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HENRY MELCHIOR MUHLENBERG: TORY OR

PATRIOT?

By LEONARD R. RIFORGIATO

The Pennsylvania State University

Shenango Valley

If you travel northwest of Philadelphia along route 422, in twenty five

miles you will come upon the tiny village of Trappe, or Providence as once

it was called. There you will find Augustus Lutheran Church, looking much

as it did when erected in 1743. Pass through the single portal over the

worn flagstone floor, into the dimly lit interior and time first slows then

rushes backward in its course to a point two hundred years past. As your

eye sweeps the simple church you note the rough-hewn ceiling beams,

box-like, European style pews, a simple altar surmounted by a small

gallery and then, off to the left the beautiful red walnut pulpit handcrafted

in Europe and imported to lend a touch of elegance to this otherwise rustic

chapel. Through the silence of the centuries you can perhaps still hear

the voice of a preacher summoning his flock to worship his God. His name

was Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the Patriarch and founder of colonial

American Lutheranism. He built this church. Through the window you

can see his home, still standing though greatly altered. Here his wife Anna

Maria Weiser gave birth to eight children. He baptised them all in the

tiny church. If you listen intently through the silence you can hear the

crack of guns and the marching feet of ghostly soldiers. They come from

Valley Forge a few miles due south.

This article is about both the Lutheran pastor and the colonial soldiers.

It is more specifically about Henry Melchior Muhlenberg's attitude

towards the American Revolution. What was he—a patriot or a tory?

Two previous Muhlenberg scholars Theodore Tappert¹ and Paul

Wallace² stand in agreement: Muhlenberg began the Revolution as a Tory

in feeling, but a neutral by profession and gradually became reconciled

to American independence. This article claims that Muhlenberg was, from

the beginning of the Revolution, a patriot.

There is, admittedly ample reasons for confusion over Muhlenberg's

loyalties because he was always careful to avoid, in so far as he could,

assuming public political positions. This is not to say that he was uncon-

cerned about or uninvolved in the great issues of his day. Rather, he

preferred to work behind the scenes manipulating others to accomplish his

desired goals.

Machiavellian as this sounds, Muhlenberg felt it was the proper proce-

dure for one in his position. He was, of course of German birth, a Lutheran

steeped in a tradition where church and state were separate, but the state

was superior, at least in temporal matters. Throughout his ecclesiastical

studies and later ministry in Germany, Muhlenberg was a protege of

powerful secular patrons. When he came to Pennsylvania in 1742, be came

[34]

as a missionary subordinate to and dependent on superiors in far-off

Halle. He brought with him then an attitude of respect for authority which

made him forbear from public challenge. His experiences in America merely

reinforced an innate political reticence.

During the early portion of his public ministry, Muhlenberg was

totally preoccupied with asserting his ecclesiastical authority over dissident,

quarrelsome, independent-minded Lutheran congregation. He had no time

for political matters. Even had he wished to exercise secular leadership, he

would have been soundly rebuffed by his congregants for, as he confided

to his journal:

It is impossible for respectable preachers to engage in political activity,

for the inhabitants, both great and small, are exceedingly jealous of the

rights and liberties which God has granted them and which many for-

mer anointed and crowned sovereigns have confirmed with oaths; be-

sides the people are prejudiced against and are secretly suspicious of

even the best and most respectable pastors, as if the pastors wished to

curb their freedom, and accordingly they chase away pastors or cut

off their incomes if they have the slightest impression that these

preachers intended to engage in political activity.³

Muhlenberg vividly recalled the fate of the German Reformed pastor,

Michael Schlatter, in this respect. Schlatter had publicly espoused English

language schools for Germans, an idea conceived by Franklin and covertly

supported by Muhlenberg. When the Philadelphia publisher, Christopher

Sauer turned German-Americans against the project by picturing it as a

plot to anglicize them, Schlatter was forced to give up his pastorate. The

lesson had not been lost on Muhlenberg.

As tensions increased between Britain and her restive colonies, Muhl-

enberg became more determined to avoid any opinion in public. This

became increasingly difficult for, as the leader of the numerous German

Lutheran minority, he was in fact, whether he willed it or no, an important

political person. His silence only led both sides in the dispute to suspect

him and made them more determined to smoke him out.

When, for example, he undertook a journey, at Halle's request, to visit

Lutheran congregations in Georgia from September 1774 to March 1775,

rumors spread about his supposed Tory inclination. First he was accused

of seeking colonial-wide establishment of the Church of England which

he would then join to collect a tithe. Then, somewhat contradictorily, it

was said that George III had converted to Roman Catholicism and old

Muhlenberg had sailed to England to celebrate a popish mass for him. At

the very least, it was believed that he had been tarred and feathered,

publicly displayed in a cart, and then driven out of Philadelphia in

disgrace.

Muhlenberg bridled at such malicious gossip but held his tongue. What

refutations he made were done privately. On a trip he encountered a

German who, aware of the talk, bluntly asked him why "the German

Lutheran preachers have brought about such a grave tragedy, have be-

trayed the liberty of the country, and have caused this grave war?"

Muhlenberg hotly denied that he was either a Tory or traitor. Indeed he

appears to align himself with the patriot cause: "My dear friend," he re-

plied "you are not correctly informed. I and most of my colleagues have

friends and relatives—and children—here in America. We cherish civil and

religious liberty as a precious gift vouchsafed to us by God."

[35]

As public opinion veered towards war, many colonies began to raise

armed militia. Such martial actions, were in Muhlenberg's view, legitimate

measures of self defense: "It is not as if the inhabitants wished to injure

anybody, or invade the rights of others, for they wish to defend their civil

rights and the liberty of conscience given them by God."

Great Britain,

he felt, "had rejected the Christian religion and, along with it, has lost light

and right, has been struck with blindness in a just judgment, and has

become ripe for humiliation."

God would use her as a scourge against

American sinfulness; then, in the full measure of time, when her purpose

was played out, she would be cast away. Still, up to the final break,

Muhenberg hoped that the mother country would return to her senses;

that the sight of well-armed and enraged colonists might compel her to

compromise as she had done in the past.

With crisis succeeding crisis, Muhlenberg's sanguine expectations of

reconciliation waned. During the early part of 1776 he seriously began to

consider the possibility of removing himself from Philadelphia. The city

was, after all, the very seat of rebellion for there the Continental Congress

sat. To remain and yet maintain silence on the issue of revolution would

be impossible. Moreover, Muhlenberg realized, as any sensible man did,

that Philadelphia would soon be attacked by the British. Hence, in March

1776, he purchased a home in Providence which was both conveniently near

and comfortably distant from the metropolis. Within a week of the procla-

mation of American independence, Muhlenberg betook himself and his

family to this country retreat, "to remain there" as he explained "until

a better solution offered itself."

Safe in his rustic retreat, Muhlenberg felt himself free of political pres-

sures. Yet he continued to maintain a keen interest in political and

especially in military matters. That this interest reflected an American

viewpoint is evidenced in the journals.

These journals are, however, problematic. In a sense they were an

official record of his American ministry. As such they served as the basis

for his annual reports to Halle, which published them in a missionary news-

letter Hallesche Nachrichten, designed to raise funds for American Luther-

an congregations. Obviously what Muhlenberg sent to Halle he heavily

edited to suit his own purpose. The reverend fathers in Europe knew of

Muhlenberg only what he intended they know. He also used his journals as a

repository of his financial records and of synodical documents "and pro-

ceedings. To this degree, then, they were semi-public documents" not mere-

ly a private diary. Hence, Muhlenberg was both cautious and circumspect,

one is tempted to say byzantine, about what he recorded. It could, after

all, someday be used against him. Despite all this the journals do indicate

that Muhlenberg was never neutral as he professed, but leaned decisively

toward the colonial cause. This would explain his anxiety over their fate.

Several times he began preparations to ship them to safety as the British

neared Providence, an action scarcely necessary if they were innocent of

rebel ruminations.

In the journals we find evidence that Muhlenberg thought the colonial

cause just. Britain's object was "to make serfs of the inhabitants of

America by force and to reap what they have neither plowed nor sown,"

while the Americans were trying "to defend the rights and privileges

granted and stipulated to them by God the Highest and by former

crowned heads."

Muhlenberg, however, despite his protestations, did not entirely remain

aloof from political matters. He did, for example, play a minor role in the

[36]

adoption of the revolutionary Pennsylvania constitution which, in British

eyes at least, might appear inappropriate for one either loyal to the king

or a strict neutral. On September 17, 1776, Muhlenberg travelled to Phil-

adelphia to confer with the Rev. William Smith, Anglican rector, about

the document, several portions of which troubled them. The new govern-

ment demanded no specific professsion of Christian faith from office holders,

granted full freedom of worship and conscience to any religious sect but

neglected to confirm ecclesiastical charters granted under previous govern-

ments. Smith and Muhlenberg decided to petition the government only

on the last point—that their existing charters be confirmed as eventually

they were. But the first two points were also adopted much to Muhlen-

berg's anger. In a venomous passage he recorded his displeasure:

Very well you smart chief-fabricators with your refined taste, you

have acted very cleverly in allowing nothing concerning a Savior of the

World ... to slip in. For that is too old-fashioned . . . your ingenious

edifice is founded on quicksand and will not suvive many stormy winds

and rains. Your heathen morality has putrid sources and your wild and

untainted flesh abhors the salt of Christian morality.

Muhlenberg does not appear to have had a high opinion of revolutionary

Pennsylvania leadership. At one time he refers to it in Apocalyptic terms as

"the beast with horns."

At other times he sees it riddled with atheists,

deists and naturalists. The main object of his disaffection was possibly

Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania's most influential politician, and a re-

nowned deist with whom Muhlenberg had previously tangled. Franklin

who disliked Germans whom he impolitely labeled as "Palatine Boors"

had attempted to both anglicize them and impose civil disabilities on them.

Partly in response to this Muhlenberg had helped organize German politi-

cal muscle which defeated Franklin and his Quaker party in the election of

1764. The role his erstwhile adversary played in the formation of the

Pennsylvania government might be another reason for Muhlenberg's non-

involvement on a public level.

In private he was deeply involved in the revolutionary struggle.

Throughout the war Muhlenberg received detailed accounts of battle

results, troop movements, losses of men and supplies, which he carefully

transcribed in his journals. He rejoiced when "our armies," as he wrote

in an unguarded moment, won and bemoaned colonial setbacks. For

example, upon learining of the failure of Burgoyne's campaigns against Forts

Edward and Stanwix, he noted that "God in His providence has not yet

been willing to hand over the poor inhabitants, especially the defenseless

women and helpless children, to the rage of the barbarians."

During

1777, when the British occupied Philadelphia, the American army encamped

a few miles away from his home. Muhlenberg constantly entertained

colonial officers, once receiving a personal briefing on the progress of the

war, in return for breakfast, from General "mad Anthony" Wayne, a man

not given to overfamiliarity with Tories. American armies stored supplies

in his cellars and Muhlenberg diligently observed days of fast and prayer

prescribed by Congress condemning the "members of sullen sects [who]

declared their consciences were oppressed if they were expected to observe

a day which was appointed only by men."

He denounced conscientious

objectors who refused to pay a tax to the revolutionary government in lieu

of military service

and applauded the arrest of wealthy Quakers on

charges of treason:

[37]

[they] have criticized and fought against the defensive measures of the

Americans, both publicly and privately, in writing and orally, have

refused to contribute their share even in money, have spoken for and

rendered every possible assistance to the enemy, etc., they cannot be

tolerated as members of a republic but must be excluded and be deprived

of protection . . . they did not suffer for Christ's sake but on account

of their transgressions as traitors. . . .

Muhlenberg continually denounces British atrocities on civilians and

prisoners of war alike. At one point he suggests that Americans could stop

British barbarism by giving "the measure which is measured out to them.

For the Americans have more prisoners and so far these have been held

and treated humanely."

One could also argue on the basis of guilt by association that Muhlen-

berg was a patriot. Certainly an astonishingly large number of his rela-

tives actively supported the struggle for independence. One son, Peter,

fought as a Brigadier-General; another, Frederick, served in both the

Pennsylvania Assembly and the Continental Congress. Francis Swaine,

his son-in-law and Peter Weiser, his brother-in-law, also saw military

action. Yet Muhlenberg remained on intimate terms with all these rebels.

It is true that he initially opposed the careers chosen by his two sons,

but only because it meant abandoning their ministerial careers and exposure

to great personal risks. "There are" Muhlenberg mused when he heard

of Peter's appointment to Brigadier-General "greater and better deeds

than murdering men." But, he continued, "for everything there is a

season ... a time to kill and a time to heal."

The time, he realized, had

come to fight. In November of 1778 Peter asked his father's advice on

whether he should stay in the army or be at the side of his pregnant wife.

Muhlenberg emphatically urged him to stick to his duty.

In times of war—a crafty and powerful enemy cannot be restrained by

midwives; this must rather be done with God's help by men who have

the vocation, skill and heart for it—the circumstances make it clear

that neither resignation nor furlough could occur without great risk

and harm.

For their part, the British and their Hessian mercenaries were con-

vinced that Muhlenberg was a rebel, a conviction which caused them assid-

uously to seek his capture. On several occasions, as British troops neared

his home, Muhlenberg prepared to flee. His son-in-law the Rev. John Chris-

topher Kunze, who had remained in Philadelphia to minister to the city's

Lutherans, was forbidden by the British to communicate with the rebel

Patriarch. As Kunze dryly noted "the [British] officers are rather unfavor-

ably informed concerning my father-in-law."

Shortly after this incident, Muhlenberg did produce a quasi-public

refutation of the charges against him. It is this document, reproduced in

his journal, which serves to butress the position that he was either a Tory

or a genuine neutral. An investigation of the letter and the circumstances

in which it was written refute this.

On December 4, 1776 Muhlenberg's son Frederick, then a Lutheran

clergyman, wrote to inform him that a Hessian officer in New York was

allegedly circulating a letter supposedly from the Rev. Gottlieb Anastasius

Freylinghausen director of the Halle Institute. Though Frederick's infor-

mation was all hearsay, as he had not himself seen the letter, it was

supposed to be directed to the Pennsylvania Ministerium and warned Halle

pastors to have nothing to do with the rebels.

[38]

Nearly a year later, on November 5, 1977, Muhlenberg's daughter,

Margareta Kunze, wrote from Philadelphia to inform him that the same

letter had surfaced there, again in the hands of Hessian officers. Muhlen-

berg was exceedingly puzzled because he had not, nor did he ever, receive

this letter. But presuming that it was genuine, which it was, and upset

because the British were making use of it to argue that Muhlenberg had

violated its orders, Muhlenberg decided to reply.

This he did in a long-

letter to David Grim, a prominent New York Lutheran layman who had

contacts with the Lutheran Court Preacher in London, Rev. Frederick

Wilhelm Pasche. The letter was sent open to Kunze who in turn would

relay it to Grim. It appears that Muhlenberg was, in this way, trying to

kill two birds with one stone. Well aware that the British read all mail

coming into Philadelphia, he hoped that its contents, once perused by a

military censor, would diminish their ardent desire to imprison him. If

Grim later forwarded it to Germany via London, he would also be let off

the hook at Halle which was probably picking up reports through the

Hessians of his political meddling.

They could, after all, cut off his

supply of men and money.

On the surface, the letter appears to exclude Tory views, but a surface

impression is misleading. Muhlenberg was a desperate man. As he saw

the situation: "Things look black for me for I am caught between two

fires and I am still unable to see the outcome which divine providence will

ordain for me." As Muhlenberg realized from the arrests of his close clerical

friends, Rev. Michael Schlatter and the Episcopalian minister Jacob Duche,

the British felt no qualms about imprisoning men of the cloth. Muhlen-

berg had also heard that "their treatment of preachers is barbarous and

merciless."

The letter then is best interpreted as an effort to avoid immi-

nent arrest by emphasizing, perhaps even exaggerating his previous loyalty

and surface neutrality.

The letter begins with a complaint that Hessian officers are condemning

him without justice or trial as a rebel. To counter this, Muhlenberg points

out his strong ties to the king George III and the House of Hanover. He

emphasized that he, as a Hanoverian, was doubly a subject, by birth and

naturalization, that he studied at the royal university, received his call

through the London Court Preacher, Ziegenhagen, and that "up to this

time I have neither broken nor transferred my oath of fealty."

This could

be a Machiavellian argument, technically true but beside the point. Ob-

viously Muhlenberg had two oaths of fealty to George III, the first as

Elector of Hanover, the second as king of Great Britain. He could renounce

Britain's king and still keep his other oath to the House of Hanover. It

should be noted that Muhlenberg does not call George III "his Britannic

Majesty," a form he uses elsewhere, but simply His Royal Majesty. It

would have been extraordinary had Muhlenberg escaped Pennsylvania's

mandatory oath to the State and Congress. Providence was a small village.

He could never have neglected to swear allegiance without being noticed,

nor would army officers have felt so free to visit him and impart military

information had he not done so. In all probability then, he did renounce

his oath to George as British sovereign.

Muhlenberg next tackles an embarassing blemish on his self-proclaimed

abhorrence of the public political spotlight. In 1766 he had indeed taken

a public stance in delivering and later printing a tract which he states was

"for the use of our German inhabitants" and in which he "emphasized

loyalty and due obligation toward our rightful king, the whole royal house,

and all governments."

What he neglects to mention is that his topic was

[39]

a thanksgiving for the repeal of the Stamp Act and that it received general

distribution.

Muhlenberg then relates in great detail the rumors spread by "a few

God forsaken, crafty persons, who well knew that I was a loyal subject of

the lawful government" to the effect that he was a Tory selling out his

country to the King.

Instead, he insists, throughout his tenure in Phil-

adelphia on the troubled year 1775 he studiously avoided involvement in

the rebel cause. For emphasis' sake he recounts an incident that happened

in July of 1775 when a member of the revolutionary congress attempted

to get Muhlenberg to declare himself on the rebel side by writing an

exhortation to colonial Germans warning them that their liberties were in

grave danger from the king. According to Muhlenberg, he curtly replied:

Sir, as far as I know, all of the intelligent members of our Lutheran

congregations are loyal subjects of his Royal Majesty, our sovereign,

and such a statement as is desired is not befitting to preachers; political

matters are usually published through the newspapers.

Supposedly when Congress arranged to have such a declaration circulated

through a German lawyer, Lewis Weiss, Muhlenberg joined with the Phil-

adelphia German Reformed pastor, the Rev. Caspar D. Weyberg, in pro-

testing "publicly with petitions and fair words that the document should

not, and could not pass under the names of preachers nor as having our

approval."

Curiously this incident is recorded only in this letter copied

into his journals under date of January 22, 1778, three years after it was

supposed to have occurred. Journal entries for the month of July 1775 do

not mention it. Instead, under date of July 20, 1775, Muhlenberg notes

that he celebrated at St. Michael's Church in Philadelphia a day of repen-

tance and prayer proclaimed by the Continental Congress.

Obviously

there is something peculiar about the whole incident.

When independence was proclaimed, Muhlenberg tells Grim: "robbed

of my former protection, old and worn out, unwilling to exchange my oath

of loyalty except by compulsion, another victim of the enraged people,

I betook my sick wife to the country . . . here I thought I should have a

solitary, quiet, private life."

That quiet life, of course, did not turn out

to be so solitary, for as already noted, he had plenty of rebel visitors in the

country. It is also equally as likely that Muhlenberg fled from the city

to escape the British, as it is to avoid renouncing the oath to the king.

That it occurred to him that this might well be the British view is attested

to by his admission that "perhaps a wrong construction was put on the

fact that I retired from Philadelphia to the country."

Certainly had

Muhlenberg wanted to function as a preacher loyal to the king he could

have treked the few miles back to Philadelphia while it was still in British

hands.

Peter Muhlenberg's military career would also, to understate the matter,

have raised suspicions about his father's loyalty. This Muhlenberg explains

away by the fact that "he was two hundred and fifty miles away from me

and entered [the army] contrary to my will and warning."

Yet a mere

ten months after he wrote this, as we have seen, he talks Peter out of

resigning from the army. To buttress his point that fathers and sons are

not responsible for each other and often hold different political views,

Muhlenberg brings up the fact that Benjamin Franklin's son, William,

Governor of New Jersey became a Tory. This is true. It is also true that

Franklin then disowned him, something Muhlenberg never did.

[40]

The letter closes with Muhlenberg denying he ever received Freyling-

hausen's letter but assuring Grim that all Halle pastors have nonetheless

always acted in full accord with its instructions—they have remained

neutral.

This then is the basis for the claim that Muhlenberg was either neutral

or a Tory: he stated as such to Grim. Actually he said no such thing. As

has been observed, what he wrote was ambiguous, was intended to prevent

his arrest and could be explained in such a way as to harmonize with the

view that he was a patriot. There is, however, no evidence that Grim

ever got the letter. Muhlenberg, it seems had second thoughts about the

project. In admirable cloak and dagger fashion, on February 4, 1778,

Muhlenberg enclosed a note to his daughter Margareta Kunze, in a letter

addressed to a woman in Philadelphia. The note, written in Latin to thwart

military censors who, it was hoped, had been deprived of a classical educa-

tion, told her to send the letter to Grim if her husband thought it expedient.

"If not, I beg and beseech you to hide the one you have, lest your poor

father, wishing to avoid Charybdis, fall into Scylla."

From the onset of the bloodshed, it appears that Muhlenberg recognized

that, given the British attitude, independence was irrevocable, reconcilia-

tion impossible. Thus he notes in his journal on October 4, 1776 that Lord

Howe had called on all Americans to return to their allegiance. His

comment:

it is easy to proclaim: come to allegiance, swear loyalty anew, and you

shall find grace and pardon. On the other side, however, it is also pro-

claimed: Beware of a power that breaks solemnly sworn compacts, that

makes you slaves or serfs by cunning and violence, that binds you

in all cases whatsoever, that feeds idlers and rakes with your property

gained by your sweat and blood, and desires to rob you of the rights

and liberties bestowed upon your children and children's children by

God and former crowned heads.

Muhlenberg continues to reason that peace could be achieved on British

terms only if all colonists renounced independence and surrendered volun-

tarily, a patent impossibility. Should only a portion of the population heed

Lord Howe's decrees, civil war would erupt in America between Patriots

and Tories, a situation even worse than revolutionary warfare.

On June 14, 1778 Muhlenberg recorded the peace terms proposed by

the ill-fated Carlisle Commission which granted the colonies anything

short of independence. This too, he felt, would fail:

Oh a thousand pities that only a half or a third of such proposals were

not made three, two, or even one year ago, or that no attention was

paid in the homeland to the petitions submitted by Congress! Thus

much bloodshed between mother, children and relatives, and the hor-

rible destruction, etc., could have been avoided. How can Congress re-

peal independence now that a treaty has been concluded with France?

Besides, Muhlenberg was convinced at a very early date, even during

the setbacks of the first years of war, that, with God's help, America would

win.

. . . Although the American cause has been precarious, adverse, and

gloomy, as if decline and collapse were unavoidable, a mightier, in-

visible Hand has intervened and unexpectedly helped.

[41]

Finally, on March 25, 1783, after seven long years of bloodshed,

Muhlenberg gratefully recorded the end of the war and penned his thoughts

on the new nation.

Now one can, of course, reasonably conclude from this success that it

was the will of the Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth that there should

be independence, and not otherwise. But whether this was God's active

or passive will, His gracious or His permissive will, only the future will

show, according as men use independence well or abuse it.

Theodore G. Tappert, "Henry Melchior Muhlenberg and the American Revolution," Church

History, XI, December, 1941, pp. 284-301. Tappert's conclusion is as follows: "When the war began

he had Tory leanings without being a Tory in the full sense of the word. As the war progressed he

seems by almost imperceptible stages to have become somewhat reconciled to the cause which two of his

sons embraced, but his doubts and fears and misgivings were never absent." p. 301.

Paul A. W. Wallace, The Muhlenbergs of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-

vania Press, 1950). Wallace also holds the idea of Muhlenberg's gradual conversion to the American

cause: "By 1777, they were all, the boys and their father together, united in their American loyalty.

But, whereas the boys had never been anywhere else, their father had had to think his way to that

position." p. 109.

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg in Three Volumes, III,

translated by Theodore G. Tappert and John W. Doberstein (Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press,

1958), 102. Hereafter referred to as Journals, III.

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, The Journal of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg in Three Volumes, II,

translated by Theodore G. Tappert and John W. Doberstein (Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press,

1945), 693. Hereafter referred to as Journals, II.

Ibid., 694.

Ibid., 699.

Ibid., 701.

Ibid., 700.

Ibid., 722.

Ibid., 735.

Ibid., 747-748.

Ibid., 751.

Journals, III, 70.

Ibid., 28.

Ibid., 61.

Ibid., 75-76. Muhlenberg's harsh position is partly explained by the extreme antipathy he felt

towards German sectarians and Quakers both of which held pacifism. Throughout the journals he refers

to them as pious sheep with over-tender consciences.

Ibid., 97.

Ibid., 17.

Ibid., 196.

Ibid., 101.

Freylinghausen's instructions appeared m the 15th edition of the Halle Reports published in

1776 and reproduced in Johann Ludewig Schulze, ed., Nachrichten von den Vereinigten Deutschen

Evangelisch-Lutherischen Gemeinen m Nord-America, absonderlich in Pennsylvania (Philadephia: G. C.

Eisenhardt, 1895), II, 708.

Freylighausen emphasized that he was convinced from what pastors Kunze and Helmuth wrote

that neither they nor the other Halle fathers had conducted themselves improperly in the crisis. It is

noteworthy that he fails to mention Muhlenberg's name, by far the senior of the Halle fathesr.

Journals, III, 77.

24+25

Ibid., 124.

The title of Muhlenberg's pamphlet was A Testimony of the Goodness and Zeal of God toward

His Covenant People in the Old and New Times and of the Ingratitude of the People toward Him

given at the Occasion of the Thanksgiving in Consequence of the Repeal of the Stamp Act, August 1,

1766 (Philadelphia: H. Miller, 1766).

Journals, III, 124.

28+29

Ibid., 125.

Journals, II, 703.

31, 32+33

Journals, III, 125.

Ibid., 129.

Journals, II, 746.

Journals, III, 163.

Ibid., 69.

Journals, III, 534.

[42]