In July, 1701, Penn received a communication from the king, which sorely puzzled him. It demanded that the American proprietaries should unite for the defence of the Colonies, and that Pennsylvania should contribute £350 for the defence of the New York frontier. Apostle of peace though he was, he could do no otherwise than lay the letter before the Assembly. That body delayed and finessed, and finally, saying nothing of peace principles, pleaded their poverty as a reason for postponing the further consideration of the matter, until it was more urgent. Thus, this question of peace, which so long divided Pennsylvania, was for the present shelved. But it is the boast of Friends that for 70 years Pennsylvania had no army, and though so near both Indians and Frenchmen, suffered nothing through the lack of one. That State "subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations," says Oldmixon, "without so much as a militia for her defence. Whatever the quarrels of the Pennsylvanian Indians were with others, they uniformly respected and held as it were sacred, the territories of William Penn. The Pennsylvanians never lost man, woman, or child by them, which neither the colony of Maryland, nor that of Virginia could say, no more than the great colony of New England." To complete the argument for non-resistance, see what occurred when Pennsylvania got an army. "From that hour the Pennsylvanians transferred their confidence in Christian principles to a confidence in their arms; and from that hour to the present they have been subject to war." (Dymond's Essays, 4th edition, p. 192.)
But it must not be supposed that the refusal to fight meant either unwillingness or inability to use moral means for self-protection. In 1701, Penn heard of a riot in East Jersey, and set off at once with some friends to quell it. It was put down before he reached the spot, but gave him occasion fully to state his views. "If lenitives would not do, coercives should be tried. The leaders should be eyed, and some should be forced to declare them by the rigour of the law; and those who were found to be such should bear the burden of such sedition, which would be the best way to behead the body without danger."