly, but the Whigs urged the adoption of a new constitution, and delegates assembled who authorized a convention for the purpose soon after the Declaration of Independence was issued. The convention passed ordinances imposing a State tax, and authorizing the arrest of suspicious persons. The Assembly, some of whose members were Friends, adopted resolutions reprobating them. The convention was called for the express and exclusive purpose of framing a constitution, not for the passing of laws. Acts were passed requiring the citizens to renounce their allegiance to the British Crown, and to declare their loyalty to the new government. The Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia adopted a minute in which they said, "We are united in judgment that, consistent with our religious principles, we cannot comply with the requisitions of those laws,. and as in some places fines and taxes have been imposed on those who, from conscientious scruples, refuse or decline making such declarations, it is the united sense and judgment of this meeting that no Friend should pay any such fine or tax."

Congress in August, 1777, being very much prejudiced against the Friends, reported by a Committee, "That the several testimonies which have been published since the commencement of the present contest with Great Britain and America, and the uniform tenor of the conduct and conversation of a number of persons of considerable wealth, who profess themselves to belong to the society of people commonly called Quakers, render it certain and notorious that those persons are with much rancor and bitterness disaffected to the American cause. That, as those persons will have it in their power, so no doubt it will be their inclination to communicate intelligence to the enemy, and in various other ways to injure the counsels and arms of America. That when the enemy in the month of December 1776 were bending their progress towards the City of Philadelphia, a certain seditious publication addressed, 'To our Friends and Brethren in religious profession in these and the adjacent provinces,' signed, John Pemberton, in and on behalf of the Meeting for Sufferings, held at Philadelphia, for Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the 20th of the Twelfth month 1776, was published, and as the committee were credibly informed, circulated among many members of the society called Quakers, throughout the different States. That as the seditious paper aforesaid originated in the City of Philadelphia, and as the persons whose names are undermentioned have uniformly manifested a disposition highly inimical to the cause of America, therefore Resolved, That it be earnestly recommended to the Supreme Executive Counsel of the State of Pennsylvania to apprehend and secure the persons of," etc., etc.

SOURCE: Henry D. Biddle, Editor, Extracts from the Journal of Elizabeth Drinker from 1759 to 1807, A.D., pp. 43-4