enlightened statesmen and sages who had assisted
in establishing the chartered rights of America
who had seen the principals which your memorial-
-ists maintain tested through the revolutionary
war convinced it is believed of their sincerity
and of the Justice of their claims, exempted the
m from the obligation to bear arms and from
certain fines and penalties which had been impo-
-sed on their non-compliance with military
requisitions. But the laws are changed. They
now require that your memorialists, notwith
-standing their objections of their
religious scruples should be trained to arms. Their
refusal subjects them to fines which within certain
limitations subjects them are fixed at the discretion
of the Court Martial and become in numerous
instances extremely oppressive. Nor is this all your
memorialists conceive that the voluntary payment
of a fine imposed, for adherence to religious duty or
the receiving of surplus money arising from the
sale of their property seized for the satisfying of these
demands, but would be to acknowledge a delinquen
-cy which they cannot admit and to become parties
in a traffic or commutation of their principals.
Hence also considerable loss is sustained. And
notwithstanding your memorialists may
acknowledge that many officers in the government
in these cases manifest great reluctance, and
execute their trust with a scrupulous regard to