For conscience’s sake: Simon Webb recounts an early episode in the life of John Woolman

‘Woolman found this time of trial a positive experience.’

War gatecrashed the journal of the US Quaker John Woolman on the ninth of August 1757.

As part of the French and Indian war that was raging at the time, the French commander Louis-Joseph de Montcalm marched on the British-held Fort William Henry in the province of New York at the end of July that year, with a force of over 8,000 men. In and around the fort, the British could only boast about a third of that number.

In theory, the Brits had an advantage in that they were all in the fort or in the fortified camp nearby, but this advantage was soon lost after the French dug trenches. As the siege progressed, the trenches crept closer to the walls of the fort. The French soon began firing cannon from their trenches, to devastating effect.

Constant battering soon breached the walls of Fort William Henry and damaged several of the British guns. George Monro, who had the misfortune to be in command of the fort during the siege, had a right to expect reinforcements from Fort Edward, about sixteen miles to the south, but Daniel Webb, who commanded that fort, refused to send any of his own men to raise the siege.

A letter sent around this time to James Burd, a major at Fort Augusta in Pennsylvania, mentioned ‘a demand made of a thousand [men] from the Jerseys to the relief of Fort William Henry’. The letter went on to list the approximate numbers of the French, Native Americans and Canadians who were besieging the fort, and added details about their cannon and mortars; ‘against all which damn’d execrable combination ‘tis impossible for that fortress to hold out’.

Thomas Lloyd, a captain and author of the letter to Burd, evidently realised by 9 August that the fort would soon be lost: in fact it was on this date that Woolman recorded that ‘at night, orders came to the military officers in our county (Burlington), directing them to draft the militia’. A few days later, there was a call for three times as many men to be drafted, something that was bound to be a source of anxiety for Woolman the Quaker pacifist, and many of the Friends in Burlington County, New Jersey.

Woolman recorded that some of the local Friends consented to go to war, while others escaped the draft by leaving the area, and others ‘went and told [their captain] in substance as follows: that they could not bear arms for conscience’s sake… being resigned as to the event of it’. The captain in question ordered these men of ‘the second draft’ to go home and wait to be called up, but news soon arrived that Fort William Henry had been destroyed, and that the men of the first draft had been ordered to turn around and march home.

Although the French eventually dismantled Fort William Henry, they intended to treat the occupants in a very civilised manner. The sick and wounded were to remain and be looked after by physicians in the employ of the French, while the defeated troops on the British side, and the civilian occupants of the fort, were to be marched under escort to Fort Edward.

But some of the Native American warriors on the French side ran riot, killing and wounding civilians and soldiers, so that what was supposed to be the calm conclusion of the siege turned into the Fort William Henry Massacre, leaving perhaps 200 more people dead on the shore of Lake George.

Woolman called the events connected to the siege that unfolded at his home town of Mount Holly, New Jersey ‘such a time as I had not seen before’. The question of who should be excluded from the draft ‘for conscience’s sake’ was complicated by the actions of what Woolman calls ‘men, who are insincere, [who] pretend scruple of conscience in hopes of being excused from a dangerous employment’. Overall, though, Woolman found this time of trial a positive experience, ‘intended for our good’.

In April of the next year, 1758, 100 soldiers had to be billeted at Mount Holly, and Woolman was informed that he would have to accommodate two of them. For this, he would be paid six shillings per week per man, or around forty pounds in today’s money. Many householders would have been concerned that such men, descending on their home, might demand too much food and drink, get drunk and violent, take pot-shots at the crockery with their muskets, and press their unwanted attentions on any girls or women who happened to be around. Woolman’s concern was that he could not in all conscience take money ‘to entertain men, who were then under pay as soldiers’.

In the end, only one man turned up at the Woolmans’, and he behaved perfectly civilly during his fortnight’s stay. After he had gone, an officer on foot approached Woolman, who was on horseback, and tried to pay him his twelve shillings. Woolman refused the money, and the officer said he was obliged to Woolman, thinking, perhaps, that the Quaker was trying to do him a favour. Later Woolman visited the officer at his house, and made sure that he understood why he had felt unable to accept payment.

Woolman’s response to the tentacles of war thrashing around near his home reveals a great deal about his cast of mind. Although by this time Quakerism had been in existence for over a century, the New Jersey man had no glib, reflex reaction to events. He did not immediately discount the possibility that Quaker men might consent to fight, nor did he think of the people in charge of conscripting them as callous, warmongering exploiters. Many of these people were his neighbours, people he had known well for years, who were now suddenly appearing wearing their literal or figurative military hats.

In his journal, Woolman wrote that ‘amongst the officers are men of understanding, who have some regard to sincerity where they see it’ and he understood that, ‘when they have men to deal with whom they believe to be upright-hearted’ who refuse to fight ‘on account of scruples of conscience… their difficulties are great at such a time’. Later, Woolman even went on to imply that the officers in charge ‘in great anxiety, endeavouring to get troops to answer the demands of their superiors’ might be likely to be rough with men who ‘pretend scruple of conscience’.

Confronted with the possibility of being paid to provide accommodation for soldiers, Woolman looked into his own heart to find a response to this new and unexpected challenge. He refused to take the money before he even had words to explain why, sitting there on horseback looking down on the officer with his twelve shillings. It was only later that he had an explanation, and felt a need to clarify things and avoid ambiguity. This reliance on the best of inner promptings, even before they can be fully understood or put into words, is very Quakerly, since Quakers look to an inner divine spark, ‘that of God’ that dwells in all of us, for guidance.

The article is an edited extract from Simon’s new book, The Life and Times of John Woolman: A singular Quaker, which is available now from Langley Press.

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