When this exercise came upon me, I knew of none under the like difficulty and in my distress I besought the Lord to enable me to give up all, that so I might follow him wheresoever he was pleased to lead me … To refuse the active payment of a tax which our Society generally paid was exceedingly disagreeable but to do a thing contrary to my conscience appeared yet more dreadful. I believed that there were some upright-hearted men who paid such taxes, yet could not see that their example was a sufficient reason for me to do so, while I believe that the spirit of truth required of me, as an individual, to suffer patiently the distress of goods, rather than pay actively. I had conversation with several noted Friends on the subject, who all favored the payment of such taxes some of them I preferred before myself, and this made me easier for a time yet there was in the depth of my mind a scruple which I never could get over and at certain times I was greatly distressed on that account. I was told that Friends in England frequently paid taxes, when the money was applied to such purposes. John Woolman writes about his unwillingness as a Christian to support war in any way.Ī few years past, money being made current in our province for carrying on wars, and to be called in again by taxes laid on the inhabitants, my mind was often affected with the thoughts of paying such taxes and I believe it right for me to preserve a memorandum concerning it. Quakers were among those drafted or expected to pay war taxes toward the English effort to protect the colonists from Indian raids. In 1757 in Burlington, New Jersey, a militia was drafted to support the English troops stationed at Fort William Henry in New York.
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