sked them.

There is no doubt but that the world, who know scarcely any thing about
the Quakers, will have some reason, if they judge from their outward
manner of expression, to come to such a conclusion. There is often a
sort of hesitation in their speech, which has the appearance of
evasiveness. But though there may be such an appearance, their answers
to questions are full and accurate when finally given; and
unquestionably there is no intention in them either to hold back any
thing, or to deceive.

This outward appearance, strange to relate, arises in part from an
amiable trait in the character of the Quakers!! Their great desire to
speak the truth, and not to exceed it, occasions often a sort of
doubtfulness of speech. It occasions them also, instead of answering a
question immediately, to ask other questions, that they may see the true
bearings of the thing intended to be known. The same appearance of
doubt runs also through the whole society in all those words which
relate to promises, from the same cause. For the Quakers, knowing the
uncertainty of all human things, and the impossibility of fulfilling but
provisionally, seldom, as I have observed before, promise any thing
positively, that they may not come short of the truth. The desire
therefore of uttering the truth has in part brought this accusation upon
their heads.

Other circumstances also to be found within the Quaker constitution have
a tendency to produce the same effect.

In their monthly and quarterly and annual meetings for discipline, they
are taught by custom to watch the propriety of the expressions that are
used in the wording of their minutes, that these may accurately
represent the sense of the persons present. And this habit of caution
about the use of words in the affairs of their own society naturally
begets a caution concerning it also in their intercourse with the world.

The peculiarities of their language produce also a similar
circumspection. For where people are restrained from the use of
expressions which are gene rally adopted by others, and this in the
belief that, as a highly professing people, they ought to be watchful
over their words as well as their actions, a sort of hesitation will
accompany them, or a sort of pause will be perceptible, while they are
choosing as it were the proper words for a reply to any of the questions
that may be asked them.

CHAP. XVI.

_Another trait is that of shyness--This an appearan