l, and the Indians so friendly, that many of the settlers,
especially on the Pennsylvanian border, had no arms, and were doubly in
need of help from the Government. In Virginia they had it, such as it
was. In Pennsylvania they had for months none whatever; and the Assembly
turned a deaf ear to their cries.

Far to the east, sheltered from danger, lay staid and prosperous
Philadelphia, the home of order and thrift. It took its stamp from the
Quakers, its original and dominant population, set apart from the other
colonists not only in character and creed, but in the outward symbols of
a peculiar dress and a daily sacrifice of grammar on the altar of
religion. The even tenor of their lives counteracted the effects of
climate, and they are said to have been perceptibly more rotund in
feature and person than their neighbors. Yet, broad and humanizing as
was their faith, they were capable of extreme bitterness towards
opponents, clung tenaciously to power, and were jealous for the
ascendency of their sect, which had begun to show signs of wavering. On
other sects they looked askance; and regarded the Presbyterians in
particular with a dislike which in moments of crisis rose to
detestation.[338] They held it sin to fight, and above all to fight
against Indians.

[Footnote 338: See a crowd of party pamphlets, Quaker against
Presbyterian, which appeared in Philadelphia in 1764, abusively
acrimonious on both sides.]

Here was one cause of military paralysis. It was reinforced by another.
The old standing quarrel between governor and assembly had grown more
violent than ever; and this as a direct consequence of the public
distress, which above all things demanded harmony. The dispute turned
this time on a single issue,--that of the taxation of the proprietary
estates. The estates in question consisted of vast tracts of wild land,
yielding no income, and at present to a great extent worthless, being
overrun by the enemy.[339] The Quaker Assembly had refused to protect
them; and on one occasion had rejected an offer of the proprietaries to
join them in paying the cost of their defence.[340] But though they
would not defend the land, they insisted on taxing it; and farther
insisted that the taxes upon it should be laid by the provincial
assessors. By a law of the province, these assessors were chosen by
popular vote; and in consenting to this law, the proprietaries had
expressly provided that their estates should be exempted from