But bad as affairs were in Virginia, those in Pennsylvania were
infinitely worse. They had, for many years, been on such friendly terms
with the Indians, that many of the settlers had no arms, nor had they
the protection in the way of troops which the government of Virginia
put upon the frontier. The government of the colony was at
Philadelphia, far to the east, and sheltered from danger, and the
Quaker assembly there refused to vote money for a single soldier to
protect the unhappy colonists on the frontier. They held it a sin to
fight, and above all to fight with Indians, and as long as they
themselves were free from the danger, they turned a deaf ear to the
tales of massacre, and to the pitiful cries for aid which came from the
frontier. But even greater than their objection to war, was their
passion of resistance to the representative of royalty, the governor.
Petition after petition came from the border for arms and ammunition,
and for a militia law to enable the people to organize and defend
themselves; but the Quakers resisted, declaring that Braddock's defeat
was a just judgment upon him and his soldiers for molesting the French
in their settlement in Ohio. They passed, indeed, a bill for raising
fifty thousand pounds for the king's use, but affixed to it a
condition, to which they knew well the governor could not assent; viz,
that the proprietary lands were to pay their share of the tax.
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