Colonization and Christianity: A popular history of the treatment of the natives by the; Europeans in all their coloniesHowitt, William
History
Colonization and Christianity: A popular history of the treatment of the natives by the; Europeans in all their colonies
Howitt, William
Indians, Treatment of; Indigenous peoples
“Such indeed was the spirit in which the negotiation was entered into,
and the corresponding settlement concluded, that for the space of more
than seventy years, and so long indeed as the Quakers retained the
chief power in the government, the peace and amity were never violated;
and a large and most striking, though solitary, example afforded of
the facility with which they who are really sincere and friendly in
their own views, may live in harmony with those who are supposed to be
peculiarly fierce and faithless. We cannot bring ourselves to wish that
there were nothing but Quakers in the world, because we fear it would
be insupportably dull; but when we consider what tremendous evils daily
arise from the petulance and profligacy, and ambition and irritability
of sovereigns and ministers, we cannot help thinking it would be the
most efficacious of all reforms to choose all those ruling personages
out of that plain, pacific, and sober-minded sect.”
There is no doubt that Penn may be declared the most perfect Christian
statesman that ever lived. He had the sagacity to see that men, to be
made trustworthy, need only to be treated as men;—that the doctrines
of the New Testament were to be taken literally and fully; and he
had the courage and honesty, in the face of all the world’s practice
and maxims, to confide in Christian truth. It fully justified him.
What are the cunning and the so-called profound policy of the most
subtle statesmen to this? This confidence, at which the statesmen of
our own day would laugh as folly and simplicity, proved to be a reach
of wisdom far beyond their narrow vision. But it is to be feared
that the selfishness of governments is as much concerned as their
short-sightedness in the clumsy and ruinous manner in which affairs
between nations are managed; for what would become of armies and
navies, places and pensions, if honest treatment should take place of
the blow first and the word after, and of all that false logic by which
aggression is made to appear necessary?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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