Fothergill

[Terrance Flaherty]

"I THINK A WORTHIER MAN NEVER LIVED"

        _To Benjamin Waterhouse_

        SIR, Passy, Jan. 18. 1781.
        I received your obliging Letter of the 16th past, enclosing one
from my dear Friend, Dr. Fothergill.  I was happy to hear from him,
that he was quite free of the Disorder that had like to have remov'd
him last summer.  But I had soon after a Letter from another Friend,
acquainting me, that he was again dangerously ill of the same Malady;
and the newspapers have since announced his Death!  I condole with
you most sincerely on this Occasion.  I think a worthier Man never
lived.  For besides his constant Readiness to serve his Friends, he
was always studying and projecting something for the Good of his
Country and of Mankind in general, and putting others, who had it in
their Power, on executing what was out of his own reach; but whatever
was within it he took care to do himself; and his incredible Industry
and unwearied Activity enabled him to do much more than can now be
ever known, his Modesty being equal to his other Virtues.

http://www.vt.edu/vt98/academics/books/franklin/paris

It is 1754 and The Holy Experiment is at war, war terrible, savage and brutal rages on the frontier. Thee Friends recoil and the entire structure of their control of The Holy Experiment (Pennsylvania) collapses. The Friends fail to prosecute the war, they are unable to do it, but the conditions on the frontier and imperial defense demand some reply, the Quakers withdraw from the assembly. Quakerism may yet be reconcilable with slave keeping, but it is irreconcilable with war. When war came  The Holy Experiment in spite of all Penn & Co. had done to prevent it, the Friends had no alternative but to renounce their political leadership. Fothergill urged all to resign rather than compromise. The men who had killed the Irish Catholics and taken all their land and rights and when expedient and necessary, the Anglicans one after another as the political game (not a game or sport or wager at all!) moved into the final quarter, were now with sharp shooting brutality at war again and with these so called Scotch-Irish and the Anglicans of Philadelphia squeezing the Friends from both ends, they had little choice but to abandon their posts in the political battle, but they would fight, oh yes. Did they tell you that I am a Quaker and will not kick your ass? Did you ever hear the one about the Jesuit, the Chinaman, and the Grimm Golden Bird?  

Fox to Jesus, "Shoot me." 


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