ception of this
colony of Pennsylvania, debarred the free and legitimate exercise of
your religion within their bounds, and restricted its public ceremonies;
how you were restricted by oaths required by law, even here in
Pennsylvania, which you could not take had you been so successful as to
be chosen to office. I need not remind you of these truths. You already
know them. It would be idle to repeat them."

"This man is exceedingly dangerous," muttered Stephen, "and exceedingly
well-informed." He jotted down several notes on the reverse of his
paper.

"We have been displeased with the conduct of the war, immeasurably so.
And we have lost all faith in the good will of our fellow-colonists, in
matters religious as well as in matters political. They have refused to
treat with the ministers of conciliation. We are about to join our
forces to those of the mother country in order that we may render our
own poverty-stricken land an everlasting service. We are destined to
take our places among a band of true and genuine patriots, who have,
above all things else, the welfare of their own land at heart, and we
are about to commit ourselves to this course, together with our
fortunes and our lives. Since our people are blinded by the avarice and
the prejudice of their leaders, we shall take into our own hands the
decision and the fortunes of this war, trusting that our cause may be
heard at the bar of history when strict judgment shall be meted out. We
have broken with our people in the hope that the dawn of better days may
break through the clouds that now overshadow us."

He paused, for a moment to study the temper of his audience. There was
no sound, and so he continued.

"It is the glory of the British soldier that he is the defender, not the
destroyer, of the civil and the religious rights of the people. Witness
the tolerant care of your mother country in the bestowal of religious
liberties to the inhabitants of our once oppressed neighbor, Canada. The
Quebec Act was the greatest concession ever granted in the history of
the British Parliament, and it secured for the Canadians the freedom of
that worship so dear and so precious to them. So great was the tolerance
granted to the Catholics of the North, that your fellow-colonists flew
to arms lest a similar concession be made here. It was the last straw
that broke the bonds of unity. For, henceforth, it was decreed that only
a complete and independent separation from the Bri