individuals, who assumed to themselves the prerogative of speaking the sentiments of the whole society; and that your honourable House will reject from their minutes their present address, which tends to show a disunion among us, and therefore may be of fatal consequences to our cause.

“And, as we fear the people will not longer submit to see the publick burden so unequally borne, we earnestly beg, to preserve the peace of the Province, and the consequence of your honourable House, (which we would wish to govern us in this important struggle, in preference to any other body,) you will be pleased to take into your consideration our former memorials relative to the Association, which we engaged in from the best of motives, and which has been solemnly approved of by a vote of your honourable predecessors.

“By order of a Board of Officers:

“DANIEL ROBERDEAU, Chairman.

“Philadelphia, October 31, 1775.”

A Representation from the Committee of Privates of the Association belonging to the City of Philadelphia and its Districts, was presented to the House, and follows in these words, viz:

“To the Honourable the Representatives of the Freemen of the Province of PENNSYLVANIA, in General Assembly met.

“We, the Committee of the Privates of the Association belonging to the City of PHILADELPHIA and its Districts, humbly beg leave to represent:

“That it is with no small degree of reluctance that we are obliged either to approach this honourable House with this our representation, or by our silence in some measure to acknowledge the claims and admit the charge of those men who, in their late address to this honourable House, style themselves the people called Quakers, a copy of which we have seen.

“In this extraordinary address we find ourselves and others represented as men who endeavour to induce this honourable House to enter into measures manifestly repugnant to the laws and Charter of this Province, and which, if enforced, must subvert that most essential of all privileges, liberty of conscience; which they apprehend will not only increase the publick distresses, but occasion the grievous sufferings of many conscientious people, of divers religious denominations; and also as persons who ‘now forget the equity and justice of their laws and Government of this once peaceful Province, and, by preferring our own schemes, overlook the importance of inviolably maintaining and supporting the principles of civil and religious liberty.’

“We beg leave to assure this honourable House, that we are far from wishing to do any thing which would have the remotest tendency to increase the publick distresses, or to occasion the grievous sufferings of any conscientious people, of any denomination whatever, and are utterly at a loss to comprehend how the prayer of our petition could interfere with the consciences of religious men.

“In our petition we prayed the honourable House, in their wisdom, to recommend to their constituents some general plan of a militia law, which should equally extend to all the good people of this Province; and that any indulgence which might be thought necessary to be granted by the honourable House, to any of the freemen of the Province, might be equally open to all, and granted upon such terms as this honourable House might think adequate to the many difficult and dangerous services of those who were willing to hazard their lives and fortunes in the defence of their Country.

“How this prayer, founded on the most certain and evident principles of equity and justice, could be construed into an endeavour to induce this honourable House to enter into measures manifestly repugnant to the laws and Charter of this Province, and which, if enforced, must subvert that most essential of all privileges, liberty of conscience, surpasses all the ideas we had ever formed of the power of religious prejudices.

“That religion which teaches to deny the demand of justice and equity, cannot be of God; nor will the conscience which is influenced thereby meet with his approbation. Those who believe the Scriptures must acknowledge that civil Government is of divine institution, and the support of it enjoined to Christians; and it is not consonant to the divine wisdom to enjoin and forbid the same thing at the same time. As your addressers have not pointed out any law of the Province to which the prayer of your Petitioners is so manifestly repugnant, we beg to be indulged with the liberty of doubting the existence of any such; and as to the thirty-fifth section of laws agreed upon in England the fifth day of the third month, one thousand six hundred and eighty-two, we would pass it over as a section which we apprehend none but your addressers would apply to the present purpose.

“With regard to arguments drawn from our Charter, we would observe, that the great law of self-preservation is equally binding with the letter of written Charters; nor can it be supposed that a people will be reasoned out of their liberty, and every thing they hold dear, by an over-nice scanning of them.

“Nevertheless, with regard to that clause of the Charter of Privileges on which they ultimately found their claim to a total exemption from contributing their just proportion towards the publick expense incurred in defence of our privileges, we would, with all due submission and deference, represent to this honourable House, that the honourable and worthy proprietor, William Penn, had no right, power, or authority, to grant privileges further than was granted to him by the Royal Charter, and that the royal prerogative of the King of Great Britain does not comprehend any right or authority in the Crown to grant any exemption from supporting the Constitution and Government to any man or set of men, on any pretence whatever. This is a power unknown to the Crown, and therefore could never be granted by the King to the worthy proprietor who granted the Charter of Privileges.

“Liberty of conscience is so sacred a thing that it ought ever to be preserved inviolate, and we will always rejoice to see any body of men assert their right to it. But when, under pretence of this liberty, the very existence of civil Government is struck at, we beg leave to represent, that either the liberty claimed must be given up, or the Government dissolved; and this we apprehend to be the case when any of the members of a community, from a claim of religious liberty, refuse to support the society to which they belong, and under which they claim this very privilege.

“That the clause which they quote never did nor could extend to such exemptions, on any pretence whatever, is plain from itself, because the persons who have a right to claim the liberty granted therein, are by that very clause made to ‘profess themselves obliged to live quietly under the civil Government,’ which cannot possibly be when they refuse to support the measures often necessary to its very existence.

“Moreover, it is plain that the worthy proprietor who granted this Charter never meant nor intended any such thing by the liberty of conscience therein mentioned, inasmuch as it would have been contrary to the sixteenth section of the Royal Charter granted by the King, and accepted by the proprietor, who, as they inform this honourable House in their address, was united with them in religious profession and principle, which is as follows: ‘And because in so remote a Country, and situate near many barbarous nations, the incursions, as well of the savages themselves as of other enemies, pirates, and robbers, may probably be feared; therefore we have given, and for us, our heirs and successors, do give power by these presents to the said William Penn, his heirs and assigns, by themselves or their Captains, or other their officers, to levy, muster, and train all sorts of men, of what condition soever, or wheresoever born, in the said Province of Pennsylvania for the time being, and to make war, and to pursue the enemies and robbers aforesaid, as well by sea as by land, even without the limits of the said Province, and, by God’s assistance, to vanquish and take them, and, being taken, to put them to death, by the law of war, or to save them, at their pleasure; and to do all and every other thing which unto the charge and office of a Captain-General of an army belongeth, or hath accustomed to belong, as fully and freely as any Captain-General of an army hath ever had the same.’

“This section of the Royal Charter, together with the clause in the Charter of Privileges, which the addressers