Finding James Pemberton in his office, I told him that my errand was out of respect to relieve him of the need to call upon a younger man. He seemed pleased, and opened the matter in a way so gentle and considerate that I am sure no man could have bettered the manner of doing it. My attention to business and quieter life had for a time reassured the overseers. He would not speak of blood-guiltiness now, for out of kindness to my distressed parent they had seen fit to wait, and for a time to set it aside. My father had been in much affliction, and Friends had taken note of this. Now he had to call to my mind the testimony of Friends as to war, and even how many had been reported to the Yearly Meeting for Sufferings on account of righteous unwillingness to resist constituted authority, and how men of my views had oppressed and abused them. Had I read the letter of the Yearly Meeting of 1774, warning members not to depart from their peaceful principles by taking part in any of the political matters then being stirred up, reminding all Friends that under the king’s government they had been favoured with a peaceful and prosperous enjoyment of their rights, and the like? I listened quietly, and said it was too late to discuss these questions, which were many; that my mind was fully made up, and that as soon as possible I meant to enter the army. He had the good sense to see that I was of no inclination to change; and so, after some words of the most tender remonstrance, he bade me to prayerfully consider the business further, since overseers would not meet at once, and even when they did there would be time to manifest to Friends a just sense of my errors. I thanked him, and went my way, making, however, no sign of grace, so that, on July 4 of this 1776, late in the evening, I received in my aunt’s presence a letter from Isaac Freeman, clerk of the Meeting, inclosing a formal minute of the final action of Friends in my case. “What is that?” said Aunt Gainor, very cheerful over a letter of thanks to her for having sold at cost to the Committee of Safety the cloth of Holland and the blankets she had induced my father to buy for her. She had stored them away for this hour of need, and was now full of satisfaction because of having made my father the means of clothing the continental troops. “Read it aloud. What is it, sir?” I was smiling over what a few years before would have cost me many a bitter thought. “Give it me! What is it?” Then she put on a pair of the new spectacles with wire supports to rest on the ears. “Dr. Franklin gave me these new inventions, and a great comfort too. I cannot endure bridge glasses; they leave dents in one’s nose. You have not seen him lately. He was here to-day. You should see him, Hugh. He was dressed very fine in a velvet coat with new, shilling buttons, and bless me! but he has got manners as fine as his ruffles, and that is saying a good deal--Mechlin of the best. You would not know the man.”