[[[Members of Assembly instructed.--Quakers Opposed to the Revolution.--"Testimony" of their Yearly Meeting in 1775.]]]
{ 261}within the colonies as subjects born in England were entitled to within that realm, and that the right of representation in the British Parliament was implied by the asserted power of the government to tax them." The convention also adopted a series of instructions for the Assembly about to convene, in which, in the strongest terms, colonial rights were asserted. These were from the pen of John Dickenson, and, though loyal in spirit, they were firm in resistance to the arm of oppression. * When the Assembly met, these instructions were regarded as binding, and were faithfully carried out. Joseph Galloway (who afterward became a Tory), the speaker of the Assembly, Samuel Rhoades, Thomas Mifflin, Charles Humphries, John Morton, George R-oss, Edward Biddle, and subsequently John Dickenson, were appointed delegates to represent Pennsylvania in the Continental [[July 22, 1774]] Congress, to assemble in Philadelphia in September following.
We have seen that, from the founding of Pennsylvania, the Quakers held a commanding social and political influence in the commonwealth. Although this influence was much diminished at the commencement of the Revolution, a large influx of Germans and adventurers from New England having populated extensive districts of the province, their principles, precepts, and practices had great weight with the public mind. They had generally taken affirmative ground in the popular peaceable measures adopted to procure redress of political grievances, and warmly approved of the conduct of the first Continental Congress; but when an appeal to arms became an apparent necessity, and the tendency of action in popular conventions and legislative assemblies pointed to that dreadful alternative, their love of order, and their principles of non-resistance by force of arms, positively enjoined in their "Discipline," made them pause. They held extra and protracted meetings, even till after night, to determine what to do. There was a spirit abroad favorable to enforcing a compliance with the letter of the American Association recommended by the first Congress--an association designed to draw, in strong lines of demarcation, the separation between the friends of Congress and the friends of the king. To this spirit the Quakers were opposed, because it usurped the dearest prerogatives of conscience, and pronounced the exercise of honest opinions to be a political misdemeanor. They not only paused, but cast the weight of their influence into the scale of royalty, believing it to be the guardian of law and order.