the further publishing and spreading of the said pamphlets, as they will answer the contrary at their peril.”[1]
“What we intend against others concerned,” would seem to imply that a bolt was being forged over the heads of Abraham op den Graeff and the remaining three signers of the insolent pamphlet; but it was never discharged. The yearly meeting at Burlington disowned Keith, and this action the yearly meeting at London confirmed. Dirck op den Graeff was one of those who signed the testimony against him and one of those giving a certificate to Samuel Jennings, who went to London to represent his opponents. Hermann op den Graeff, on the other hand, was among a minority of sixty-nine, who issued a paper at the yearly meeting at Burlington, favoring him. The results of this schism were extensive and grave. It placed a weapon in the hands of the enemies of Friends which they used in Europe, as well as here, without stint. Ecclesiastically it led to the foundation of the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania. Politically it threatened to change the destinies of a Commonwealth, since it was one of the principal reasons assigned for depriving Penn of the control of his province.
The incorporation of Germantown rendered necessary the opening of a court. In its records may be traced the little bickerings and contentions which mark the darker parts of the characters of these goodly people. Its proceedings conducted with their simple and primitive ideas of judicature, written in their quaint language, are both instructive and entertaining, since they show what manner of men these were, whose worst faults appear to have consisted in the neglect of fences and the occasional use of uncomplimentary adjectives. From among them is
- ↑ Smith's History in Hazard's Register, Vol. vi., p. 281.
